The proposals:
- LINK St Theresa, Aspley WITH St Hugh of Lincoln, Bilborough
- RETAIN Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, Bulwell and Divine Infant of Prague, Bestwood Park
- RETAIN St Paul, Lenton Boulevard and St Mary, Hyson Green
- RETAIN LINK BETWEEN Assumption, Beeston AND St Thomas More, Wollaton
- RETAIN Holy Cross, Hucknall
- RETAIN LINK BETWEEN Our Lady & St Thomas of Hereford, Ilkeston AND St John the Evangelist, Stapleford
- LINK St Francis of Assisi, Long Eaton WITH St Hugh, Borrowash
- LINK Our Lady of Good Counsel, Eastwood WITH St Joseph, Ripley
The bishop’s third question: In what ways can your deanery and its parishioners change in order to better fulfil the Church’s mission of preaching, worship and service?
nottinghamcatholic.org.uk 
First, give the Deanery higehr profile as a struture; few people have much idea as to its function and who is involved.
Second, make it an expectation that any activity in any one parish of the deanery is advertised to all others. If there is a talk in Beeston, we should automatically invite people from all the parishes within reach – but especially from the deanery; with the assumption that this is a Catholic Church event, not just a parish one.. Ideally there should be an efficient (web-based?) way of sharing this information. Knowing what opportunities and activities are taking place around the deanery can both provide greater support for those activities, and inspire replication elsewhere.
Thirdly, we could co-operate in sacramental preparation, identifying and using suitable Diocese-approved Catholic programmes and sharing time and resources so that effective preparation is not inhibited by lack of time in any one parish, or small numbers of participants in another. Obviously, if a parish already has a large number for First Communion, for example, providing space for more may not be feasible – but if every parish has two coiples getting married every six months, it makes more sense to have one focussed and well-supported course for all of them.
And if we do all that we’ll get used to working together, and will find more opportunities in the future.