Introduction
2021 was an eventful year in all our lives. This was also the case in our Market Towns Project.
Over the course of the year, we witnessed a number of significant changes - not least struggling to emerge from Covid-19 lockdowns, thinking what lies ahead for us as a church and significant changes in the leadership of the project with Mike Booker’s departure and Jon Randall’s appointment.
As a result of all this, the Market Towns Project Board asked an outside consultant to undertake a midterm review of the project. John Truscott was appointed and in December the Project Board received his Report.
The Report holds a mirror to the project, applauds the projects ambition and points to the early successes before March 2020 when Covid-19 hit us all. The report acknowledges the complexity of having a project that is both Diocesan initiated and locally led, and the impact that Covid-19 has had on all sorts of relationships and initiatives.
The Board has accepted the report in full and most significantly the recommendations within the report.
On December 20th [2021] the Project Board’s Chair, the Archdeacon of Huntingdon and Wisbech, along with Jon Randall, held a briefing for all those working in the Project.
Theses briefings can be found below and are a summary of three key sections of the report, notable the –
- achievements so far
- areas for improvement
- recommendations going ahead
Readers will see the progress made this month and I am very grateful to the Central Team of Jon Randall, Martin Kenward, Adam Evans and Janet Sutton for their commitment and hard work.
The Ven. Hugh McCurdy, Chair of the MT Project Board
Briefing paper from (former) Chair of the Board, Hugh McCurdy
This review was very important because we felt we needed to pick up:
- some of the comments and loose ends from the Delivery Group meetings,
- the pastoral concerns and management issues that had been reported to the central team, mainly informally “so you are aware” type comments
- the need to report back to the Church Commissioners for the SDF part of the project.
This and the fact that we were approximately halfway through the original timescale and that we were coming out of lockdown meant that this was a great opportunity to take stock, listen carefully, recalibrate, and then move forward together.
From what one or two of you have said we are aware that some of you have asked - are we going to lose our jobs, or will the Diocese stop the project?
So let me say right at the start this is not about closing parts or all of the project. It is a genuine midterm review and a chance of going into 2022 with a renewed energy and vision for the project.
There will be fine tuning, and some adjustments will be required as a result of the review, and these are outlined by Jon Randall below.
So the purpose of this briefing is to give a verbal outline of the report and to talk about what has happened since the report went to the Board and then what happens next.
We are not sending out copies of the Report at the moment because there are a number of recommendations that need to be followed up on a town-by-town basis and I don’t think it would be either helpful or kind to the people involved if we were simply to send the Report out without an opportunity to talk to you first about some of the recommendations.