What's Calverley Deanery?
Imagine the city of Bradford as being like a cake, about six miles in radius. Divide it into three equal pieces, by cutting it at 12 o'clock, 4 o'clock and 8 o'clock. Eat the late afternoon and the evening bits. What you've got left (from 12 o'clock to 4 o'clock) is roughly the area covered by Calverley Deanery.
The Deanery has 16 parishes (including the Cathedral in the centre of the city). The parishes near the centre of the city are urban, then there's a belt of suburban parishes, a few which have large estates, a small town, and a rural bit on the edge.
The purpose of having a deanery is to do together things which local churches can't do so well on their own. A good example is youth work: the three parishes of Greengates, Idle and Thorpe Edge are working together in a Youth Project (see below) which covers an area which none of them could cover on their own.
How does Calverley Deanery Work?
The bishop appoints a Rural Dean from the clergy to lead the deanery.
The deanery is governed by a Deanery Synod, which meets three times a year. Each church elects representatives to serve on Deanery Synod: representatives were last elected at the 2008 Annual Parochial Church Meetings, and serve from June 2008 to May 2011. Formal minutes are kept of Synod meetings, but we also produce an informal report of each meeting so that Synod members have something to refer to when reporting back to their own Parochial Church Councils. The directory section of this web site lists the officers of the Deanery Synod.