Dear Friends

It was good to see many of you present in church and online for last Sunday’s Annual Parochial Church meeting. My congratulations to Susan and Chris, our Church Wardens. To Ben, Ann and Monica, elected to our PCC, also to Richard, Mother Eileen and Alex, elected to serve for two years. 

For those of you worshipping with us last Sunday either in person or online you will remember my quoting Pope Francis, who quoted Saint Francis of Assisi. “Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” It’s a good quote to keep in reserve when thinking about how we proceed to move forward and how we create an achievable and sustainable Action Plan for our recovery. This is the major task set for our PCC these next twelve months. We might also usefully remember that we need to be able to walk before we can run. 

So what’s necessary.
Making sure people know our church is open and welcoming – we need to get more people through the doors.
When it is practical to reopen the Children’s Church.
These last fourteen months have severely impacted on our income, we desperately need to raise our income.
What’s possible.
Begin concerts in church again.
Improve our social life together.
Connect with people and communities again.

This is too big a job to be either just my responsibility, or indeed the clergy’s and PCC’s responsibility, it is all our responsibility. I sincerely hope we can all work together to get St Nicholas back on its feet again.

God Bless

Simon