Parish Newsletter

Confirmation – Wednesday 10^th May 2023

Last few weeks of our Confirmation preparation now upon us: Penitential Service this coming Wednesday here in St Werburgh’s, then the Rehearsal and the Sacrament itself on Wednesday 3^rd May and Wednesday 10^th May respectively, both in St Francis and both at 7.00 pm. For the actual Sacrament, our choir and musicians will be joining forces with those from St Francis and St Clare’s, as will our Altar Servers. Enormous thanks to everyone for coming together in this way.

Church Cleaning on Wednesday Mornings

Many thanks to everyone who turned up on the Wednesday before Easter to give the church a Spring Clean for Easter. Now we want to establish a regular rota for an hour and a half on a Wednesday morning. We hope that if enough people sign up, each individual would only need to come along every four or five weeks. Many thanks to everyone who signed up before Christmas: another list is at the back of church if you’d like to be a Mrs Mopp!

The End of Communion Stewarding

We are required to have 3 Fire Marshals on duty at Sunday Mass, a role that our communion stewards previously fulfilled. The duty is simply about getting people out of the church safely, in the event of a fire alarms sounding. In addition, we would ask the Fire Marshals looking after the exits at the front of church to start the side aisles moving to communion at the appropriate point, to avoid congestion at the back of church. No stewarding is required! If you could volunteer for this role please tell FP or Marian (marian.mccarthy@btinternet.com)

Training sessions will be organised.

House-Share in Hoole Available

Thanks for all those who expressed an interest, and hopefully landlord and tenant can soon be paired up! (Once the landlord has finished celebrating his 26^th Birthday, that is. 26??? That’s ancient).

SVP Celebration Mass

You are all cordially invited to the Celebration Mass that will take place on Sunday 30^th April at 2.30 pm in the Catholic Primary School. Please get in touch with Fran fran.waldie@gmail.com if you need a lift to get there. All warmly welcome!

Organ Tuning and Repairs

All carried out successfully – and not too expensively! – ready for all the Masses, Weddings and Funerals where the organ graces our liturgies, and for all the many, many recitals and concerts we are delighted to host here in St Werburgh’s. Thanks to everyone who helped. Now we hope to have some good news very soon on our Grand Piano!

Shrewsbury Diocesan Caritas

The next Caritas box collection will take place next weekend (29^th/30^th April) at all Masses.

Please empty the content of your box into a strong plastic bag or envelope, clearly labelled with your name. No foreign coins please. Gift Aid and Standing Order forms will be available. New Box Holders welcome. Caritas would like to thank you all most sincerely for £1,121.88 raised in the last financial year. Well done, everyone!

MISSIO Red Box Holders

St Werburgh's gave a total of £3,747.67 for 2022 which is made up contributions from the red box donations, direct debit or on-line payments and gift aid. Thank you so much. If you’d like a red box, please contact our secretary, Bernie on 340768

The Catholic High School 50^th Anniversary Mass

You are warmly invited to join the CHS celebration Mass on Friday 9^th of June, 11.00 am at Chester Cathedral. If you are interested, please contact Mrs. Mallon by email at mallonk@christofidelis.org.uk. There are a limited number of spaces available.

Parish Renewal Steering Group

We have a couple of vacancies on our Steering Group for anyone who might be interested. The task is to take forward the Parish Renewal Programme we started last autumn, building on the excellent work of Synod Consultation this time last year. We have three aims: to look at our Parish Mission Statement as a whole; to ask each separate Parish Group or Organisation to review themselves and see where renewal might be necessary; and thirdly to create ways in which every parishioner and Werbie can become more involved in the life of the Parish if they would wish to. If you’d like to join our Steering Group, please have a word with FP or Lyn Williams for more information, and we’ll fix up a good time for our first meeting.

Financial Year End

That time of year again, as we all know, and we’re delighted to share with you the headline figures for last financial year. For the last fifteen years or so, we’ve aimed at annual income of about £120,00 and annual expenditure of about £100,000. Covid years were more than a challenge - again, as they were for every family and household – and this year has seen such a sharp spike in the Cost of Living, especially in fuel. Heating a church of this size is not easy, as you can imagine, and far from cheap. But the headline figures of 2022-23 are reassuringly in line with expectations:

Annual Income: £130,808.37

Annual Expenditure: £103, 637.19

Anyone Help One of our CathSoc Students?

“Mech Eng Masters Student seeks aged, died-in-the-wool Mech Eng practitioner for professional advice and candlelit dinners. OHAC. GSOH…” No, no! Just the Mech Eng advice, for heaven’s sake! But this Newsletter does get more and more like a Dating Site every week? The important thing is that two Wrinkly Mech Eng Werbies have come forward to offer Baby Mech Eng-er a few words of advice, for which grateful thanks all round! (Whatever next?)

Photo of the Week: The Other Paddington

As you all know, I first saw the light of day in Paddington, where the rough end of Maida Vale meets the worst part of Bayswater. And it hasn’t changed much in the fifty years since… Today’s picture shows St Francis of Assisi Church in the Paddington district of Sydney, Australia, dating from 1889, and snapped by Bury Convent and St Malachy’s on their recent visit to see the Son and Heir. Not to mention the Grandson!!