This Autumn our Trustee body has seen some changes, with new trustees Claire Egan and Peter Gubi joining us, and Peter Howell-Jones’s and Terry Green’s terms of office coming to a close. Together, our trustees oversee the development and good running of RHC, and we’re thankful indeed for this service and support they give as volunteers. Below, our new Chair writes to us all…

My first visit to the Retreat House Chester was back in the late 1980s, with no idea that my future would bring me to this city to live. It was a fantastic time, one which changed my spiritual and mental and physical life – for ever! (And if I had more time I could tell you the story – but it takes about half an hour to tell!) Then in 2016 my wife Anne and I retired to Chester, and found to our delight that our arrival matched the public launch of the new Retreat House – what a joy that was to discover.

And now things have changed again, with the Retreat House thriving, although in a different form to its original dream, and with all the national and local Covid restrictions and opportunities causing us to look again at what God is calling us to be and to do. What we are finding is that people are being responsive to both the needs and to the opportunities, with a good number “signing up” for what we are running, and with exciting things opening up in the New Year too.

A small but significant change has taken place in the background, as Terry Green has stood down as Chair of the Trustees, where he has served faithfully since the outset. We are grateful for all he has given to us at RHC, and are glad to think that he is still going to be involved in what we do. Allied to Terry's departure, and having served as a trustee since early 2018, I have been asked to Chair the Trustees, and I am happy to do so, God being my helper, and that has given me this chance to write to you all.

So what am I writing about? Firstly of course the good news of God's blessing on RHC and what we are doing. Secondly, to announce Terry's departure and my arrival. And thirdly to invite you (and indeed myself too) to reflect on our partnership at RHC, and to look at the year ahead.

What does that year look like? I don't know! But then I'm not sure anyone knows the details at this stage – we don't even know what the government will do when it next announces our national and local steps forward. But I do know that God is still active, and I am sure that RHC is a (small!) part of God’s work. And that means that you and I can still sign up, and still pray for our work, and still give what we can to make it all happen.

We are so grateful for all the volunteer work that goes on in the background, although clearly that has changed in 2020, and we are also grateful for the faithful financial support that many are able to give too. Our Friends Scheme is one way we have of recognising that giving, and I would ask us all (that includes me!) to check our own level of support to the work we do. It would be tremendous if we could, by the grace of God, renew our commitment to RHC in this way, as well as in other ways, and make a sign of our thankfulness and faith in this way. So please think and pray – and please, if you can, respond! You’ll find everything you need about how to donate on the SUPPORT US page of our website.

Wishing you God's blessing and God's peace now and in the year ahead.

Paul Towner