James Gynn

James (fondly known as Jim) has worshipped at the church of St Thomas the Apostle for many years, since he was a young boy with his family moving into the parish in 1936.  Over these years he became the Sunday School Superintendent and a regular choir member.  He has also been a churchwarden and a bell ringer, bell ringing being something he continues to do to this day.  He worked as a key member of the group who worked to build the church hall, both fundraising, encouraging the promise of interest free loans and in the practical hands on work.  He worked tirelessly to raise funds in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s to repair the church roof.  Jim is now in his 80’s but is still working behind the scenes at church and he is a great advocate for his faith and witness to Christ.

Mary Judson

Since arriving in the Diocese in 1983 Mary has served continuously on the PCC’s of the churches in Marhamchurch and Bude.  This included time as the PCC secretary at Marhamchuch.  She also served as PCC’s representative on the Deanery Synod and this included a period as the Deanery Secretary.  Mary has been elected as a Deanery Lay Representative on the Diocesan Synod, an appointment she currently still holds.  She is an incorporated member of the Mothers’ Union and has been Branch Secretary, Branch Treasurer and Branch Leader of the Budehaven Branch.  She served for a number of years as the Truro Diocesan Mothers Union Secretary and continues to serve as a Trustee of the Diocesan Mothers’ Union.  Before retirement Mary served the people of North Cornwall as a District Nurse, District Midwife and Practice Nurse and those skills, with the additional training in bereavement continue to be used as a member of the Solace organisation in Bude.

Sandra Huffer

Sandra is the current Deanery Lay Secretary of Stratton Deanery and serves faithfully in the role supporting both the Deanery and the weekly College meetings with her excellent note taking skills.  Sandra also designs all the posters for the Deanery for every event put on and coordinates room hire and speakers to ensure that all runs smoothly.  She is also an active member of the Solace organisation supporting those who are bereaved in the area.

Peter Lavers

Peter is a faithful servant of the Parish of Maker with Rame.  His daily life in retirement revolves around helping his neighbours, especially those with some special need.  Not only is he a most diligent churchwarden of some years and churchman of many years, but he uses his life skills and talents to create objects of value for use inside and outside the church – from church noticeboards, to chests for vestments and altar frontals.  He tends the churchyards of the three churches of the parish and digs cremated remains plots.  Nothing is too much trouble for him.

Gordon Gibson

Gordon has been a Reader for 50 years, 25 in Carbis Bay and Lelant, leading church worship, preaching, leading funerals, taking home communions and leading prayer groups.  He supports people in Lelant and plays a full part in community life.  He has always been hugely supportive of the work of the Mothers Union involving himself in its activities and outreach both at branch level and in the diocese.  This has , over the years, included much work with Penzance Women’s Aid (formerly known as the Refuge) involving him providing support and practical help to its vulnerable clients.

Mavis Miles

Mavis is one of those ubiquitous people at church and village events.  She can usually be seen rushing round with a bunch of raffle tickets and her raffle results are legendary. She collects for the church, the shop or whoever needs a collection.  Her second title is ‘Queen of Raffles’ which is an apt description.  Mavis worked very hard for several years to raise money for the Community Shop and Post Office.  Thanks to her valiant effort (along with others) £23,000 was eventually raised and with grants provided a new building for the new shop and Post Office.  The Church would be absolutely lost without Mavis’s oversight and constant presence.  She is unpaid verger, sacristan and general factotum and is incredibly aware of what needs to be done.  She is an extremely good neighbour and very kind, seeming to know instinctively where there is a problem or a need, which she then seeks to help sort out.

Malcolm Warman

Malcolm has been involved with St Teath church for many years.  Over this time he has been PCC  secretary, a churchwarden, he was a founder member of the church choir and is still an active member, he is a leader of Intersessions, he administers the chalice, reads the lesson, is involved with activities at Messy Church and in involved in making displays for the Flower Festival and Harvest Festival.  He is an active member of the village and at the same time as he has given his time voluntarily to so many he has built up and sustained his family farm.  He continues to help his daughter who is disabled through severe arthritis which her flock of sheep.

Carol White

Carol has been a churchwarden at St Sampson, Golant for over thirty years.  She has overseen major restoration work and has been the driving force in ensuring that the church is not just a pleasure to look at, but is a place where villages and visitors can sit quietly, where worship takes place every Sunday of the year and in which the whole village can been a sense of ownership and pride.  Carol spurred the PCC some 20 years ago to embark on a challenging and ambitious programme of restoration and she was instrumental in working with English Heritage.  It is thanks to Carol that the church has an excellent pipe organ, and then came the restoration plan which saw the church re-roofed, carvings restored, new lighting, oil central heating installed and windows re-leaded.  Carol sorted out grants, chivvied builders and was the sort of project manager that lazy workmen fear!  The church is kept open every day because Carol sorts out a key rota and she also organises the reading list.  She is licensed to assist with Holy Communion, she puts out, washes and irons the altar frontals, she sings in the choir, is a bell-ringer, arranges flowers and during the interregnum it was Carol who ensured that every Sunday service was covered.

Pat Phillips

Pat has been one of the churchwardens at St Bartholomew’s Church, Warleggan for the last 15 years, is the Treasurer of Warleggan PCC and is also the Chairman of the local secular parish committee.  She has overseen the re-roofing of St Bartholomew’s raising funds from charities and from her own continuous efforts trading in second hand books.  Pat is a staunch member of the Bible Study groups including the local Greek group which looks at the readings for the following Sunday in the Greek New Testament.  She has acted throughout as a friend of the local Methodist Church in Mount attending their special events and services.

Mary Anson

Mary has had many years’ experience of managing nursing and residential care homes in both the private and voluntary sectors.  In October 2011 Mary opened a new and innovation home at Crossroads House for people suffering from various forms of dementia.  Designed as to be a living community with an emphasis on meaningful activity, independence and self-determination Mary works hard to ensure vulnerable people are treated with dignity and her staff are well equipped and cared for too.  Mary is a trustee for Headway Cornwall which is an independent charity for Acquired Brain Injury and Chair of Trustees of Bain Memories Trust.  In addition she is a churchwarden at Christchurch Lanner and has given many years of devoted service.

Sid Bryant

Sid has been the main organist at St Mylor for 43 years.  Prior to this he was an organist in Somerset for 20 years.  Until last year he was also the organist at Flushing for two Sundays a month.  He is a long standing member of Nankersey Male Voice Choir.  His dedication to music, and in particular to church music, is very strong.  He plays at all weddings and funerals at St Mylor.  This summer on a very hot day, when the bride was 50 minutes late, he played non-stop for an hour and a half before the actual wedding began.

Elizabeth Davies

Liz works very hard not only for St Clement Church but is also involved in disability awareness for the diocese as she is deaf herself.  She has served on the Diocesan Synod, Deanery Synod, the Diocesan Equality Committee and the Diocesan Deaf Church Committee.  Her duties with St Clement Parish have included churchwarden, Lay Chairman of PCC, Lay Worship Leader, Pastoral Minister, Lay Assistant for Communion and she is a member of the church choir.  Liz has also been involved in taking Sunday School, arranging flowers for weddings, organising the monthly coffee mornings, co-ordinating’ Open the Book’, organising shared lunches, organising the flower festival and she has been chairman of the fundraising committee.

Margery Truscott

Margery has served Veryan Parish in various capacities.  She was churchwarden for over 20 years, working with four different priests and dealing with 3 vacancies.  She continues to act as Sacristan, she organises the flower and cleaning rotas and is chief mouse catcher!  Until recently Margery organised the delivery of the parish and Roseland magazines and still delivers to one area.  She is often in church and spends time welcoming and talking to visitors.  She also makes an effort to support events in other churches in the Cluster and is an active member of the PCC.

Avril Heard

Avril is very involved at St Issey church.  She is the organist and a worship leader as well as Tower Captain and is the PCC secretary of St Issey.  She is also chair of the Parish Council.  Avril and her husband do an enormous amount for the village, she is on the Village Hall Committee and organises Friday Bingo in the hall for charities.  Pat Drives the village minibus taking people to Truro/Trago, especially the older members of the village who have no transport, every week on her day off.  She also works as a carer in a residential home for those with learning disabilities.  She has made an enormous contribution to the building of bridges between the church and the village.

Jane Sloan

Jane has been nominated for the Cross of St Piran because of the tremendous amount of work that she has done at Lis Escop and also in her community and church.  It is quite extraordinary the amount of time, effort and hard work she has put into reviewing our Clergy and Parish files at Lis Escop.   Then she was willing to take on the role of Chair of our Safeguarding Committee and again she has given over and above for this very important work.  Her advice and wisdom has been essential on a number of matters and she continues to be sharp, incisive and thorough in all she does.

As well as the work for Safeguarding I know from experience how much she has been involved in events in Grampound and the cluster of Parishes.  Work with the Hall and the legal and committee work she has undertaken has been phenomenal in itself.  In all of this she does everything with a quiet humour and tremendous patience.

Geoffrey Holborow

Geoffrey has been associated with Ladock Parish Church for well over 40 years and in that time he has been a churchwarden on numerous occasions.  He has worked tirelessly over the years within the church and outside seeing to slates and drains and goodness knows what else.   The recent wonderful improvements of kitchenette and toilet most certainly would not have happened if it were not for all his hard work.  He has done a remarkable job.