SG : Hello Fr.Joseph, how are you? Hope you are doing great.

Fr.Joseph : Yes. by God’s grace. But our regular church masses have been disrupted due to COVID-19. There are regulations and guidelines to keep social distancing. For safety, only limited people can attend the mass and it's a tiring effort to organize the same.

SG : Father, Safe Gathering app can help. Can I ask you a question?. If you follow the social distancing protocols, how many people can be accommodated in your church?

Fr.Joseph : Mine is a reasonably big parish and our church is big enough. But if I follow health recommendations, my church can accommodate only around 125 people.

SG : I think you have 2 masses every Sunday. How do you pick these 125 people?

Fr.Joseph : We are yet to figure out a way to pick these 125 people each for the masses. Initially, I thought, people can come in and the first 125 can attend and the remaining can go back. But, counting 125 people and asking the rest to go back is painful . How can I give preference to people who did not attend?. It’s pretty tough to manage.

SG : So it’s pretty tough, what are the other choices you have?

Fr.Joseph : Another way is for people to call me and take an appointment. But giving appointments to 125 people is quite tedious.I need to give appointments up to 125 for each mass. But it’s a huge effort. We thought of other options!

SG : Then?

Fr.Joseph : We could divide parishioners into different wards .Two wards can join the first mass and another two can join the other mass. Each ward has around 50 people. So I can invite only 50 + 50 = 100 people. If I invite one more ward it will cross 125 and will become 150 which is against the recommendations and guidelines that were given to us.

SG : Basically you are not fully happy there too

Fr.Joseph : Even if I invite 2 wards, only 70% of them might turn up. So it becomes 70, whereas the allowed capacity is 125. Also in many cases people from other wards who were NOT invited might be more keen to attend the mass. In this case, uninterested people are given the opportunity at the expense of leaving the most interested ones out just because they’re not part of the invited ward.

SG : Father, we can solve your issues through our apps.

Fr.Joseph : How?

SG : We have two apps.

1. “Safe Gathering Host” app which priests of the parish will be using. He will set up his church’s name, location and daily gatherings for 7 days ONLY ONCE. Then onwards he only needs to accept/reject the request to join the mass. He will be able to see the requester’s photo, name and number of masses he/she has attended so far. Based on these factors or by other parameters, priests can accept or reject requests. It will not allow requests which are exceeding the capacity you would be setting. In your case, it will be 125. Here you can approve upto 125 people for each mass. Total time you will have to spend for this could be just 5 minutes.
2. “Safe Gathering” is a participant app, In which people will see all nearby public gathering places ( in our chase churches ). People can see how many slots are available for each mass. Based on available slots, they can request for joining the mass. Through this it's convenient for people to find a place to join a mass. If not your regular one, any other nearby church which has free slots as per social distancing norms. User has options to withdraw their request if there is change of mind which will free slots for other person who is interested.

So I guess this solves all your problems.

Fr.Joseph : Definitely, where can I find walkthrough videos for these apps and where can I download them?

SG : You will get all information from www.safegathering.club . It has download buttons to download apps from AppStore and PlayStore. It also has a walkthrough of the apps and general overviews. You can go through all these prior to downloading the apps.

Fr.Joseph : Great to know. I will go through it. Is there any payment involved?

SG : For “Safe Gathering Host” app which priests use, will cost around $3-$10 download fees. It's a one-time payment and forever. The participant app (Safe Gathering app) will be on subscription ( 1 month, 6 month , 1 year ). It will be approximately $3-$7 for a year’s subscription. We have a cost of around $0.06 (average across world) for every authentication through phone number. People might do this authentication many times. It will be a risk for us if we reduce the charge further.So it's the lowest possible charge.

Fr.Joseph : It looks fair. I will go through www.safegathering.club and try to use your app. Are there any other fees?

SG : Absolutely not. We are sure our app will make your life a lot easier.

Fr.Joseph: I got one more Question dude!. I have seen the ‘Verified’ option in your app. How do we get ‘Verified’ status for my church?

SG: It's interesting you closely noticed it. You may send a WhatsApp to us (+91-9972383725 ) from the same number you registered your gathering, with a photo of your church, some proof which shows address or if possible a selfie from you standing in front of the church. These things will be checked by our operators and based on convincing documents, we change status to verified from our backend.

Fr. Joseph: Thank you so much for explaining this in detail.

SG: it's my pleasure. Thanks a lot for your time with me.