All Saints Margaret Street.

Dear friends,

Last week, I discussed some figures concerning our in-person and online attendance figures in the parish email. I’d like to share with you this week the conclusions of some thinking that Huw Pryce has done as he has examined the data coming in from our YouTube account concerning people who connect with us by watching our liturgical broadcasts after they are live-streamed.

The distinction I want to keep in mind here is between those who join our worship live, in real time, and those who access our liturgical recordings after the event. Some very interesting, and in certain ways very impressive, trends appear to be emerging.

The big picture looks something like this. If one takes the last 30 days of live-streams, we have had a total of 11,500 views. However, some of these people could be the same person watching several times. When one looks, therefore, at the number of “unique viewers” who watch our material, this goes down to 4,200 individuals tuning into some element of All Saints’ online material in the last 30 days.

My personal view is that our parish has achieved an extraordinary level of online impact over the past two years, going from being a church which in January 2020 didn’t even have a YouTube account, to being one which attracts considerable weekly viewing figures in the thousands after only two years.

When one examines in greater detail these large viewing figures, one also realises that many of these views might only be a few seconds long. So, our next step was to establish the number of people who watch a video all the way through from beginning to end.

Viewing figures for weekdays and Sundays
When one looks at figures for our weekly liturgies in these terms, it appears nearly as many people watch the daily Mass some time later the same day after it has been live-streamed as watch it live.

If one only includes viewers of our daily Mass who watch from beginning to end, we regularly have an additional 15-20 watching each day after the live-streaming.

That means each 12 noon Mass is followed by: 10-15 people attending in person in church; 15-20 people watching live online; and a further 15-20 watching it online after the event. We can be sure, therefore, that around 40-45 people interact with our daily Mass (from beginning to end) each day. This is a very impressive figure.

Similar trends can be seen on Sundays. The 11.00 am High Mass is watched live from beginning to end by about 50 people. It is then watched afterwards by a further 20-30 people in its entirety from beginning to end, before it is removed from our YouTube account about a month later.

Newcomers to our YouTube account
Very interesting figures also emerge in terms of new people exploring our YouTube account. It is noteworthy what attracts people for the first time.

The key liturgies which had the largest numbers of new people who had never visited our account before include: All Saints’ Day; Midnight Mass; Advent Carol Service; All Souls’ Day; Christmas carol service. With each of these videos, 40-60 viewers were new and came back to watch something else later from our YouTube channel. It is clear these significant liturgies of the church year are capable of attracting new people online, and act as an entry way to other material that we offer online.

A recent trend which we have found very successful is broadcasting videos of sermons. Each week, Huw creates a separate video of the Sunday homily, so you can watch the sermon on its own. These have proven to be very popular indeed. Of people new to our YouTube channel who first watch a sermon, 15-20% come back again to watch further material.  It looks, therefore, like these short sermon videos are also very powerful in attracting people’s interest and prompting them to explore other material.

Audience by age and geography
YouTube allows us to see the age ranges and geographic location of our viewers, and this makes interesting reading too. In terms of where our viewers are to be found, 60% of total hours watched are accessed within the UK, 15% of total hours are watched in the USA, 2.5% in Canada, 0.6% in Australia, and 20% from the rest of the world (a large portion, I would imagine, being Europe).

It is extraordinary to think that 40% of viewing comes from outside the UK. This represents a considerable international reach. It would seem to me highly likely that a large number of the people who watch our liturgies later after the live-streaming may be in time zones, particularly across North America, that make it difficult to watch live.

In terms of age, 65% of our total viewers are over the age of 65, 10% are 55-54, 5% are 45-54, 10% are 35-44, and 10% are 25-35. This means we are attracting online key categories of people in younger age ranges that our PCC has repeatedly expressed a wish to reach out to. Whilst a majority of our viewers are over the age of 65, a third of our viewers are in younger age categories – and in much greater proportion than attend in-person worship at All Saints. A fifth of our viewers are under the age of 44.

Conclusions
It strikes me our online interaction with the world is an extraordinary area of growth in our parish’s life, for which we need to give joyful thanks to almighty God. However, I fear it is sometimes not discussed or acknowledged enough in our strategic thinking and culture as a parish. A challenge God is clearly making to us over the coming months is how we can incorporate and value this part of our parish’s life in our thinking and planning.

We need to think more about how we communicate to those who worship with us online. It is important to let them know how much we appreciate and value their presence, and how much we want to communicate and interact with them better. They are a valued and precious new part of our parish’s life, and we give thanks to God for their presence, prayer and support.

Fr Peter

Confirmations 2022

The sacraments of baptism and confirmation will be celebrated at the Easter Vigil at 9.00 pm on Saturday 16th April by Archbishop Rowan Williams. If anyone would like to baptized and/or confirmed, please let Fr Peter know, so that we can begin preparation classes in February.

Accession Day and Platinum Jubilee

The 70th anniversary of the Accession of Her Majesty the Queen to the throne will take place on Sunday 6th February. We will commemorate this momentous milestone in the life of our nation with an act of thanksgiving at the end of the High Mass, drawing upon the traditional liturgy for Accession Day found in the Prayer Book. We will also have as our Offertory Motet on that day Byrd’s beautiful piece, “O Lord make thy servant Elizabeth our Queen to rejoice in thy strength.”

Plans are afoot to keep the Sunday of the Jubilee weekend (Sunday 5th June), which will also be Pentecost Sunday, with some form of parish party or lunch after the High Mass. We are in the process of seeing whether permission can be obtained from Westminster Council for a street party in Margaret Street. This is not guaranteed, and we will have to establish what is possible closer to the time.

What is certain is that we will have a joyous celebration on Jubilee Sunday to commemorate Her Majesty the Queen’s extraordinary service to our country and the commonwealth over her long reign, even if details are a little hazy at the moment.

Society of King Charles the Martyr

The Society of King Charles the Martyr’s annual commemoration of the death of Charles I will take place at All Saints on Saturday 29th January. The Banqueting House, where this has usually taken place in the past, is under restoration at the moment.

There will be a High Mass at 12 noon, and the preacher will be the Revd Toby Boutle, Vicar of the Parish of Swindon New Town.

Forthcoming Preachers 2022

Wednesday 2nd February 2022 – 6.00 pm
Candlemas
Preacher: The Revd Dr Canon Jeremy Haselock.

Sunday 27th February 2022 – 11.00 am
Sunday Next Before Lent
Preacher: The Revd Marjorie Brown, Vicar of St Mary’s, Primrose Hill.

Sunday 6th March 2022 – 11.00 am
First Sunday of Lent
Celebrant and Preacher: The Bishop of Fulham.

Sunday 27th March 2022 – 11.00 am
Fourth Sunday of Lent
Preacher: The Revd Tom Sander, Vicar of St Giles-in-the-Fields.

Sunday 3rd April 2022 – 11.00 am
Fifth Sunday of Lent
Preacher: Dr Sister Gemma Simmonds, CJ, Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology, Cambridge.

Sunday 10th April – Sunday 17th April 2022
Holy Week
Preacher: The Most Revd & Rt Hon Rowan Williams.

Thursday 16th June – 6.00 pm
Corpus Christi
Preacher: The Revd Max Bayliss, Chaplain, Queens’ College, Cambridge.

Sunday 14th August 2022 – 6.30 pm
The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Preacher: The Revd Graeme Rowlands, Vicar of St Silas’, Kentish Town.

Tuesday 1st November 2022 – 6.00 pm
All Saints’ Day
Celebrant and Preacher: The Bishop of Fulham.

Rosemary Harris RIP

The funeral rites of Rosemary Harris will take place at All Saints’ church on Wednesday 26th January at 12 noon, and will be streamed here. Her mortal remains will be welcomed into church and a High Mass of Requiem will be offered for the repose of her soul. A reception for those present will take place after the funeral Mass. The committal will take place the next day, Thursday 27th January, at Mortlake Crematorium at 10.00 am.

The family writes: “Please do come wearing something bright and cheerful if you can. After the service we look forward to enjoying light refreshments and a chance to share memories of her in church.

“For those who wish to give flowers they may be delivered to undertakers: W Sherry & Sons, 227 Acton Lane, London W4 5DD, tel: 020 8994 5474 to arrive before the 26th please. (A florist close to W Sherry & Sons is: Wheelers of Turnham Green, W4 1LR, tel: 020 8747 9505)

“Any who wish to make a donation instead of flowers are welcome to donate in her memory to USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) by this link or by post to: USPG, 5 Trinity Street, London, SE1 1DB or by phone: 020 7921 2200.”

Links for Sunday