Weekly News

Dear all

Following the announcement of the second lockdown and the halting of public worship in church buildings we have been working through such regulations as have been published to ensure that Acts of Remembrance can go ahead. The usual gatherings will be taking place at Beedon, Boxford, Chieveley and West Ilsley, but under restrictions. We will be following the Government issued regulations (which can be found here) which include the following:

Who can attend a Remembrance Sunday event?

...Members of the public are legally permitted to stop and watch the event as spectators, but event organisers should take reasonable steps to discourage the public from attending events, and be mindful of the risk that such events pose, especially to veterans who are often elderly.

Where members of the public do attend, they must only attend the event with their own household or those in their support bubble, or one other person (children under school age, as well as those dependent on round-the-clock care, such as those with severe disabilities, who are with their parents will not count towards the limit on 2 people meeting outside) and observe social distancing rules...

Test and Trace

...Event organisers must take reasonable steps to record the contact details of those attending (including those present in a working capacity, and members of the public who stop to spectate).

Event organisers must keep a temporary record of attendees for 21 days, in a way that is manageable, and assist NHS Test and Trace with requests for that data if needed. This could help contain clusters or outbreaks...

Please help us to keep to the regulations .

This Sunday our main service of Holy Communion will once again be recorded, coming from St Barnabas', Peasemore. The video will be available from 8.30am on Sunday, streaming from that time and then available at any time later for you to use in your devotions. Services of Prayer During the Day and Compline for Ordinary Time for each day of the week are also available. The videos for all these services can be found on the benefice website, YouTube, and Facebook. As always, subtitles will be available.
For those who are missing Evensong can I recommend the services being broadcast on Radio 3? Each Wednesday at 3.30pm and repeated on the following Sunday at 3.00pm (with occasional variations in timing) are some excellent sung services to listen and join with. They are also available on the BBC ’Sounds’ App/website following the Wednesday broadcast.

Opening the churches. Although we are again shut for public worship, we still have five churches in the benefice open for private prayer. The details are:
Beedon - Sundays (10am-12pm ), Wednesdays (2pm- 4pm)
Boxford - Sundays 10am-4pm
Chieveley - Wednesdays (11am-12pm)
Peasemore - Open every day as previously
West Ilsley - Sundays (9.30am-6pm-not 8/11)
We are not yet able to offer general opening for Oare, Stockcross or Winterbourne and we have had to close Farnborough church for the time being while some necessary building work is carried out. Please contact the Rector for details if you would like access to any of the churches in the benefice outside the above hours to discuss availability.

Also included in this along with the Weekly Sheet we have a sermon from Douglas for Trinity 22 on Remembrance Sunday and a sheet with notes on the Saints' days of the week. Also there is a copy of the Diocesan course book for the coming term. There are some excellent courses on offer so please do have a look.

Finally, the current issues of the Benefice Magazine and the Diocesan Magazine are available here.

Please do still encourage others to keep in touch with what is going on by signing up to these updates just cut and paste the link to them in an email:
https://mailchi.mp/d58d3b280189/east-downland-sign-up

Very importantly, if there are any people who you know would like a hard copy of this then please print it off for them or let me know, and I’ll take care of it.

For now, as always, all the best, God bless, and keep safe

John