76 | pembroke college
THE DEAN’S REPORT Pembroke Chapel Anxiety, improvisation and risk management are not qualities that one associates with the rather stable patterns of worship in Pembroke College Chapel. Covid-19 has this year posed its particular challenges to the chapel, and I think we are emerging strengthened in a number of ways. Walking round the Chapel with the Director of Music before the beginning of Michaelmas term, trying to work out what 2 metre spacing actually meant was a sobering experience. We could fit a choir, or a congregation, but not both. We were very fortunate that work on Emmanuel URC, now purchased by Pembroke College, did not commence in Michaelmas Term. This gave us a far larger building, originally designed to hold 700 people, and safe under Covid regulations for a choir and 30 members of the congregation. So Services commenced at the beginning of Michaelmas with the Girls choir singing on Wednesday and the Chapel Choir singing on Sunday. We scanned the regulations, marked a place for every seat, kept the windows and doors open whatever the weather, wiped and sanitised seats, and wore masks when we were not actually speaking or singing. A number of positive things emerged from this time. Because we could not invite preachers in person, and because a proportion of the congregation joined online, I asked a number of distinguished artists and art historians to record talks about their work, with presentations which worked as well online as they did live. The resulting meditations were diverse, vivid and remarkable – you can get a flavour of them at: https://sms.cam.ac.uk/collection/3593266 Emmanuel URC was the church of P T Forsyth, the Scottish theologian and preacher about whom I wrote my PhD. There was a particular pleasure to officiating twice a week from his pulpit. It was quite demanding to be setting up and taking down a sound system for each service, connecting up the data projector, trying to ensure that the projection screen was straight, turning recordings and pictures into videos, streaming, uploading and downloading. However, the final result was a set of recorded services which reached far more people than we have ever done in person. Pastoral and tutorial discussions were often undertaken on Zoom, but where ever possible we met outside. The Chapel Cloister became, for days at a time, my key place of work – huddled in a clerical cloak. From there I could see the life of the college flowing past. As the lockdown tightened, we had to do more with less – simple evening meditations, with recorded music. One or two singers, often from the same household, providing music for the Sunday morning Communion. Compline with a half choir, sometimes all upper voices and sometimes all lower. Meanwhile we instituted a ‘Welfare Goody Box’. Each day I, or the College Counsellor, or the Director of Music, or the College Nurse put out a ‘Thought for the Day’ via Facebook and email. Each day we put out a small diversion for
