IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT JANUARY SERVICESAs you all know, we're in full lockdown, the NHS is under immense strain, new variant Covid-19 is spreading fast, and we're all being encouraged to stay home and avoid those outside our bubble except where absolutely necessary. With this in mind, and to ensure the safety of the congregation and everyone we come into contact with, the PCC has taken the difficult decision to go beyond the legal recommendations and *suspend all activities for at least the month of January*. Effective immediately, there will be no worship services, the church will not be open for private prayer, and the halls are closed to all activities. Of course we'd rather not be in this position - but we are, and it's our Christian duty to put the safety of others above our desire to meet together.We're looking into ways to continue contact by phone and by technological means. And we'll review the situation towards the end of the month and keep you informed.
We’ve realised we perhaps need to say a bit more about the changes to our Christmas programme of services this year. The Covid-safety requirement to ensure people remain two metres apart from anyone else not in their household or bubble has significantly reduced our seating capacity to a maximum of 50 people. Each of the two Crib Services attracts well in excess of 300 people and Midnight Mass last year attracted 70, most of whom were visitors. This means that, sadly, the Crib Services and Midnight Mass cannot safely take place in 2020 and so there will be NO services on Christmas Eve. They will, hopefully, be back in the calendar in 2021. Meanwhile, this year we’re concentrating on reaching out to the wider community by resourcing the celebration of a ‘Covid-Safe Christmas at Home’ through the Christmas Story Packs, the Christmas Stars of Hope for Christmas trees, and through plans for simple, fun Nativity Trails round some of the streets in the parish (we’ll let you know the locations when we’ve sorted that out!)There will be a shortened, simple, service of Holy Communion at 10.30 am on Christmas Day. The Covid-safety regulations continue to ban the communal singing of hymns and carols in church, so the service will be said this year, although Erika will provide piano music as usual. The seating capacity for this service is again a maximum of 50 people. This means it’s essential for EVERYONE who would like to come to book a seat in advance for the Christmas Day service – whether you are a regular Sunday worshipper, a Messy Church regular, a Christmas regular, or a member of the PCC – EVERYONE needs to reserve their seat ahead of the service! Alex says the seats are going quite quickly, so please don’t wait too long. Equally, if you have a seat reserved and your plans change so you can no longer come, please let us know so we can offer it to someone else. Please contact Alex via email at knoylehall@yahoo.co.uk or ring her on 07847 352 889 to book your seat, leaving your name and contact details so we can confirm whether or not we’ve been able to reserve a seat for you at the Christmas Day service. (It is one of the oddities of 2020: last year at this time who would have thought we would need to book a seat to come to a church service???)