from Autumn 2011 MESSAGE FROM THE MINISTER - Jim Gorringe
News may well have reached you that I have decided to retire next year. Methodist ministers usually take up appointments on the 1st September and leave positions a few weeks before, so we were planning to leave Stewkley [where we live] in August 2012 when I would cease being involved with our chapel in Cheddington.
However an interesting situation became available in another of the villages in which I’ve been working, and the upshot is that I’ve been appointed to an Anglican post looking after 3 churches in North Marston, Oving and Granborough as part of what’s known as The Schorne Team, in turn part of the Claydon Deanery. I will be semi retired and employed in what is known as a ‘House for Duty post’ [as per Robert Wright], and taking up residence later this year, beginning work on 1st December.
The process to find my successor has already begun and an appointment will hopefully be made by December and I’ll give details in due course of who will be arriving next summer.( the appointment of Jim's successor has now taken place, and we are pleased to announce that Rev Irena Byron will take up her duties in August-September)
My Methodist colleagues will be covering Sunday services as best they can but to help lessen the disruption my move will cause I am committed to being involved in pastoral work and the taking of funerals and weddings until next August - so you may not even notice I’ve left!
There will be other opportunities to reflect on my five and a bit years being the minister in Cheddington, which has been a lovely experience, and only wish we’d been able to stay longer.
Jim Gorringe