Special meeting to discuss the possible re-opening of the church and the Diocesan requirements.
1. Welcome prayer
2. Apologies: Phil, Mike, Richard.
Present: Nick Neale (Chair), Anthony Rossiter (Secretary), Fr Kevin, Belinda Barber, Anne Shepherd, Clare Byrne, Chris Dingle, Stephen Parker.
3. Discussion Points
Mass times: Suggested that for now, only feasible to do one mass a week, on Sundays at 11am.
We have to have everything ready before the diocese will visit and discuss possible starting dates. Also there is a roughly 10 page checklist to go through and lots of fine detail. This needs completing very carefully before the visit. We are not trying to rush and likely to be Sept. before we are ready to apply.
We must have sufficient registered volunteers for cleaning and stewarding. They must supply full contact details and sign in and out during their duty. It was agreed that the rotas for both should be held in the same place and managed by the same person to simplify tasks. The rotas should all include a ‘reserve’ for each week.
Suggested using Vurch google drive spreadsheets for organising and disseminating rota.
Clare and Lindsay volunteered to look at the cleaning responsibilities, writing job spec, getting volunteers and so forth. A similar job specification is required for the stewards but likely to be far simpler, e.g. arrive 30min before service and ensure safe movement to allocated seating and safe exit of the congregation.
No one under 16 can be a steward or cleaner.
Over 70s and those with health issues need to attend with caution.
Richard will look at organising who or how many can attend and where they will sit. It was taken as implicit that he would also help with deciding who can attend on each week and where they would sit, given numbers will be limited.
We need to collect contact information for the whole parish so we can contact them with details of arrangements and how to book attendance. Ideally parish database needs to be in a more up to date format to facilitate this by email/text if possible, so Anne said she would follow this up and go into office; Belinda volunteered to help too. This will be needed for coordinating attendance.
Some discussion over whether toilets can be opened and how access is managed. Probably stewards would oversee and restrict use to a single toilet in the narthex so appropriate cleaning can be managed.
4. The meeting closed with a prayer.