“As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” (1 Peter 4:10)
Dear Beloved in the Lord,
With the blessing of His Eminence Archbishop Nikitas, our first Annual General Meeting as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation will be on 9 November 2025. As we head towards this event, we’re looking for members of our community who can serve as trustees.
We should think of trustees as the practical helpers who support our church’s mission behind the scenes. You’d be working alongside our priests and Archbishop, taking care of administrative and practical matters so that that the spiritual and pastoral life of our community can flourish.
It’s not about being an expert – it’s about being faithful, committed, and willing to serve our community in this way.
As a trustee, you’d help with things like making sure we use our church resources wisely and responsibly, handling practical matters so our priests can focus on pastoral care, keeping our charity paperwork and governance in order, thinking ahead about practical challenges we might face, and creating simple systems that help rather than hinder our church life.
You’d be working as part of a team, under the spiritual guidance of our Archbishop and clergy. No one expects you to know everything or do everything alone!
Here’s something important to understand: To help us rotate trustees smoothly in future years, our first group of elected trustees will serve different length terms – some shorter, some longer (between 1-3 years initially). After we’re elected, we’ll work out together (or by lot) who serves which term.
After this initial period, everyone will serve standard 3-year terms. And yes, you can stand for re-election when your term ends!
You might be thinking “I’m not qualified for this!” But here’s what we’re looking for:
The essentials: You need to be an active, participating member of our church community who has been Orthodox for at least 12 months, you must have your spiritual father’s blessing and be 18 or older.
Helpful skills (but not required!): Experience with finances, HR, legal matters, administration, planning, or property management can be useful, but we can learn these things together and get professional help when needed.
What truly matters: faithfulness, commitment, good judgment, and willingness to serve.
Being a trustee does take time, and you should think carefully about whether you can commit. Generally, you’d need to attend board meetings (probably once a month or every other month), join relevant sub-committees, make yourself available for occasional urgent matters, and participate in some initial training and planning sessions. But we will work together to make this manageable and to support each other.
You won’t be thrown in at the deep end! We will provide a proper induction when you start, training on how trustees make decisions, ongoing support from experienced professionals in our community, access to professional advice when we need it, and clear guidelines to help you.
If you feel this might be for you, please pray about it and discuss it with your spiritual father, then complete the nomination form (available here) and submit it by 22 October to
davidlewis6178@btinternet.com. You must submit your own nomination – others can’t nominate you.
Haven’t completed your membership declaration yet? Please do so by 12 October to be eligible. Use this form to sign up for membership.
Even if you don’t feel called to be a trustee, we have or are forming teams focused on different areas of church life, including youth work and catechism, adult education and catechism, philanthropy and pastoral work, liturgical life, mission, property matters, and fundraising and finance. If any of these interest you, please speak with Fr Panteleimon – there are many ways to serve!
After the deadline, we’ll share all nominations with the membership, we’ll hold elections at the AGM on 9 November 2025, and successful candidates will begin serving right after the AGM.
Please don’t hesitate to talk with Fr Panteleimon, Nicholas Moore, David Lewis, Liz Asser, Banayiodis Vanezi, Adrian Pavel, or any current trustee after services.
With love in Christ,
Fr Panteleimon