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The Roman Catholic Parish for Weymouth and Portland, Dorset, UK
Our Lady - Star of the Sea
our Church is dedicated to St Joseph
Welcome to the Parish of Our Lady, Star of the Sea which serves Weymouth and Portland, situated in South Dorset, one of the most beautiful areas of England. We hope that this site will give you an appreciation of the work being carried out in Weymouth and Portland in the witness and celebration of our Catholic Faith. If you are planning to visit this area, please take the time to visit newly extended and refurbished Church of St Joseph. The times of Masses and other services may be found here
For advice on getting the most out of this site, see here. Are you using the IE10 browser and are the navigation buttons missing? Click here to fix.
On this page (click the links to browse the articles)
HOLY MASS HAS BEEN RESTORED
Holy Mass in public has now been restored by the Bishops of England & Wales. The Church will be open for private prayer, visits and Holy Mass. Mass will continue to be live-streamed via the Parish Website and the faithful can join in spiritual communion with the priests of the Church.
The obligation to attend Holy Mass continues to be suspended.
Church opening hours this week: 9 a.m. to 12 noon.
Needless to say, our Church premises and the way they are used must be a safe place, free as far as possible from Corona Virus as well as a place of sacredness. In accordance with diocesan guidelines, the following rules must be strictly adhered to:
- Entry to the Church is by way of the front/main entrance only.
- Track & Trace: In accordance with the Government's guidelines on opening churches for public services, names and contact details of those attending Mass need to be given at the door. This information will be held for 2 weeks. In the event that someone becomes infected, there will be a need for Track & Trace. After 3 weeks, this record will then be destroyed.
- Face masks are now to be worn when in the church unless exempt. This is for the good of all who gather in the Church for Mass as it is an enclosed public space where there are people from other households with whom they do not normally meet. Face masks are available from the Parish House if required.
- Exit from the Church must be made through the side door only and from there into the car park.
- All notices outlining cleanliness procedures, both personal and space, must be adhered to.
- Social distancing must be adhered to in all areas.
- If on approaching the Church there seems to be too many people, then please do not enter but return at another time.
- If you require toilet facilities during Mass, please contact one of the supervisors in the porch who will unlock the toilet for your use and then after use spray clean the whole toilet and re-lock it.
- All who are still shielding since the beginning of lockdown should continue to stay at home until the government advises it is safe to venture out.
- Please adhere to the guidance of the Supervisor.
PARISH HALL
The Parish Hall will remain closed until further notice including for tea/coffee after Mass.
OUR LADY, STAR OF THE SEA CORONAVIRUS SUPPORT GROUP
Are you self-isolating and need a helping hand?
A support group of volunteers has been set up to help any parishioners in need during the Corona Virus emergency.
The support group can help with
- Shopping
- Collecting and delivering medication
- Telephone support if you are feeling isolated or have any queries
Helen Harris is co-ordinating this and her email contact details are
Helen's telephone contact details are given in the Parish Newsletter which you can access via the button in the left hand column near the top, or you can download this poster by clicking this link
Publication of Diocesan Newspapers During the Coronavirus Crisis
The CathCom group has put many UK Catholic Diocesan newspapers onto the web and these can be accessed via the link www.churchpaper.co.uk This will help parishioners to stay in contact with their Church and their community.
"Catholic Southwest" can be found by scrolling down the papers to the left. Once you have found it, click the "Download" button to load the document onto your computer.
The website can access over 600 editions of Catholic Newspapers around the country.
VIDEO STREAMING OF HOLY MASS
The equipment has now been set up to stream Holy Mass and those who are still shielding, can find it via this link and take part in Spiritual Communion.
Other online celebrations of Mass can be found by scrolling down the page or clicking here
ON-LINE CELEBRATIONS OF MASS
Information about online celebrations of Masses is shown below. In this way the faithful can participate at home in the prayers of the priest at Mass.
The National shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham, will continue its full liturgical programme and will be available to all on the internet at by clicking here
The 12 noon Pilgrim Mass and all major pilgrimages are available to watch LIVE each day on the internet.The link is live stream.
Aid to the Church in Need has kindly set out links to other Churches that stream Masses. Here are four of them
| Click this link | Bournemouth Oratory | |
| Click this link | St Barnabas Cathedral, Nottingham | |
| Click this link | St Gregory the Great, Ruislip | |
| Click this link | St John's Cathedral, Portsmouth |
You can see a more comprehensive list by clicking this link
CHILDREN'S LITURGY
A warm welcome from the Liturgy Team from Our Lady Star of the Sea. While we are waiting to return to our regular Children's Liturgy of the Word at our Masses we want to encourage you to hold a short liturgy session in your own home with your children.
We have put together an information sheet which you can access and download by clicking this link: Children's Liturgy.
We hope that you will find it useful and interesting and that it will encourage you to try.
If you need any more support or advice or give us feedback, we are still here as a team. You can either contact a member of the team via the Parish Office. All contact details are given in the Parish Newsletter.
Why not try an online liturgy via Zoom or Facetime with another family? This could give added interest to the children of both families and could be fun.
THE CHURCH OF ST JOSEPH
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| St Joseph’s Entrance | ||||
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| Address and Map to St Joseph’s Church | ||||
| 1 Stavordale Road, Weymouth DT4 0AB |
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PARISH CONTACT DETAILS
| Parish Priest: | Rev Fr Stephen Geddes | Tel No: | 01305 786033 |
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| Deacon: | Rev Geoffrey Carey | Tel No: | 01305 786033 |
| Deacon: | Rev Dr Jonathan de Kretser | Tel No: | 01305 832945 |
| Parish Office: | 1 Stavordale Road Weymouth DT4 0AB | Tel No: | 01305 786033 |
| Email: |
IMPORTANT - THE NEED TO REGISTER ALL MEMBERS OF THE PARISH
Those who regularly worship at the Church of St Joseph, Stavordale Road Weymouth are members of our Parish of Our Lady, Star of the Sea. Members contribute to the life of the Parish by regular attendance at Mass, availing themselves of the Sacraments, their monetary contributions and the voluntary work they may undertake in the Ministries of the Parish, support work for the Parish or with the various Parish Groups.
The Parish Priest for his part is responsible for the spiritual care of the Parishioners, with oversight of the education of children at St Augustine's School. In order to carry out these responsibilities, the Parish Priest may wish to contact parishioners from time to time, advising parents for example on procedures for enrolling at St Augustine's School, First Communions and Confirmations.
For this purpose, the parish needs to hold personal details of each Parishioner (name address, tel number, email address etc) to be able to communicate with them from time to time on routine parish business.
However, in order to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR Feb 2018), the Parish Office must inform everyone why and how we will manage their information, and have their consent to do this for routine Parish business.
The above explains the need for this information. Fr Stephen would therefore be grateful therefore if members of this Parish could fill in a registration form. It can be downloaded using this link.
Once it has been downloaded, you can locate it in your computer's 'Downloads' folder as the Word document 'Registration_form.docx'.
It is recommended that it is filled in at the computer. Please then save it as a Word file with your name e.g. 'John_Smith.docx' as the file name. It can then be attached to an email and sent to the Parish Office.
Alternatively, you could print out the form, fill it in manually and post it to the Presbytery, 1 Stavordale Road, Weymouth DT4 0AB
Thank you in advance for your cooperation in this matter.
PRAYER FOR OUR NATION
Almighty God and Father, we come before You as Your children to implore Your divine assistance and intercession at this time, when our nation is moving further and further away from You and Your teachings. Its various governments are pursuing a secular agenda, enacting laws that are contrary to Your divine law and to Your law of nature, laws that would further marginalise Your Church and Your people.
Father, strengthen our faith and our willingness to be seen and counted as Your witnesses at this time. Help us to do all that we can to oppose existing and proposed legislation offensive to Your Holy Name
We ask this through Your beloved Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ
Prayer courtesy of Rev Fr Stephen Geddes, Parish Priest
OUR HISTORIC CHURCHES
By 1979, as a result of the unremitting zeal of Priests and Parishioners, there were no less than 7 Catholic Churches in Weymouth and Portland. However within these last 33 years, Churches have had to be closed one by one. Shortage of priests has been one reason but another is that with better transport and with parishioners being more mobile, there is not the same need to have a Church in every locality. Our many churches carry with them a rich history and this can be accessed via the 'History' button on the left hand side of this page.
The latest Church to close – 8th September 2012 – is St Augustine’s. This had originally opened for worship on 22nd October 1835 and was the first Catholic Church to be established in this area since the Reformation.
St Joseph’s Church, dedicated on 19th March 1934, is now the Parish Church of Our Lady, Star of the Sea. Over the past months, it has been refurbished and extended to accommodate worshippers from the original parishes. There is a completely new parish hall. To see the various features of the refurbished Church, please click on the small arrows to the right and left of the picture above.
Photographs of St Augustine’s Church and a short description can be found by clicking this link.
Similar pages will be prepared for the Church of Our Lady and St Andrew, Portland and the other Churches in the area as information emerges.
USEFUL LINKS
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| Our Parishes are part of the Plymouth Diocesan Trust – a Registered Charity No 213227 | ||||||||
| Site Design by SaltCedar | © Our Lady Star of the Sea, Weymouth Dorset | Log on | ||||||||
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Writing to a Peer in the House of Lords
There are currently 778 peers in the House of Lords. They do not have constituencies like MPs do, and you can write to any peer or several peers. Choose as you wish. (Some people choose a peer whose surname has the same initial letter as their own).
If you have MS Excel on your machine, the list of Peers and their political affiliations is given in this link. This also includes an application for randomising a choice of up to six Lords should you so wish to use it.
If you do not have access to MS Excel or are unfamiliar with its use, you can download this pdf list of all the members and make the choices yourself. Click here to do so
Advice on how to write to a peer is given in this link. Note that there are different types of peer and each has a different mode of address.
Problems with using Internet Explorer 10 (IE10)? — Switch to ‘Compatibility View’
The most recent version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser, Internet Explorer 10, comes bundled with Windows 8. IE10 is also being automatically updated on some Windows 7 machines.
It can happen that this automatic download onto the Windows 7 machine may be incomplete. In such cases, some Web sites may not yet work correctly in Internet Explorer 10, including the Secure Remote Access service.
But you can still use these Web sites in Internet Explorer 10 by turning on Compatibility View.The easiest way to do this is as follows:
Press the ‘Alt’ key on your keyboard. (It is usually found to the left of the space bar). This reveals the IE toolbar at the top of the screen, with File, Edit, View, Favorites, Tools, Help
Click Tools. This reveals a drop down list; from this find and click the option Compatibility View Settings. This opens a small window. There are three checkboxes at the bottom of this window.
Click the checkbox for the option Display all web-sites in compatibility view is checked. Ensure that it is properly checked (ticked)
Close the window. Press function key F5 to refresh the screen. This should solve the problem
Other solutions can be found on the ‘Microsoft answers’ page Set Desktop IE10 to Always Use Compatibility View
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