General Synod Election Candidates 2026

Back Story
I taught at Primary Level education for over 40 years and am now retired. I
also sat as a magistrate for 17 years, most of that period as a Presiding
Judge. My husband and I have lived our small Warwickshire village for 30
years becoming very much part of the community and have served on the
PCC for the time we have lived here. We are both actively involved in the life
of the church.
I have watched the parish change beyond recognition. The vicar in situ
when we arrived served here for 22 years and filled the church for Harvest
and Carol Service, sometimes over 200 people, he was out and about in the
community and was known to all. When our parish was amalgamated with
four others under a single vicar, the workload wore him out and he left,
since then we have had two further priests and three interregnums which
has told the same story; a congregation recovering under a resident, visible
priest, then dwindling again through the interregnum that follows, from over
200 at their peak down to as few as 5 on an ordinary Sunday. We are now
four years into another vacancy and have been folded into a much larger
group of eleven parishes and our Priest in Charge post has twice failed to
attract an application. We continue to pay our parish share in full, receiving
little pastoral or spiritual support in return, and our congregation, sustained
by an ageing but committed PCC, has recovered only to the high teens. We
still have the good will of the village who support our outreach activities,
but do not attend church on a regular basis due to no priest taking services.
The pattern is consistent; remove the priest and the congregation dwindles.
This parish is living proof that fewer priests serving larger benefices cannot
be the route to growth the Church seeks.
Reason for my Application
I believe the parish system is the beating heart of the Church of England, a
cradle to grave system and without it the church fades and dies. Each
parish deserves well trained clergy who provide regular worship and are
seen to be serving the parishioners with pastoral care and regular church
services. But it must be funded properly. This is the way to revive the
Church of England.
The rural parish has its own particular needs; isolation is part of the rural
way of life, with the church traditionally being the community hub. The

priest is the glue holding the system and the community together, they are
very much the central tenet of the rural way of life. Vicars need to be fully
embedded in the parish and local community, and they need the support of
the Church of England to do this.
Clergy in parishes need to be given rich theological training to be able to
answer questions about the how and why of our church, they deserved to
be valued by their employers and guarded from exhaustion. Each benefice
should be limited to a maximum of five parishes to enable the priest to do
his work properly. In return they deserve good quality housing, a living wage
and a good support system.
How will these aims be achieved?
Fund the parish system properly as was intended and provided for by
Queen Annes’ endowment. This must be done by restoring the Church
Commissioners’ funds to their original purpose; stipendiary parish ministry.
Queen Anne’s endowment was given to fund the cure of souls in parishes
where such assistance is most required, it stood at £11.6 billion in June

1. In 2018 the statutory restriction that directed that money directly to

parish ministry was lifted, and only about 8% of the Commissioners
planned annual distribution is now ring-fenced for parish ministry. This
must be reversed and returned to dioceses to support their ability to fund
local ministry.
Where I stand and how I will represent you
I will stand for a properly resourced parish system with rich
theologically trained clergy who are paid a good living wage and are
well supported by their diocese and the Church of England. I am willing
to sit on committees to push this agenda as well as attend General
Synod.

I would ask you for a first or high preference when you vote and am
happy to answer questions you may have.
I can be contacted by email: [email protected]

ageing,benefice,church commissioners,dioceses,housing,interregnum,isolation,living wage,outreach,parish share,pcc,stipendiary,vacancy,workload