Posts by Nick Jackson

Parish notices: 7 November 2021

Sung Eucharist for Remembrance Sunday

Next Sunday, 14 November at 9.30 am

Our annual service to mark Remembrance Sunday, concluding with a procession to the War Memorial and Act of Remembrance.

This service will begin at 9.30 am.

Real Advent Calendars

We’re once again selling the only Advent calendars to tell the Christmas story – Real Advent Calendars. Available from James from today for £4.50 each.

An update on our coronavirus measures

In light of the current increase in cases, we want to remind people that we continue to recommend the wearing of a face covering if you are able whilst in church and moving around our Community Centre. We also suggest that you continue to take precautions such as taking regular rapid lateral flow tests, keeping your distance, and being respectful of the wishes of others. You’ll still need to sanitise your hands as you enter the building, avoid handshakes during the Peace, and communion remains bread only for the time being.

If you have any symptoms of COVID-19, remember that you must self-isolate and get a PCR test. As always, we will continue to stream all our services live on our website and YouTube channel, as well as making them available to listen to later by phone or podcast.

We are still keeping a close eye on things such as infection rates, and may make other changes to our rules in the future.

Living in Love and Faith

A four-part course on Christian teaching and learning about identity, sexuality, relationships, and marriage.

Anyone is welcome to join in with these conversations: this whole course is about bringing together different voices, experiences, and worldviews, to learn and flourish together.

Continues Thursday 11 November at 7.30 pm.

Coming up at Whitkirk Community Centre

Strictly in Sequence

Starting Monday 8 November at 1.00 pm
Then every 1st and 3rd Monday of the month

A chance for experienced dancers and total beginners alike to step onto the floor as Keith and Roxanne host this sequence dancing session. With a mix of old favourites and new, you’ll soon be floating across the floor.

£5 per session, including tea and coffee.

Christmas Coffee Morning

Saturday 4 December at 10.00am

It might seem a bit early to be talking about Christmas, but we want to make sure you had time to pop this one in your diary! Although we sadly can’t run a full Christmas Fair this year, we didn’t want to leave you without a chance to share a cuppa (or a glass of mulled wine), a slice of cake, and the chance to sing some carols around the piano.

The Sword in the Scone

Wednesday 8 to Saturday 11 December at 7.15 pm

Whitkirk Arts Guild return to the stage with their annual family pantomime, giving the legend of King Arthur a twist. Book your tickets online, pick up a flyer in the Community Centre, or call 0113 212 0066.

Continue reading “Parish notices: 7 November 2021”

Parish notices: 31 October 2021

Real Advent Calendars

We’re once again selling the only Advent calendars to tell the Christmas story – Real Advent Calendars. Available from James from next Sunday for £4.50 each.

An update on our coronavirus measures

In light of the current increase in cases, we want to remind people that we continue to recommend the wearing of a face covering if you are able whilst in church and moving around our Community Centre. We also suggest that you continue to take precautions such as taking regular rapid lateral flow tests, keeping your distance, and being respectful of the wishes of others. You’ll still need to sanitise your hands as you enter the building, avoid handshakes during the Peace, and communion remains bread only for the time being.

If you have any symptoms of COVID-19, remember that you must self-isolate and get a PCR test. As always, we will continue to stream all our services live on our website and YouTube channel, as well as making them available to listen to later by phone or podcast.

We are still keeping a close eye on things such as infection rates, and may make other changes to our rules in the future.

Living in Love and Faith

A four-part course on Christian teaching and learning about identity, sexuality, relationships, and marriage.

Anyone is welcome to join in with these conversations: this whole course is about bringing together different voices, experiences, and worldviews, to learn and flourish together.

Continues Thursday 4 November at 7.30 pm.

Interment of Pauline Keenan’s ashes

A short service of interment will be held in the cemetery on Sunday 7 November at midday for those who were unable to attend Pauline’s funeral and who may wish to say farewell.

Service for All Souls

The Commemoration of the Faithful Departed
Tuesday 2nd November at 7.30 pm

A list of names to be remembered at this service is available in the church this morning.

Coming up at Whitkirk Community Centre

Strictly in Sequence

Starting Monday 8 November at 1.00 pm
Then every 1st and 3rd Monday of the month

A chance for experienced dancers and total beginners alike to step onto the floor as Keith and Roxanne host this sequence dancing session. With a mix of old favourites and new, you’ll soon be floating across the floor.

£5 per session, including tea and coffee.

Christmas Coffee Morning

Saturday 4 December at 10.00am

It might seem a bit early to be talking about Christmas, but we want to make sure you had time to pop this one in your diary! Although we sadly can’t run a full Christmas Fair this year, we didn’t want to leave you without a chance to share a cuppa (or a glass of mulled wine), a slice of cake, and the chance to sing some carols around the piano.

The Sword in the Scone

Wednesday 8 to Saturday 11 December at 7.15 pm

Whitkirk Arts Guild return to the stage with their annual family pantomime, giving the legend of King Arthur a twist. Book your tickets online, pick up a flyer in the Community Centre, or call 0113 212 0066.

Continue reading “Parish notices: 31 October 2021”

An update from your PCC: September 2021

The Parochial Church Council meets regularly throughout the year to discuss and make decisions on all kinds of issues relating to the Church at Whitkirk.

We think it’s essential that the parish know what their PCC is talking about, which is why we’ll be sharing these updates after each meeting. We won’t go into the nitty-gritty details of what we discussed but will give you an overview and a summary of decisions. This is a summary of the meeting held on 21 September.

  • The Church’s finance team presented an update on our financial position. The effects of the Coronavirus pandemic are still being felt, but the Church is able to increase its parish share contribution.
  • We talked about the pattern of services we offer and how best to expand these as we recover from the pandemic. As the situation is uncertain as we head into winter, we will stick with our current weekly pattern of eucharistic services and review this decision in six months. We will, however, be reintroducing morning and evening prayers and are currently putting the finishing touches on how this will work.
  • There was a lengthy discussion about the precautions we take to keep people safe. At the moment, communion will remain as bread only with the congregation invited to stand around the altar. We are aiming to reintroduce the Common Cup as we enter the season of Advent. We are also keeping the current handshake-free approach to the Peace, and we are not holding a collection during services. All changes to our precautions are based on current infection rates and guidance, so this plan may change.
  • A proposal to add bike racks to our car park was discussed. Although the PCC agreed in principle, they didn’t feel the plan in its current state was ready. A revised plan will be looked at in the next meeting.
  • Our current policy of not hiring the Community Centre on Sundays was revisited, and several points were made both for and against keeping this policy. Currently, this policy remains in place, but we’re doing some more research on demand and costs, and will revisit this at the next meeting with more information.
  • We’re updating some of our safeguarding training and materials, and the PCC will be told about any changes needed at their next meeting.
  • We discussed upcoming events, and our Social and Events Team’s provisional plans for activities in 2022.
  • A proposal was made to adopt a new environmental policy. The PCC requested some amendments, and a revised policy will be presented at the next meeting.
  • Finally, we agreed to request some updates to our license for servers and administrants.

If you have any comments, or if you’d like to raise an issue for the PCC or one of its committees to discuss, then please let us know!

Parish notices: 24 October 2021

An update on our coronavirus measures

In light of the current increase in cases, we want to remind people that we continue to recommend the wearing of a face covering if you are able whilst in church and moving around our Community Centre. We also suggest that you continue to take precautions such as taking regular rapid lateral flow tests, keeping your distance, and being respectful of the wishes of others. You’ll still need to sanitise your hands as you enter the building, avoid handshakes during the Peace, and communion remains bread only for the time being.

If you have any symptoms of COVID-19, remember that you must self-isolate and get a PCR test. As always, we will continue to stream all our services live on our website and YouTube channel, as well as making them available to listen to later by phone or podcast.

We are still keeping a close eye on things such as infection rates, and may make other changes to our rules in the future.

Living in Love and Faith

A four-part course on Christian teaching and learning about identity, sexuality, relationships, and marriage.

Anyone is welcome to join in with these conversations: this whole course is about bringing together different voices, experiences, and worldviews, to learn and flourish together.

Continues Thursday 4 November at 7.30 pm.

Interment of Pauline Keenan’s ashes

A short service of interment will be held in the cemetery on Sunday 7 November at midday for those who were unable to attend Pauline’s funeral and who may wish to say farewell.

Service for All Souls

The Commemoration of the Faithful Departed
Tuesday 2nd November at 7.30 pm

A list of names to be remembered at this service is available in the church this morning.

Coming up at Whitkirk Community Centre

Strictly in Sequence

Starting Monday 8 November at 1.00 pm
Then every 1st and 3rd Monday of the month

A chance for experienced dancers and total beginners alike to step onto the floor as Keith and Roxanne host this sequence dancing session. With a mix of old favourites and new, you’ll soon be floating across the floor.

£5 per session, including tea and coffe.

Christmas Coffee Morning

Saturday 4 December at 10.00am

It might seem a bit early to be talking about Christmas, but we want to make sure you had time to pop this one in your diary! Although we sadly can’t run a full Christmas Fair this year, we didn’t want to leave you without a chance to share a cuppa (or a glass of mulled wine), a slice of cake, and the chance to sing some carols around the piano.

The Sword in the Scone

Wednesday 8 to Saturday 11 December at 7.15 pm

Whitkirk Arts Guild return to the stage with their annual family pantomime, giving the legend of King Arthur a twist. Book your tickets online, pick up a flyer in the Community Centre, or call 0113 212 0066.

Continue reading “Parish notices: 24 October 2021”

Weeknotes: Saturday 23 October

It’s been another week of technology here at Whitkirk. Here’s what we’ve been up to

Better order of service redirections

One thing we’ve been stuck doing manually each week is updating our “redirect to latest order of service” URL so that it actually went to the right place. We use this link for the QR Code in the church which points people to the order of service, so it’s important that it’s right.

We’ve now automated this process, so it’s one fewer thing to have to remember.

Buzz off

Our improved set of connections for in-house sound system.

Over the past few weeks an annoying buzzing sound has crept into the speakers in the Community Centre. We spent a bit of time fixing this (and tidying up some cables), but also took the opportunity to improve power management and connectivity.

To help save energy, our sound system is now on a timed power supply. A push-button switches the whole thing on for a few hours – plenty of time for bookings to make use of the speakers and hearing loop – and then it’ll turn itself off to help conserve energy.

As part of this we also added a new phono input and an additional 3.5mm jack input, giving more flexibility for our users.

Prepare for ludicrous speed!

via GIPHY

The lovely people at Openreach have finally switched on the ability for us to get fibre-optic cables run right into our Community Centre. This isn’t just about improving our internet speed (although we’ll certainly enjoy a speed boost), but also about making sure that we’re on more resilient digital infrastructure in the future.

We’re confident that we’ll be moving to this fibre-optic connection some time in the near future, but we’re still not sure exactly which provider and package we’ll be using. This last week we spent some time looking at options and putting together recommendations.

Parish notices: 17 October 2021

Living in Love and Faith

A four-part course on Christian teaching and learning about identity, sexuality, relationships, and marriage.

Anyone is welcome to join in with these conversations: this whole course is about bringing together different voices, experiences, and worldviews, to learn and flourish together.

Continues Thursday 21 October at 7.30 pm.

Join our cleaning teams and keep Whitkirk sparkling

Keeping our Grade I listed building sparkling clean doesn’t happen by itself – it’s done by a few teams of dedicated volunteers, and they need your help! With fewer people helping in this important role at the moment we’re unable to spread the work out as evenly as we would like, so we’re asking if you might be able to spare a morning once every few weeks to join our cleaning teams.

The work isn’t difficult, and we provide all the equipment. If you’re interested in volunteering to join our cleaning team, please speak to Melvin or email [email protected].

An update on our coronavirus measures

We recommend that you continue to take precautions such as taking regular rapid lateral flow tests, wearing masks if you are able, keeping your distance and being respectful of the wishes of others. You’ll still need to sanitise your hands as you enter the building, avoid handshakes during the Peace, and communion remains bread only for the time being.

If you have any symptoms of COVID-19, remember that you must self-isolate and get a PCR test. As always, we will continue to stream all our services live on our website and YouTube channel, as well as making them available to listen to later by phone or podcast.

We are still keeping a close eye on things such as infection rates, and may make other changes to our rules in the future.

Join us after the service for refreshments

You are warmly invited to join us after the service for refreshments in our Community Centre.

Continue reading “Parish notices: 17 October 2021”

Parish notices: 10 October 2021

Living in Love and Faith

A four-part course on Christian teaching and learning about identity, sexuality, relationships, and marriage.

Anyone is welcome to join in with these conversations: this whole course is about bringing together different voices, experiences, and worldviews, to learn and flourish together.

Continues Thursday 21 October at 7.30 pm.

An update on our coronavirus measures

We recommend that you continue to take precautions such as taking regular rapid lateral flow tests, wearing masks if you are able, keeping your distance and being respectful of the wishes of others. You’ll still need to sanitise your hands as you enter the building, avoid handshakes during the Peace, and communion remains bread only for the time being.

If you have any symptoms of COVID-19, remember that you must self-isolate and get a PCR test. As always, we will continue to stream all our services live on our website and YouTube channel, as well as making them available to listen to later by phone or podcast.

We are still keeping a close eye on things such as infection rates, and may make other changes to our rules in the future.

Join us after the service for refreshments

You are warmly invited to join us after the service for refreshments in our Community Centre.

Continue reading “Parish notices: 10 October 2021”

Weeknotes: Saturday 9 October

It’s been quiet on the tech front, but things are going to start getting busy again as we approach Advent and have to start thinking about things like carol concerts!

Fun on (and off) the stage

We do a lot of stuff in the church building, but we also take care of technology over in our Community Centre. Over the past week we’ve been thinking about work we need to do on stage to tidy things up and make it more usable for more people.

This is a big job which we’ll be breaking down and tackling in multiple stages, but we’re starting by rearranging some wiring to tidy things up. This is particularly a problem in the stage right corner where a tangle of cables is not only making it look a mess but is also making it unintuitive to use, hard to troubleshoot and is causing interference.

At the moment we’re still narrowing down exactly what we want to do on paper, thinking about our various Community Centre users to make sure we’re covering as many use cases as possible, and thinking about the future to make sure we don’t need to re-do this kind of work for a good few years.