General Synod Election Candidates 2026

My name is Catherine Hockley. I am a farmer’s wife from the village of Hatfield Heath near Bishops
Stortford. I grew up in a church going family at a thriving country church where my father was a
churchwarden for many years and my mother, the Enrolling Member of the Mothers Union. Now I
am married with two grown up children of my own and live about a mile and a half from our little
parish church. I have been a member of the congregation at Holy Trinity Church since moving here
when I married over 30 years ago. I joined the PCC about 15 years ago and since then have been
churchwarden for 7 years, Fabric committee chair for many years and since retiring from
churchwarden duties I have been on the Harlow Deanery Synod. I am also the Parish Safeguarding
Officer.

I felt moved to put my name forward for election after reading an article in the Daily Telegraph of
25th July by the Reverend Marcus Walker. He asked for help to revive the church, to support his
campaign to ‘Save the Parish’ and for anyone willing, to stand for election to the General Synod. He
highlighted the fact that there is an Endowment fund, set up by Queen Anne for the poorest
parishes. In recent years this fund has been used by the Archbishops of Canterbury for purposes of
the Archbishops Council. He calls for this to now be used to help the actual poorest parishes. As a
small rural parish member, I am only too aware of the strain on vicars having to juggle multiple
churches, of an ever-diminishing number of volunteers trying to raise funds to maintain ageing
buildings and of PCCs unable to pay their Parish Share. I am hopeful that the new General Synod
under the leadership of the new Archbishop, the Rt Revd and Rt Hon Dame Sarah Mullally, will look
more favourably toward rural parishes after working with people that can explain their needs.

Our parish has already lost a Priest-in-charge who decided to take early retirement after finding six
parishes too much to cope with. I do not want to lose our current lovely vicar in similar
circumstances. The small PCC do what they can to support and help, we take services, we have an
Administrator ( of sorts) and try to lift what we can from the vicar’s shoulders. I am well aware that
there are plenty of parishes around that are struggling in similar circumstances and would like to be
able to help them if I can by working with the General Synod.

Thank you for taking the time to read this; I feel called to stand to help the plight of rural ministry,
congregations and churches. I would like to feel that I can contribute to the wellbeing of rural
communities in the future. Even those individuals who don’t actually go to church but live in these
communities like to use the local church for baptisms, weddings and funerals. I feel it is important to
help these churches remain open rather than let them close. I would like to feel I can do something
to ensure this.

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