The date has been announced for the Living Stones parish audit day for Long Eaton parish: 10am to 1pm on Saturday, 31st March, at St Francis of Assisi.
All Long Eaton parishioners are welcome to attend this parish audit day, which will be run by experienced and qualified consultants generously offering their services pro deo.
The Living Stones talks would be a good preparation, but everyone will have something to contribute even if they’ve not been to a single one of the talks. People will be better able to contribute if they’ve at least read and thought about the Living Stones information sheet that was given out in church on 3rd & 4th March; better still, if they’ve looked at the complete You Are Living Stones document.
At 1pm participants will finish by eating lunch together (so take some food!). If you have to get away promptly at 1pm, though, don’t let that put you off taking part in the consultation.
About Fr Martin Sylvester
Martin Sylvester is a Catholic priest serving Long Eaton parish as parish priest, and serving Nottingham West Deanery as dean and council of priests representative.
He studied for the priesthood at Oscott College, and enjoys real ale and travel. He is a keen advocate of fair trade, and has been called an eco geek.
Many years ago, when he served as a port chaplain and parish priest in Immingham, Fr Martin set up the first parish website in the UK and was once asked at a party, "Are you the computer priest?"
He is one of very few people to have travelled on a Swiss bus that was both late and omitted part of its published route (he was going from Geneva to CERN after one of the worst snowstorms for years).
He has two degrees from Leuven, and life memberships of English Heritage, the National Trust, CAMRA and the Scottish YHA.
He often walks, or takes the bus or train, in preference to driving, but when he drives it's his ageing Honda Insight Mark I, which has given him 83mpg over the nine years he's owned it.
nottinghamcatholic.org.uk 
More a question than a comment; What is a parish audit? It sounds exciting, especially the bit about professional facilitators. Will all parishes have one? We are in the Nottingham East Deanery. I look forward to reading more about your parish.
Hi Sue! It’s an opportunity for people to express what they cherish about their parish,and what they hope for. To go beyond the bare details of questions like “Do you have a priest? What time is Holy Mass?” to attempt to capture something of the social ecology of a parish. Most or all of the parishes in the Western Deanery will be having a parish audit day.
I understand that in the Eastern Deanery, while some individual parishes might choose this route, the option favoured by the majority is to make a parish audit by the use of questionnaires.
I don’t know what’s happening in other deaneries.
Whatever the method used, the idea is that parish audits inform the You Are Living Stones process so that wise decisions are taken that will help communities to flourish, even if changing resources lead to structural changes.