New Waterways Chaplaincy Team – Kingsmill Resevoir 2025
The initial inspiration … We first became aware of the Waterways chaplaincy group in 2025 via a member of our worship community who was training to be a licenced lay minister and was looking to complete some voluntary work as part of their course.
They originally signed up to complete a pattern of chaplaincy along the towpaths in Chesterfield but then visited the Kingsmill reservoir and saw an opportunity to help the community surrounding the reservoir.
A pilot project was set up with one chaplain volunteer to see if providing chaplaincy support around the reservoir walking routes would be helpful.
If you’re wondering where we are … The reservoir is situated across the road from a hospital and hospice and the waterways chaplaincy pilot project quickly began providing support to a whole host of people from staff, right through to patients and families from both the hospital and hospice in Nottinghamshire, NG17 4PA.
Development of Kingsmill Chaplaincy
| In the summer of 2025, we experienced a large increase in families visiting the reservoir during the school summer holidays and it was identified that parents were really worried about the cost of school uniforms for the upcoming school year starting September. We put together a small project to complete uniform swaps and help parents source the key pieces of uniforms such as Blazers and ties that otherwise would have gone to waste as other families no longer needed them. By September 2025, it became apparent that one chaplain was not enough to keep up with the need of users of the site and so the chaplain appealed to their local community to ask for more volunteers. By the December of 2025, the Kingsmill Reservoir Waterways Chaplaincy team had increased to 5 with plans to keep introducing and training new volunteers as and where we could. Working in the community We are now putting together our new cohort of volunteers with new volunteers excited to be part of the good work that goes on. We have been able to do important work in the community such as: |
- Offering a listening ear to people facing stress, grief, illness, trauma, or personal difficulties;
- Supporting individuals during major life events and crises;
- Helping reduce feelings of isolation and loneliness;
- Providing spiritual care for people of faith and those exploring questions of meaning and purpose;
- Supporting vulnerable or marginalized individuals;
- …and more!
Meet the Team so far…
Adam, Julie, Katrina and Susan – our team together at the reservoir.
Katrina and Adam, mother and son – two of the chaplains at the Kingsmill hub, they regularly walk the route together. Adam, Julie, Katrina and Susan – our team together at the reservoir.
Future plans – fostering new links
We plan to continue to try to make other local links in the community such as chaplains who work and volunteer in the hospital and in the hospice and the local council to be there for the community in as many ways and as frequently as we can.
