We have a small group of 'welcomers' who work on a rota basis to welcome, and say goodbye, to people coming to mass at both churches. This has proved to be an important part of the church's ministry and has been,on the whole, favourably commented upon.

We have started to meet, with others, to discuss ways in which the churches can be made more welcoming. Quite a few ideas have come up and our next meeting will discuss ways in which we can address these ideas. Some are purely practical ie easy access to the church. Others are more challenging, like ways to involve different age groups within the mass.

We start the meetings with prayer and bible reading. I feel very strongly that the discussions should be positive. It is too easy to slip into criticism and negativity. So far we have kept to this and I am very hopeful that we will be able to make a difference.

I'll keep you posted.

Kathryn Wilcox

Tom Moore re St. Peter and the English Martyrs - Lower Gornal

Having read a great deal of the information available on the web relating to celebrating family life and the need to make everyone feel welcome to and in our churches; I must commend the ‘brainstormers’ for their comprehensive lists of suggestions and ideas.

We felt that we had the ability, energy and interest to put a number of these in place;

but, and there always seems to be a but!, a few years back now we had a well utilised parish hall; due to development carried out by a large national building firm and in spite of an injunction against encroachment, they managed to sufficiently undermine the security of the building to require its demolition!

As a purely personal feeling, I do not consider that we received real or practical help

from the Diocese at this time; in fact the parish was faced with a bill for many thousands of pounds for the demolition; fortunately the firm chosen for the task proved to be extremely generous and waived the bill!

I would have expected that the professional staff employed by the Diocese would have provided assistance in (say) possible applications for lottery grants to re-build our centre since it was used by the local community as well as the catholic congregation. A valuable facility has been lost, so in spite of our good intentions but having nowhere to meet, we are very restricted in our ability to carry out quite a number of the suggestions encouraging family life and better relationships.

This does not stop us doing our best - but the majority of us feel that it is only second best in comparison to the facilities we were able to provide.

Hi,

Have read the Archbishop's letter, read the articles in the "Catholic Today" paper, am interested in learning more about how the parish can be more welcoming and to see if there could be some kind of "launch" locally ?

Trouble is - what do we do now ?

I'm sure our Priest would be supportive of embracing this 3 year programme but I am at a loss as to what happens next -

Any ideas anyone .....?

Martin