St Margaret's Benefice

Caring for You During the Coronavirus Pandemic...

Covid-19 has changed our lives, and will continue to have a lasting impact on the shape of our world for a considerable time, and the church is no different to the countless other areas of our lives affected.

The natural instinct in times of crisis is to want to be together, to hug and comfort each other, to visit those we love and be near to one another.  Covid-19 forces us to have to go against every natural human instinct, and it's really hard.  We have the most fantastic technology at our fingertips, to access both information and connect to people all around the world - make the most of it.  If I can talk my Mum through installing Skype on her laptop over the phone and successfully have a video call, there's no limit to what we are capable of!  Do make sure you take your information from trusted sources - honestly, the BBC and NHS are both showing us why they are true National Treasures, and we are so lucky to have them. 

What we will do in St Margaret's Benefice during this time is provide you with the latest information, particularly pertaining to the church but not exclusively so, and give you a one-stop-shop for links to prayers and worship resources that you can use at home.   If there is anything specific that you think we are missing, please let us know.

Remember :
  • Guidelines are changing (again) - please check the government website as there are too many to detail here!
  • Single people can BUBBLE with another household!
  • You CAN go out for execise more than once a day!
  • WASH YOUR HANDS
  • DON'T TOUCH YOUR FACE

Trusted information sources...


BBC logopng  nhs-logopng  Gov logopng  CoE logopng
There are, of course, other places you can access such as local council and county council websites, but you can't really go wrong with the above.

Prayer & Service resources...

To help you all through this testing time, we will collate prayers and messages from The Diocese of Canterbury and the Church of England for you to use at home:

You can watch the weekly service broadcasts by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the Palm Sunday service broadcast by the Bishop of Manchester, on the Church of England Facebook page.  Easter Sunday will be led by the Archbishop of Canterbury.  Just click on the link below:

https://www.facebook.com/thechurchofengland

Church of England apps, can be downloaded from the usual Apple/Android sources.

Community Resources...

We are unable to compile a physical Parish News magazine for you at this time, so we are experimenting with a temporary solution by offering you April's edition as a (slightly reduced) download - just click on the button below.  Please bear in mind that there may be events mentioned in articles that will no longer be going ahead, and we have therefore also not included the Village Diary, since it is all rather academic right now.  Please continue to send in copy to stmparishmag@gmail.com or by dropping it into the box in the Village Shop if you are passing on your daily constitutional - we will endeavour to find creative solutions to these unexpected problems! 

Thank you for your patience.

Our marvellous Parish Council are continuing to work hard to keep the community safe and cared for during this coronavirus emergency, and this is their latest set of information below - click on an image to see a full screen version: