Privacy Policy

At St Mary's Church Watton we collect different types of information about our users for the following main reasons:

To provide a useful resource in the form of an online directory of users.
To provide an interactive website where email is used to communicate with the users.
To provide a security mechanism whereby we can restrict content to certain groups of users.
To enable the purchase and delivery of goods through our online shop.
To help us to improve the service we offer.

Our principles

We are absolutely committed to protecting your privacy. Our policy can be summarised in one sentence: we will not share your information with others without your consent.

We have established the following two principles:

We will respect your email privacy. You will only receive email from St Mary's Church Watton in relation to areas you have expressly signed up for.
We will not share any individual user details (including your email address) to any third party without your consent.

What information do we collect?

We collect information on our users through registration.

The minimum information we need to register a user is your first and last name and a password. We also ask for some further, voluntary information so we can provide a richer, more useful address book.

We collect information on our customers when you make a purchase through our shop.

We will collect your name, postal and email addresses, payment information and information about your order. Payment information is then transmitted and processed securely and is NOT held on our servers.

Who will have access to your information?

You have control over who is able to access specific items of information. By default your personal information will be visible to other authenticated users of the site. You can change these settings from your personal profile page. Your information will be used to build the online address book and show your birthday in the St Mary's Church Watton calendar.

What else you should know about privacy

Remember to close your browser when you have finished your user session. This is to ensure that others cannot access your personal information and correspondence if you share a device with someone else or are using a device in a public place like a library or internet cafe. You as an individual are responsible for the security of, and access to, your own device.

Please be aware that whenever you voluntarily disclose personal information over the internet that this information can be collected and used by others. In short, if you post personal information in publicly accessible online forums, you may receive unsolicited messages from other parties in return. Ultimately, you are solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of your usernames and passwords and any account information. Please be careful and responsible whenever you are using the internet.

Our pages may contain links to other websites, and you should be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices on other websites.

We use Stripe for payment, analytics, and other business services. Stripe collects identifying information about the devices that connect to its services. Stripe uses this information to operate and improve the services it provides to us, including for fraud detection. You can learn more about Stripe and read its privacy policy at https://stripe.com/privacy.

Any Questions?

Planning your Visit

A warm welcome from the St Mary's family...

The following information is specifically for those planning a visit, so that you know, beforehand, what to expect on a Sunday morning.

Where?

We meet inside the main Church Building (details here) for our standard Sunday Services.

Accessibility: There is wheelchair access available via the side entrance, and a sound loop for anyone who needs it. There are disabled toilets just across in the extended section fo the building.

When?

The main service begins each Sunday at 10am.

For your first visit, we recommend arriving 10-15 minutes early to locate the car park opposite the church, and to find somewhere to sit before the service begins. When you arrive, you should be greeted by someone on our Stewarding Team who will let you know the essentials for the service format.

What?

The service begins with a word of warm welcome. The service leader will then introduce the service, and some notices are given. Then follows a time of sung worship, led by either our band or organist. We will have included a couple of passages from the bible, a message related to the readings, and some prayers, intersperced with more sung worship.

Each week is followed by a chance to have refreshments after the service, if you have time available. This is a great place to meet a few others, and to get to know more about who we are and what we do.

Style of service:

Each Sunday of the month has a slightly different format. Some people prefer certain Sundays, but many enjoy worshipping across the full variety. It operates as follows:

1st Sunday: Holy Communion
2nd Sunday: Band-led informal worship with message
3rd Sunday: Holy Communion
4th Sunday: Band-led worship with message
5th Sunday (when applicable): Cafe church worship

Other services:

There is also a 8:00am traditional BCP service every 2nd and 4th Sunday of the month, and an Evensong service every other month.

Our midweek service runs each Wednesday at 9.30am.

To simplify, you can click here to see our calendar and see exactly what is happening this week and beyond.

What about my kids?

We really value worshipping God all together as a family, but understand that younger ones have particular needs that would usually engage better in a separate group. We are privileged to have a Family Matters Keyworker who leads our 'explorers' children's group.

Children stay with their parent or grown-up at the start of the service for the welcome, notices, and first song before then heading out to their group. They are welcomed back in towards the end of the service; usually to sing a final song, and feed back to everyone what has been learned.

The kids group activities vary depending on the age but there is always a friendly welcome, with a variety of items including: bible story, praying, music, craft, discussion, and free play.

Children

Getting Connected

Connect Groups

While Sundays are a great way to meet new people, it is often in smaller gatherings that you can really get to know someone and engage with the real-life questions of faith. Being part of one of our Connect groups allows you to make new friends, share together and support each other. We have a few different groups that meet throughout the week. Check out the page 'Connect Groups' where we can put you in touch with a small group leader who will be more than happy to take your details to see about exploring a group to join.

Serving and Volunteering

Our church life is only made possible through the generosity of others serving in love! If you want to get involved in the life of the church, you can sign up to serve on a team.

This can involve helping with serving refreshments, giving a bible reading, helping on the tech desk, serving as a steward, and plenty more besides. Please do get in touch via the form below to inquire further.

Other Ministries

We also run the following groups and ministries:

Storybags toddler group
Messy church
Monthly prayer gathering
Friday night movie's
Tuesday games club
Friday craft group
Sat chat
Alpha

Again, specific details can be found my clicking across here.

We hope that whoever you are, you will feel at home at our church.

Warm regards

Rev Dave

Vicar to St Mary's

Rev Dave Cossey