<div id="pc1"><div id="p1" name="p1"><div>May 17th came and went, and a good number of lockdown restrictions eased. Congregations in risk-assessed and Covid-compliant churches were allowed to increased to an unlimited capacity for funerals, to 30 for weddings, and we had a Sunday service in church on 9th May, combined for personal attendees and those participating online. Whilst limited for church services, St Andrew’s nonetheless attracted visitors as the now-popular teas/coffees/cakes served from the porch diverts the local walkers, weather allowing, through the churchyard. The church has also been open for private reflection following the death of the Duke of Edinburgh and then for a churchwide prayer initiative ‘Thy Kingdom Come’ between 13-23 May (thykingdomcome.global). This saw a steady trickle of people in and out of the building during the daytime. We held our Annual Parish Church meeting on 27 May. However, the planned event for Pentecost in the churchyard was cancelled due to very soggy and blustery weather. This would have permitted congregational singing, which is allowed in the grounds of a church, socially distanced, but clearly much less attractive in the wind and rain.
</div><div>
</div><div>So we still see a variety of things we are not permitted to do, and are prevented from doing, as well as opportunities for doing things differently. And that will be the mantra for our church leadership in the months ahead. June 21st may bring further new changes, but the 2.2 million people who are members of around 40,000 amateur choirs across the country, including our own Benefice Choir, are still silenced after the government decided that singing still creates a Covid risk and updated its guidance to say that ‘non-professional singing can take place only in groups of up to six people indoors.’ We accepted the news resignedly, leaving it to others like the assistant director of music at Ely Cathedral, who posted, ’10,000 football fans singing in football stadiums, dozens singing in pubs, yet only six non-professionals are allowed to sing in our cavernous cathedrals, theatres and concert halls.’
</div><div>
</div><div>However, St Andrew’s will be warmly welcoming a number of wedding couples who have decided to go ahead with deferred marriage services. Even these will not be unaltered with the implementation of major changes to the way in which marriages in England & Wales are to be registered. On May 4th, a single electronic marriage register was created by reforms to the Civil Partnership, Marriages and Deaths Act 2019 ‘to make the system simpler and more efficient.’ Bringing the Victorian system right up to date, it also means that the registration can now include the names of mothers as well as fathers on the registers. Signing the marriage certificate/register at the end of the wedding will no longer be a requirement, and the legal marriage certificate will not be issued in church. Instead, the parties will sign a marriage schedule. This will contain all the necessary document required to later be registered onto the online marriage register maintained by the Registrar-General within a certain timescale. Whilst ‘The Registers’ will still form part of church weddings, all the Registers have been removed from church safes and lodged with the Registrar. </div><div>
</div></div></div><div id="pc2"><div id="p2" name="p2"><div>We are adapting to how to maintain worship and those who attended the Benefice Easter Day service will have seen/heard a taster, as the music was adapted for a solo singer, as the real and virtual congregation listened. Similarly, some wedding couples have chosen to have solo singing of hymns and music. We are grateful to Jude Wilton, from Upper Harlestone, who has helped out with her wonderful voice, and to East Haddon Church for lending us the digital piano to assist with the more modern selections requested by our wedding couples.
</div><div>
</div><div>Funerals provide a similar challenge and at the quite lovely funeral of late Brampton churchwarden, Ray Broom, our curate, Kathryn, provided the solo singing in a church with more people than would have been permitted than before May 17th. The service was led beautifully by our Reader, Virginia Henley, which had been Ray’s request. Virginia is an asset to our ministry team. Ray had been such a constant in our Benefice in recent years, and after his relatively sudden death, many of us, including the Funeral Director, commented how odd it will be not to see him meeting and greeting in church. A gentle man, through and through, he was given a fitting tribute as we commended him back to God and he was committed to burial in the churchyard, reunited with his beloved wife. We send his family and the Brampton community our heartfelt condolences as he rests in peace with a funeral service which was Covid compliant but which did not cheat or diminish.
</div><div>
</div></div></div>So it becomes more clear as we look forward to the next phase of the roadmap on 21st June, that there is, and will be, no such thing as ‘back to normal’ as we continue to adapt. Whilst this feels scary, I am drawn back to my thoughts and feelings on 17 April both before and after the funeral of Prince Philip. Beforehand, I felt as though the Queen and nation was to be robbed of the kind of liturgy, music and occasion required for such a momentous part of the country’s history. Afterwards, gulping away my emotion, I realised how wrong I had been, how adept the Church of England, its clergy and musicians had been in putting together a most excellent service. Whilst it was sad to see the Queen on her own, as many bereaved family members have been over the past year as they gather for family funerals, it was a reminder and challenge what can be done. That is now our challenge as the new normality dawns. Liz and I look forward to working with the Rector, her Curate and Reader, as we plan our own roadmap for the journey ahead in our Benefice and Parish life. As Easter Day, the Duke’s funeral, changes to Victorian wedding tradition, and Ray’s funeral showed us, our current scaled-down, stripped-back approach can be no less (and possibly more) meaningful as we move away from the proverbial goat tracks and create new undiscovered pathways across church life.<div>
</div><div>Sam Dobbs</div><div>Churchwarden </div>
</div><div>
</div><div>So we still see a variety of things we are not permitted to do, and are prevented from doing, as well as opportunities for doing things differently. And that will be the mantra for our church leadership in the months ahead. June 21st may bring further new changes, but the 2.2 million people who are members of around 40,000 amateur choirs across the country, including our own Benefice Choir, are still silenced after the government decided that singing still creates a Covid risk and updated its guidance to say that ‘non-professional singing can take place only in groups of up to six people indoors.’ We accepted the news resignedly, leaving it to others like the assistant director of music at Ely Cathedral, who posted, ’10,000 football fans singing in football stadiums, dozens singing in pubs, yet only six non-professionals are allowed to sing in our cavernous cathedrals, theatres and concert halls.’
</div><div>
</div><div>However, St Andrew’s will be warmly welcoming a number of wedding couples who have decided to go ahead with deferred marriage services. Even these will not be unaltered with the implementation of major changes to the way in which marriages in England & Wales are to be registered. On May 4th, a single electronic marriage register was created by reforms to the Civil Partnership, Marriages and Deaths Act 2019 ‘to make the system simpler and more efficient.’ Bringing the Victorian system right up to date, it also means that the registration can now include the names of mothers as well as fathers on the registers. Signing the marriage certificate/register at the end of the wedding will no longer be a requirement, and the legal marriage certificate will not be issued in church. Instead, the parties will sign a marriage schedule. This will contain all the necessary document required to later be registered onto the online marriage register maintained by the Registrar-General within a certain timescale. Whilst ‘The Registers’ will still form part of church weddings, all the Registers have been removed from church safes and lodged with the Registrar. </div><div>
</div></div></div><div id="pc2"><div id="p2" name="p2"><div>We are adapting to how to maintain worship and those who attended the Benefice Easter Day service will have seen/heard a taster, as the music was adapted for a solo singer, as the real and virtual congregation listened. Similarly, some wedding couples have chosen to have solo singing of hymns and music. We are grateful to Jude Wilton, from Upper Harlestone, who has helped out with her wonderful voice, and to East Haddon Church for lending us the digital piano to assist with the more modern selections requested by our wedding couples.
</div><div>
</div><div>Funerals provide a similar challenge and at the quite lovely funeral of late Brampton churchwarden, Ray Broom, our curate, Kathryn, provided the solo singing in a church with more people than would have been permitted than before May 17th. The service was led beautifully by our Reader, Virginia Henley, which had been Ray’s request. Virginia is an asset to our ministry team. Ray had been such a constant in our Benefice in recent years, and after his relatively sudden death, many of us, including the Funeral Director, commented how odd it will be not to see him meeting and greeting in church. A gentle man, through and through, he was given a fitting tribute as we commended him back to God and he was committed to burial in the churchyard, reunited with his beloved wife. We send his family and the Brampton community our heartfelt condolences as he rests in peace with a funeral service which was Covid compliant but which did not cheat or diminish.
</div><div>
</div></div></div>So it becomes more clear as we look forward to the next phase of the roadmap on 21st June, that there is, and will be, no such thing as ‘back to normal’ as we continue to adapt. Whilst this feels scary, I am drawn back to my thoughts and feelings on 17 April both before and after the funeral of Prince Philip. Beforehand, I felt as though the Queen and nation was to be robbed of the kind of liturgy, music and occasion required for such a momentous part of the country’s history. Afterwards, gulping away my emotion, I realised how wrong I had been, how adept the Church of England, its clergy and musicians had been in putting together a most excellent service. Whilst it was sad to see the Queen on her own, as many bereaved family members have been over the past year as they gather for family funerals, it was a reminder and challenge what can be done. That is now our challenge as the new normality dawns. Liz and I look forward to working with the Rector, her Curate and Reader, as we plan our own roadmap for the journey ahead in our Benefice and Parish life. As Easter Day, the Duke’s funeral, changes to Victorian wedding tradition, and Ray’s funeral showed us, our current scaled-down, stripped-back approach can be no less (and possibly more) meaningful as we move away from the proverbial goat tracks and create new undiscovered pathways across church life.<div>
</div><div>Sam Dobbs</div><div>Churchwarden </div>