Richard Mumford from the village of Charlton has been elected to the post of Lay Chair of the Pershore Deanery Synod.

A deanery is a group of parishes in a particular area. The deanery synod is the elected body that enables those parishes to have a forum to discuss issues affecting their part of the diocese. Lay members are elected to a deanery synod from each parish’s annual meeting and all clergy are members. The chair of the synod is shared between a member of the clergy (the Rural Dean, appointed by the Bishop) and a non-clerical member (the Lay Chair, elected by the lay members of the deanery synod).

Richard is a churchwarden and lay minister in his parish of Fladbury with Wyre Piddle and Moore and Cropthorne with Charlton. He will serve as Lay Chair for three years from 1 September and replaces Alma Organ from Pershore. As well as being lay chair, Alma served on the Bishop’s Council for a number of years and is resigning the position to concentrate on training to be ordained as a member of the clergy.

Richard said: “I am looking forward to taking up the challenge of being Lay Chair and meeting and working with the different parishes. There are lots of issues currently facing the church in this area, in particular trying to pay our share of the diocesan budget and the declining number of clergy available. I will be working closely with our Rural Dean, the Revd Matthew Baynes, on these challenges.”

Richard will be working with nine parish clergy across 20 parishes. Before moving to Charlton he lived in Cropthorne for around 30 years where he was very involved in helping to set up the annual Cropthorne walkabout.

ENDS

The Diocese of Worcester is one of 44 dioceses in the Church of England. It covers an area of 671 square miles and includes parishes in the County of Worcestershire, the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, and a few parishes in northern Gloucestershire, south east Wolverhampton and Sandwell.