If you decide to go for a coffee with Rev Gemma Turner, the vicar of All Saints Church in Hessle, East Yorkshire, it’s best to make sure you leave a bit of time for it. The walk between the church and a local café will take rather longer than you’d expect, because I can guarantee that you’ll have to stop a number of times for people who want to talk to Gemma.
You see, she and her congregation have made the church a real part of the community. It’s where groups meet, where people come when they’re in need, and Gemma is somebody who everybody in town knows. She fits right in.
I’ve always said that good clients make good agencies. Nowhere is that truer than at All Saints. We, at OneGilliland, were invited in to deal with a crisis. The magnificent, Grade I listed church, built between the 12th and 15th centuries, had come a bit of a cropper at its last Quinquennial inspection. The tower, mainly 15th century, was bulging in all the wrong places. In fact, it was bordering on dangerous, and in urgent need of remedial work. If it didn’t get it, the church might actually have to close. Something similar happened in the 19th century, when the church did close for a time. Everybody was very clear. History could not be allowed to repeat itself.
A National Lottery Heritage Fund application was the obvious way to go. That, of course, means meeting all four of the Heritage Fund’s investment principles. Saving heritage, we’re pretty obviously OK there. Protecting the environment, the works were always going to be an environmentally sustainable build. Organisational sustainability, again, not too hard to work out. Access, inclusion, participation: this is where organisations often come unstuck.
However, at All Saints, they’re already welcoming the community in, they’re already inclusive, and they have loads of people participating. So, it wasn’t at all hard to build on.
We’re planning not just tower repairs, but a year-long engagement of the local community with its own heritage. We’ll have school kids to pensioners involved, researching both the church and the historic town, making their own art, creating dance, original music, connecting with their heritage, and connecting with the church as it is today.
Our application was highly praised by the Heritage Fund. It was an ‘easy decision’, and the way we combined heritage and community really got the decision panel talk, we’re told. I’d like to take all the credit for a great application, but actually, Gemma and her team gave me great material to work with.
I went along to All Saints to worship on Easter Sunday. The place was pretty full, and with all ages, from babies right up. The service was traditional, but the language was accessible. Gemma was, well, Gemma, lively and engaging. People said hello to me, made me really welcome.
This, I thought, is what churches should be like, and this is a church in touch with its community.
