Dear Friends
As I hope you will have seen from our recent St Nick’s email bulletins, we are beginning a new service – a Family Mass – at our church specifically for children and young people, although of course all are welcome to join in. This is a very exciting development! Whilst children are always welcome at all our services, the clergy are very keen to offer an act of worship that will be particularly appropriate for them. The Children’s Mass will take place every Sunday at 11am, beginning from this Sunday 20th September. It will offer a simpler form of the liturgy and appropriate reflections, games etc. We are very fortunate to be supported in these services by Mother Sarah Lenton who is very experienced in working with children and has published several books on the subject. She will be leading worship twice a month, with our own clergy leading on other Sundays.
However, in order to offer this service we need your support please. During the Covid-19 times our churchwardens Susan and Chris have developed a very detailed programme of welcoming and church cleaning, carried out by a small and very dedicated team of volunteers, in order to ensure that all our visitors are kept as safe as possible. Now that we are adding this extra service they will require a number of additional volunteers as the church will need to be cleaned between the 9.30 and 11am services and be prepared for visitors after the Family Mass. We also need volunteers to welcome people to our service and guide them to appropriate seating. Please can I ask you to consider whether you can support them in this endeavour. If your children are old enough to sit by themselves for a short time, or if both parents are able to accompany them, I would urge you to offer your services to help prepare for the Family Mass and to help clean afterwards. And if you don’t have children, your offers of help will be equally welcomed!
Please remember that all children aged over 11 will be required to wear masks: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/face-coverings-when-to-wear-one-and-how-to-make-your-own/face-coverings-when-to-wear-one-and-how-to-make-your-own) and we shall, of course, be required to maintain our current policy of social distancing.
Please can I also flag up the fact that we also need more volunteers to join our group of sidespeople for the 9.30 Mass. Chris and Susan have been organising a small group of regulars but the load needs to be shared more equally and many hands make light(er) work! If you are able to help at either of these services please contact the parish office as soon as possible. If people are generous in their offers this task will not be too onerous!
Some of you will no doubt already have heard about Chiswick In Pictures. It is an exhibition of the work of 28 professional artists who live locally, organised by The Chiswick Calendar. The art encompasses a range of styles, including watercolour, oil paintings, photography and mixed media, but it is all inspired by our local environment of west London. The exhibition, which runs until Saturday 7 November, is in the atrium of the Clayton hotel, which is large and spacious and open 24/7, so you can go and see the work and maintain social distancing. You can see all the art work on The Chiswick Calendar website (www.thechiswickcalendar.co.uk). One of the portraits is of Fr Simon and his dogs, a photo taken by Frank Noon which can be seen here. It is on sale for £120, mounted and framed. If anyone would like to purchase it please contact bridget@thechiswickcalendar.co.uk. First come, first served!
With every blessing
Mother Eileen