We must thank you all for your patience in these unusual times. The Kirk Session met last month to discuss the re-opening of the Church. We had to be mindful of the Scottish Government and Church of Scotland Covid guidelines and to undertake a risk assessment which had to be approved by Angus Presbytery before we could open our doors. A Task Force was formed to oversee all the safety measures required and I would like to thank them for their hard work that has gone into making our return to Church a safe one.

We are restricted to 50 people in the Sanctuary which includes the Minister, Organist and Duty Teams which reduces our capacity to around 40 attending worship. No one could have predicted our positive response on opening and we reached our maximum number attending quite quickly. We apologise to all those who were unfortunately turned away or arrived to a closed door.

So to try and avoid further disappointment, we have decided to undertake a booking system going forward.

Bookings can be made by telephone to Myra at the Church office- 01241 434 721 on Monday’s 9am-11am and Tuesday’s 9am-1.00pm. We ask you to be patient and support Myra in this process. We have only one telephone line and Myra is only in the office on her own and she can only book a place where there is availability.

To try and make it a fairer system we ask that you attend church every second week in order to help balance out the numbers who wish to attend worship.

As Sunday 27th September was a special service , we are discounting it towards the process of booking. So the congregation that attended on the first week 20th Sept can next attend on Sunday 11th October and two weeks thereafter and so on. Likewise the people who attend on the 4th October would next attend on the 18th October etc. We ask that you only book your place in the Sanctuary on the week you are to be attending.

If you have any queries, then please do not hesitate to contact me. This will be monitored and reviewed accordingly to any changes announced by the Scottish Government over the coming weeks.

Audrey Shepherd

Assistant Session Clerk