It has been cold week inside our church building and our news partly reflects this wintry context. Due to our financial position, with the greatest regret we have had to lay-off our Director of Music, Christopher Roache. It is deeply disappointing and very sad that we cannot afford to maintain our full complement of musicians both during, and coming out of, this COVID shutdown. Please prayer for Chris, his family and for his continued teaching role at the Sophia Mundi Steiner School in Abbotsford, which he is currently fulfilling by distance teaching from Kyneton. This is deeply disappointing and sad news and follows on from the need to have suspended the work of our senior choral lay clerks during this time of isolation. Employment for musicians is severely reduced with the cessation of all public performances. This is likely to be one of the last sectors to be revived due to an overall reduction in national discretionary income. We will seek to acknowledge Chris’s contribution to our music program and his wonderful work with the choir in a video service in the near future. Schools are slowing coming back to teaching on site – both Firbank and Brighton Grammar have announced return dates for students. For clarity in future planning, I have advised the schools and our choristers that the choir will return in fourth term – our first choral service is likely to be 11 October 2020. By then we will hopefully be aware of what social distancing obligations remain and can assess how we format the choir positioning in the church. There remains too much uncertainty going into the immediate future and, in any case, the Archbishop’s directive prohibits community singing at this time. Although churches are able to have limited opening times for private prayer, the strict conditions imposed make it untenable at present. How we move forward on returning the the new 'normal' will be discussed this week at Parish Council.
In October, most of our choral lay clerks, funded by Brighton Grammar, will re-join us and we hope to have four new boys in the choir as well. In the meantime, Dr Calvin Bowman and Zac Hamilton-Russell continue to provide us with music for our video services and the Hardy family are graciously assisting with accompaniment at our weekly Chinese/English Bilingual Zoom live services. Our Farmers Market was held yesterday. This remain part of the essential services providing food and so has been permitted to continue monthly throughout the isolation period. It would be good to have contact from more parishioners at our Wednesday chat sessions. Just click on the link on the right-hand-side of the front page of our website for access at 10.30am on Wednesday. In this cold weather we are grateful for warm food and thanks continued to be offered for the generosity of Gold Moon Chinese restaurant for the food they provide and which is delivered by our parishioner Vivian Wang and her son to several parishioners who are dealing with isolation on their own, particularly those in the James Street alms-houses. Much thanks to Wilson too for offering to discount the price of delivered dumplings (of which I will be partaking during this coming week). Next week we will have two on-line services for you to watch. I will be leading the service recorded each week at St David’s Moorabbin for the Diocesan website. Bishop Paul Barker will be preaching. We will also have our own Sunday video service available as usual. Fr Ian
Ask for Wilson for the special St Andrew's pricing and for delivery.
牧师寄语
这周,我们教堂内很冷，如同我们的一部分信息，令人瑟瑟发抖。鉴于我们的财务状况，我们感到最遗憾的是，我们不得不解雇音乐总监Christopher Roache。在COVID所导致的封闭期间以及恢复期间，我们无力维持我们全部的音乐家，这令我深感失望和遗憾。请为Chris，他的家人以及他在Abbotsford的Sophia Mundi Steiner学校继续任教的事祷告，他正在通过Kyneton的远程教学来履行这一职责。这是令人深感失望和令人难过的消息，其结果是在这段隔离期间中止了我们高级合唱团文员的工作。随着唱诗班的停止，音乐家的就业机会大大减少。由于全国可自由支配收入的总体减少，这很可能是最后复苏的部门之一。
我们将在不久的将来，感谢Chris对我们的音乐崇拜的贡献以及他与合唱团一起在视频服侍中的出色工作。
学校正在逐步恢复教学工作– Firbank和Brighton Grammar都宣布了学生的返校日期。为了明确将来的计划，我已通知学校和合唱团将在第四学期重返–我们的首场有合唱团参与的崇拜可能在2020年10月11日举行。届时，我们有望了解仍然存在哪些社会隔离义务，并可以评估我们如何设定合唱团在教堂中的位置。在不久的将来，不确定性仍然很大，无论如何，大主教的指令是目前禁止合唱崇拜。尽管教堂开放了有限的私人祈祷时间，但严格的条件使目前的状况难以为继。
在10月，由Brighton Grammar资助的大多数合唱团成员将重新加入我们，我们也希望在合唱团中有四个新男孩加入。同时，Calvin Bowman博士和Zac Hamilton-Russell继续为我们的视频崇拜服务提供音乐，而Hardy一家在我们的中英双语Zoom崇拜服务中提供伴奏服侍。
我们的农民们的市场在昨天开放。这仍然是提供食物的基本服务的一部分，因此被允许在隔离期间每月继续进行。
在星期三的聊天中可以能够见到更多的教会的弟兄姐们是一件好事。您只需单击我们网站首页右侧的链接，即可在星期三上午10:30与我连线。
在这种寒冷的天气里，我们感谢温暖的食物，并继续感谢金月亮中餐厅的为一些会众提供，并由中文会众派送（主要是Vivian Wang和她的儿子）给需要照顾的会众，特别是特别是几个住在在James街的人。也非常感谢Wilson提供了折扣的外卖饺子价格（我将在下周参加）。
下周，我们将提供两个在线崇拜服务。我将领导教区网站所记录的崇拜服务，该服务记录在St David Moorabbin网站上。Paul Barker主教将宣讲。我们还将像往常一样提供我们自己的周日崇拜服务。
Fr Ian