July 2020

As some of you may know, the Abbey is now emerging into the new world after further COVID-19 measures were lifted. July, for us, has been about ensuring the Abbey is a safe place to both visit, work and volunteer. As of July 4th the Abbey was open for more than just private prayer, providing public worship services and allowing other visitors. Since then, we have seen increased visitor figures and people enjoying their time with us. The Resilient Heritage Project not only looks at auditing the Abbey, but supporting our volunteers, which has been the focus of the month. Throughout July, we have recommenced many projects, from the return of our volunteers and reopening of the coffee shop, to our project with Chrysalis Arts on the Abbey sculpture, which hopefully should be available to you during the October half term holidays…

The Return of our Volunteers

Throughout the month we have supported our volunteers to see who is able and comfortable with returning to the Abbey. This involved filling in personal risk assessments and having return to the Abbey telephone interviews and emails. Our volunteering opportunities are vast and allow individuals to adapt their roles as well as pausing their roles if they are unable to return or do not feel comfortable doing do.

We have created a volunteer newsletter which is currently a digital only copy to reduce leaflet touch points in the Abbey. We are thinking of ways to get this to our volunteers who do not currently have access to the internet and email.

If you are interested in any of our volunteering roles you can fill in an interest form on our website – https://www.selbyabbey.org.uk/abbey-life/volunteering-with-us/

Reopening of our Coffee Shop

On July 25th we reopened our coffee shop for the first time since March. Trailing our new system and processes we made the decision to reopen the coffee shop from 1st August on reduced opening (Mondays and Saturdays only). Supporting the volunteers who run the coffee shop, I assisted with risk assessments, policies and procedures, return to work interviews, as well as getting my hands dirty with the deep clean and assisting at the reopening. It was great to see so many new and old faces in the shop!

Chrysalis Arts: Sculpture Project

Prior to lock down the Abbey was working on a project that would provide free art workshops to the local community over the Easter holidays. Working with Chrysalis Arts on a broader project we had an artist, Alun, assigned to us to help lead the project. As the current circumstances mean we are no longer able to provide the face to face workshops in a safe way, we have decided to take the project in a different direction. Like many organisations we are feeling our way through the digital world, and hope through the project we can create some video materials as well as some packs so the workshops can be done remotely at home. During July, Alun came to the Abbey to start filming and we’re all very excited to see the finished result! As this project takes shape and more details are released we will keep you updated!

Heritage Emergency Fund

This month we also had some incredible news… The Abbey has received just over £32,000 from the Heritage Lottery through their Heritage Emergency Fund scheme. With their help we will be able to sustain the Abbey and ensure we carry on our work in the future. Thank you to all the National Lottery players who have made this possible!

What to Expect in August

August is going to be all about getting the Resilient Heritage project back on track with auditing, as well as developing training for our existing and current volunteers. Stay tuned to hear about exciting plans regarding our guided tours….

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