Hereford Diocese encourages churches to open up to community

More than 200 people from all over the country will be arriving in Hereford later this month for a conference encouraging churches to make their buildings more widely available to the community.

Delegates from local authorities, the voluntary sector and other Church of England dioceses and churches have signed up for “Crossing the Threshold”, the first event in a year-long campaign by the Church of England to help open up churches to community use.

“We have so much to share here when it comes to wider use of often very old buildings and ironically we are returning to a medieval model adapted for the twenty first century," said Wendy Coombey, Community Partnership & Funding Officer for the Diocese of Hereford.

"The important thing is working together as a community, it is not just about church.

"Despite our rural situation or perhaps because of it we are leading the way in this part of the country when it comes to the wider use of church buildings.”

Delegates will see the launch of a toolkit and DVD aimed at showing small communities how a building sited in the centre of their community can be adapted for wider use. The DVD features people from four Herefordshire villages, Peterstow, Peterchurch, Yarpole and Bridge Sollars, talking about what they have done or are currently doing to their historic churches and how they did it. The tool kit will show how the changes were made.

“The development has been extraordinary in some cases,” said Coombey. “We are certain that the branch library on the first floor via lift access in a Grade I listed church is a first and it will still be functioning as the parish church; on the ground floor government and local authority services for children will be delivered to a large rural area, all part of a £300,000 project in Peterchurch.”

The conference has attracted national speakers from English Heritage, the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Church of England. Locally, the architect from Peterstow and Peterchurch will be running a workshop alongside representatives of Herefordshire Council on business planning and fundraising, and research and consultation. The vicar of Peterchurch is leading a workshop on developing effective partnership. Two of the other workshops on offer are coach trips to Yarpole, a community shop and post office built into part of the church, or Peterchurch.

“I believe this a really big deal for the county,” said Coombey. “People are already asking for the toolkit, which is still in production as we wanted it as up to date as possible. It will show others in a step by step way how to develop their church for wider community use.”

Crossing the Threshold is on 19 November 2009 at Point4, the brand new conference centre at the Royal National College in Hereford, and costs £40 for the day.