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The Diocese of
Monmouth

PART TWO: DEANERY MISSION PLANS

2.6 Monmouth Deanery
(Allocated 3 stipends)

The deanery had held a series of day seminars over the last four years which had resulted in a deanery mission statement: “To strengthen links between parishes in the Monmouth Deanery and develop mutual trust in order to extend outreach”. In a special deanery conference they had addressed three specific issues:

  • How do we support each other?

  • Do our boundaries make sense?

  • How do we share our clergy?

Any proposed strategy had already been affected by recent changes; namely, the grouping of the parishes of St. Mary's, Monmouth with the Overmonnow Group of Parishes, the grouping of the Rockfield Benefice with the Dingestow Benefice and, finally, the closure of the churches at Whitebrook, Catbrook and Penallt (St. Mary's).

Their discussions eventually led to a number of not exclusive options.

Option One flowed naturally out of the groupings that had already taken place.
This was three groupings:
NORTH to include the new Rockfield Dingestow group (one stipend)
SOUTH covering Penallt, Trellech, the Llanishen Group and the Llandogo Group (one stipend)
CENTRAL covering the Monmouth and Overmonnow Group (one stipend with the possibility of a stipendiary curate at times).

Option Two. In this instance the stipendiary clergy would be based in Monmouth using the rectorial benefice model. The clergy would work out of a central office whilst still living in parsonages throughout the deanery. This would give economies in administration and a pooling of resources and staffing.

Option Three is not a stand-alone option but could be considered as a series of specialisms offered within the deanery. This would depend on location, suitability of buildings and the particular gifts of people. There could be centres of worship for healing, youth, tourism, all-age, ecumenical etc.

Option Four looked at the possibilities of deanery mergers acknowledging that Monmouth, a deanery with less than four stipendiary clergy, adjoins Raglan and Usk Deanery with four clergy. A union of the two might produce a more viable and flexible unit.

The allocation of stipends would be:
NORTH—the new Rockfield Dingestow group (1 stipend)
SOUTH—Penallt and Trellech; the Llanishen Group; Llandogo Group (1 stipend)
CENTRAL—the Monmouth and Overmonnow Group (1 stipend)
It is hoped that a stipendiary curate would generally be located in this group.