Firstly, I would like to thank you for your ongoing support for the Cathedral Friends. I would like to bring you up to date with the latest news from the Cathedral and the Friends, including how we have been able to continue to actively contribute towards the ongoing work of the Cathedral.
I hope that you and yours are well and wish you well for the rest of 2022 and for the coming new year.
2022 has been a busy year for the Friends and we have enjoyed being finally clear of the restraints of the pandemic. Our Events Committee, very ably led by Brian David, has been busy putting on an excellent schedule of events for the year. Building on the success of the Friends’ Advent Concert held on 10th December 2021, where the brilliant Otter Consort Choir from Chichester University sang to a sell-out audience in Vicars Hall, we have booked them again for the evening of Monday, 5th December 2022. We have also welcomed the return of the Book at Breakfast. The three B@Bs have been very popular and were very ably led by The Reverend Canons Bruce Ruddock and Dan Inman. We were sad, due to COVID concerns, to have been forced to cancel the Epiphany lunch which was scheduled in January but this made a comeback in the form of a Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Lunch in May. And we were delighted to reinstate the Friends’ monthly coffee mornings, which started in April. These are held on the first Saturday of each month in the South Transept from 10.00am to 11.30am. No need to book, just pop in and they are free.
After two years of not being able to hold one, on Thursday, 16th June 2022, we held the Friends’ Festival Day and Annual General Meeting. The day started off with a Friends’ Eucharist service in the Lady Chapel at noon and was followed by a lunch, the AGM itself, a wonderfully engaging talk by our guest speaker Air Vice Marshal Mike Harwood, and all finished off with a tea at 4 Canon Lane.
For all information on Friends’ events please visit the Friends pages on the Cathedral’s website or watch out for announcements in the Sunday service news sheets.
The most tangible and visible way in which Friends support the Cathedral is through our project funding and we should all take pride in the grants that we continue to make to the Dean and Chapter. Our large range of projects include the Cathedral Lighting study, £2,000 per year to continue funding the Cathedral flowers, £12,000+ per year to fund a Chorister, £125,000 towards the costs of the new Toilet block and the funding to remove the raised platform surrounding the Cathedral font. Our latest grant has been to donate £25,000 to the newly-formed Platinum Jubilee Trust which will endeavour to fund Cathedral music for the future. In the meantime, the Trustees and I will continue to offer support to the Cathedral in whatever way we can and we thank you sincerely for your continued help and support.
I do very much hope to see you in person at the upcoming Friends’ events. In the meantime, if you have any questions or comments about the Friends, please do get in touch with me via email ccfhonsec@gmail.com or write to me at Chichester Cathedral Friends, The Royal Chantry Offices, Chichester Cathedral, Chichester PO19 1PX.
I send you all my very best wishes for the coming new year.
Howard Castle-Smith, Honorary Secretary
Chichester Cathedral Friends
November 2022