Holy Trinity with St Columba Parish emblem

This page is designed to explain about RSS and how you can participate.


Right mouse click to copy this RSS feed to your reader

What is RSS?

RSS stands for 'Really Simple Syndication'. RSS feeds are just a special kind of web page, designed to be read by computers rather than people. The best bit is that other than having to be on line to be able to receive the feeds, they are absolutely free of charge! RSS is part of the next generation of web development, sometimes referred to as Web 2. At the time of writing this page, there are very few UK based religious web sites that are making use of this technology.

How can I use RSS?

The first thing you need is something called a news reader. This is a piece of software that checks RSS feeds and lets you read any new articles that have been added to them. There are many different versions, some of which are accessed using a browser, and some of which are downloadable applications. Browser-based news readers let you catch up with your RSS feed subscriptions from any computer, whereas downloadable applications let you store them on your main computer, in the same way that you download your e-mail for example. I have provided links to some of the ones that are available at the bottom of the page. Please note that this is just a small selection and is not intended to be regarded as a recommendation by the web master of this web site as to how good they are. There are new readers becoming available all the time and are usually designed to work with a particular operating system. Please follow the instructions of your chosen news reader to install it and capture your news feeds.

Once you have chosen a news reader, all you have to do is look for an orange RSS button such as the one above. You may have seen these buttons on other web sites that you visit. Once you have your news reader you can subscribe to these sites RSS feeds too. To receive up-dates from your news reader you will of course need to be online.

What information will the Parishes feed provide?

Our feed will be used to inform about web page updates, new pages or articles, as well as important Parish dates, news and other events. It is quick and convenient and will enable you to stay right up to date.