Following the very well attended community meeting last month regarding the future of Helme Church, please find details below of the next steps which Rev’d John has sent out to those who left their email addresses at the meeting:

Dear All

Thank you for coming to the meeting regarding the future of Helme Church last week. It was a very positive meeting and gave me real optimism regarding the future of the Church building. During the meeting many people expressed a wish to be involved in the next steps and I suggested that a meeting with a smaller group of people would be helpful. It has been quite challenging to work out who best to invite to that meeting as there is a need to represent a broad group whilst keeping the numbers involved at a manageable level. I will therefore send a separate email inviting a smaller number of people to attend the next meeting. If you do not receive this further email, please do not consider this to suggest that your involvement is in any way unwanted or unneeded. I am aware that there were a great many skilled and gifted people present and I am grateful for all the offers of help. Many of those who have been invited to the next meeting have been asked to come because of their involvement with other community groups and activities. Whilst this means that their experience will be of great value at this stage it is likely that some of them will not be able to commit time and energy to this in the longer term. We will aim to keep you updated as things progress, including opportunities to help in the future.

Thank you and God bless

Reverend John

Further to this, we are delighted and excited to announce that the recently formed Marine Training Corps – Meltham have expressed a strong desire to use the church twice per week and hopefully make it their home, subject to the necessary agreements being put in place and permission granted from the PCC and Diocese etc. As their current temporary accommodation in Holmfirth was soon to no longer be an option, the timing is such that we have agreed that they can use the church from this week onwards whilst the finer details are worked on. This is a great start to what we hope can be one of many uses for the church building alongside being able to remain an option for occasional services, weddings, funerals, baptisms, school use etc. We shall continue to discuss with other interested groups and parties as we move forward.

If you attended the meeting and left your email address, but have not received an email as detailed above, please email revjohndracup@gmail.com and let him know, as some of the email addresses that he sent to were rejected and returned.