Partnerships Home
Return to our homepage.
About Partnerships
Our 18 Partnerships were formally established by Bishop Séamus at Pentecost 2017. You can learn more about them, or visit our partnerships directory.
Resources
Guidelines and other resources developed for use by partnerships.
FAQs
Have a look at the questions being asked about partnerships and the answers offered. You might have some of your own too.
Sharing Area
Why reinvent the wheel? This area will include ideas and developments from partnerships. Send yours in too!
The Forward Together in Hope website is no longer being updated but is still accessible.
All of the resources developed over the last 3 years will be available here until further notice.
Partnerships Sharing Area
As members of one Diocesan family we have the opportunity not only to develop our own partnerships but to contribute ideas and approaches that might be helpful to those in other areas too. We sometimes take what we are doing for granted and assume that ‘everyone else is doing it’ so just keep it to ourselves. Or we might recognise that we are doing something quite special but don’t really know how best to spread the news to other areas.
This section of the website will contain information about the things we get to hear about from partnerships, but we can only get to hear about them if you tell us, so please provide us with anything you feel might be suitable.
Contact us by email or 0191 243 3304.
Some Food For Thought
During our Forward Together in Hope journey we gathered from Parish Questionnaires some of the many ideas and activities that were put forward as examples that might be of interest to others. These were collated and published in June 2016 as a 20-page booklet under the title ‘Some Food for Thought’. It is made available again here (pdf - word) as a reminder of the approach and a resources that can be dipped into.
Heavenfield Partnership
The Heavenfield Mass
The Heavenfield Partnership hosted a series of Stational Masses throughout Lent this year.
For the final Mass Paul Berry had written an arrangement of the Ordinary of Mass to Northumbrian tunes.
To read more about the Pilgrimage Masses.
June 2018
Blackfriars Partnership
A Letter from the Blackfriars Partnership
In a recent letter to the Blackfriars Partnership, Fr Shaun O’Neill sets out their vision for the partnership over the next five years.
“Blackfriars has been built on the solid foundations of fifteen communities and parishes. We are working closely together in harmony and trust with an inclusive and expanded outlook to deliver the love of Jesus to everyone. The laity, especially the young adults, are leading the day to day running of Blackfriars so that priests and the laity can fulfil their baptismal calling to be missionary disciples”...
May 2018
Blackfriars Partnership Ministers and Readers Annual Day of Reflection
Pat Kennedy of the Blackfriars Partnership outlines their Ministers and Readers Annual Day of Reflection.
May 2018
Nigel Lightfoot, a member of the Blackfriars Partnership Development Group writes:
‘The Partnership is made up of 14 parishes in the City of Newcastle, West Newcastle, Gosforth and Ponteland and a Mass centre at Cheeseburn Grange. It includes the University Chaplaincy.
The Partnership Development Group (PDG) has continued to make good progress under the leadership of Fr. Shaun O’Neill. The first step was to hold a workshop to set out the vision for the partnership and to prioritise the partnership initiatives. Six sub groups have been commissioned to take the partnership forward.'
Monkwearmouth Partnership
Monkwearmouth Partnership Newsletters
Spring 2018
The Spring 2018 edition features information about the Easter services for the Partnership, as well as advertisements for upcoming events highlighting communities, extraordinary projects and initiatives taking place and an update from the Partnership Development Group. Read the magazine...
Winter 2017/18
As a way of strengthening communication links within the church communities the Monkwearmouth Partnership began publishing a quarterly partnership magazine in December. It includes a brief history of each of the worshipping communities, partnership news and events, including news from the partnership youth and some of the local Catholic schools.
The Benedict Partnership
News is launched
The Benedict Partnership has launched its new newsletter in April. The first edition includes a few words from Fr. Jim O’Keefe on why there are partnerships, parishes and churches within the partnership, a definition of Partnership Development Group (PDG). There is also a list of members of the PDG and a few words from the Lay Chairperson Michael Davison and the members of the PDG in the partnership.
Every journey begins with the first step and the first edition ends with a prayer for the way ahead based on Thomas Merton, 'Thoughts in Solitude'.
The next edition will highlight the challenges for the future and how each church or parish fits into the Benedict Partnership.
St. Mary the Virgin Partnership
St. Mary the Virgin Partnership who have linked with local schools to design and produce a partnership logo and prayer.
The partnership mission statement and prayer, which involved every school, have been incorporated into a partnership leaflet that has been widely circulated.
Making a start, an approach to planning in the St Mary the Virgin Partnership
A ‘fly on the wall’ account of how we put together the first part of our partnership plan…….not perfect by any means - but it’s working for us!
Escomb Partnership
Communicating across the Escomb Partnership
The Escomb Partnership is producing a weekly communication ‘Escomb Partnership Note’ for all of the mass-goers across its 12 churches. It includes inspiring quotes, scripture passages and ‘questions to ponder’. Here are a some of examples for the third, forth, fifth and sixth Sundays of Easter.
Hogarth Partnership
Living Up To Expectations
It was a case of ‘Great Expectations’ fulfilled as the Hogarth Partnership Players took their performance of Jo Clifford’s adaptation of the Charles Dickens’ novel to each of the partnership parishes, with eight performances over a period of just 11 days. The play entertained more than three hundred people, with audiences giving the cast a standing ovation at several venues. Read the full article...
June 2018
Hogarth Partnership Explores the Cracks
More than forty women from across the Hogarth Partnership gathered at Carmel Divine Retreat Centre in Darlington on 24 March for a Day of Prayer and Reflection for Women.
The theme of the day was ‘There’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in’, and the sessions, led by Sr. Sheila McNamara, focused on various forms of prayer which lead them closer to God, and an opportunity to try them out in an experiential way. Partnership Chair Julie Humphrey thanks Sr. Sheila for ‘giving us the permission, space and experiences to become closer to Jesus as a community’.