Parish Project 2005
Parish Website

Vision

We hope this website will serve several purposes.

We hope it will improve our contact with the whole community of Corsham, attract new people to worship with us, and help local residents find out about the great activities which go on in St. Patrick’s Parish, Corsham. As the number of people using the Internet grows – and 60% of UK adults have used the Internet in the last three months - so does the potential fruit of having a parish website.

We also intend this project to have direct benefits for us, the parishioners of St Patrick’s. Perhaps on a practical level – if you lose your weekly newsletter, for example, all the information you need can easily be found on our web-page.

More important, though is the increased sense of community that we hope will result within our parish as many of us become involved in this web-site - as users and contributors.

Where are we now?

The Parish web-site was conceived in the spring of 2005. It launched, in pilot format, on 7 November 2005, and we hope it will grow over time as more and more parishioners contribute to it.

ANY parish can have a web-site in the 21st century. But a web-site developed and maintained by one person usually becomes a web-site that hardly ever changes. Useful for providing factual information perhaps, but not for transmitting a vibrant sense of community to those who read it. It only really works if a variety of people contribute – continually. A parish website is an on-going commitment, not a one-off project for which we could ever tick a box saying ‘website done’.

How can you help?

This is a Parish Project with a difference, because it is not a fundraising task. Instead, its success depends upon your willingness to participate – either by telling us what you think of the web-site, or by contributing more content for it.

There are four ways you can help to make this project a success:

1. Get into the habit of using the web-site regularly.
   • Make St Patrick’s Parish web-site the first screen you see when you open your Internet browser (Internet Explorer only).
   • Add St Patrick’s Parish web-site to your list of ‘Favourites’ (Internet Explorer only).
2. Let us know what you think.
   • Tell us about what you think of the web-site, and your suggestions for improvements.
3. Contribute content…

   If you would like to write an article, if you find any photographs of historical interest, or if you have any ideas for new sections of the web-site, we would be more than grateful to receive them! You don’t need any IT skill whatsoever.

   By all means e-mail us at website@stpatricks-corsham.org.uk, but if you prefer to handwrite your contribution on paper and give it to Fr. John at Mass, we will endeavour to make sure that it ends up on the web-site.

   There is also a clearly-labelled document wallet pinned to the wall of the Lady Chapel for any articles or photos you would like to contribute to the web-site.

4. …regularly!

   Every month we will be giving you ideas in the weekly newsletter about how you can contribute to the web-site and help this project succeed!

Contact

Garry Ryan