Cathedral Square Update – May 2009
- a monthly briefing and prayer guide for parish ‘champions’ and others, and for sharing
Helping us pray
One outcome from our Envisioning Day was a renewed emphasis on how we encourage prayer for the Project – as I mentioned in passing at the end of the last Update. I had a follow-up meeting about that in Holy Week with a couple of our parish champions and a local vicar, and we concluded that at least one answer is to make this monthly update into a bit more of a Prayer Bulletin too. So with that in mind, in the hope you find it helpful, I’ll aim to intersperse what I write with some ‘prayer pointers’, which you might use personally, or in a parish group, or perhaps even in a service.
I will also aim to include some prayer pointers from the life of the Cathedral and its congregation, as they obviously sit in pole position to lead the outreach that will happen fro this place.
Prayer Pointer – pray for the project staff, Pete, Stephanie, Danni and James, that we can hold to the overall vision and aims of the Project, in the midst of our day to day working
The Centre
A lot of energy right now is going on into interior design and what the professionals call ‘branding’ of the Centre. Given that it’s going to be a very significant part of the Leicester landscape it’s important we get this right, and so we have just engaged the services a local firm, Newenglish, to advise us on these things. Our planning application went in last month but the planning notices have only just gone up, which will certainly begin to attract attention. As I type this I’m waiting for the Leicester Mercury photographer to turn up for shots to go with the piece that you will may well have read by the time you get this – if you see what I mean! And our new, purpose-designed website on www.cathedralsquare.org.uk is due to go live by Friday 8th May. On the construction and planning front, we have also now given our plans a thorough independent environmental audit, and are now setting up an independent disability access audit.
Prayer Pointer – pray about the wider publicity we will now be getting, and for the message to be both right and understandable.
We’ve got some exciting conversations with prospective partners on the go – those with Children’s Society that we’ve previously mentioned and some new ones with Regent College. The focus is what they call NEET young people – Not in Employment, Education or Training – of which Leicester has more than its fair share!
Prayer Pointer – pray for the successful realisation of our plans for working with NEET young people, and for developing relationships with the Children’s Society nationally, and Regent College locally.
The Square
The Heritage Quarter is the name being given by City Council planners to what is basically ‘ancient Leicester’ – that is the area between the Cathedral, the Magazine, the Castle, and Jewry Wall, also including St Mary de Castro and St Nicholas churches. Work is being done on developing a Heritage Quarter Masterplan, and we are very much part of the consultation process, with the idea of Cathedral Square firmly at the heart of things being looked at.
Prayer Pointer – pray for City planners, councillors and others involved in decisions on funding, in a difficult financial environment.
The Cathedral
You may have read elsewhere the announcement of the appointment of David Moncrief as new Canon Chancellor of the Cathedral. David brings a lot of prior experience from working at another St Martin’s in-the-fields, in Trafalgar Square, and without jinxing his arrival, I’m looking forward to all he will bring to whjat we will be doing here.
Prayer Pointer – pray for all the Cathedral staff and congregation, and especially Canon Michael Wilson, retiring in July, and Canon David Moncrief, arriving in September.
Money
Stephanie and I recently attended an all day consultation ‘Weathering Storms – the resilience of the third sector in an economic downturn’ organised by One East Midlands. Amongst other things this event gave us contact with the Capacity Builders fund, and in the next 24 hours we turned around a very significant funding bid for the Centre. It will take some time to hear of the outcome but this is only one of 25 bids submitted to date, with more in the pipeline. If only one or two are succesful we’ll be very happy!
We are also now planning for a garden party at Bishop’s Lodge in the summer to share more information with people who might be willing to make significant individual gifts to the project, and in a recent encouraging development, two members of diocesan staff not directly involved in the project approached us, to ask if they can organise a fundraising event for the Centre. We’re looking at how we might combine this with an invitation to parish groups to come and see around the building as it stands, before work begins.
Prayer Pointer – pray for Stephanie’s work in fund-raising, and for us to be able to build the Centre we envisage, to be a place to carry out the work we long to do.
PS Whatever happened to April?
You may have noticed this is called a May update, and the last one you received was dated for March. What you may not have spotted was that was 1 May and 31 March. April has therefore been subsumed into this process. Enough said. No prayer points here.
Pete Hobson – Project Director
1 May 2009