Featuring reflections, stories and news from our members across the UK on Heritage, Faith, Pilgrimage & Welcome, Community, Experience, History & Awe!
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- 2025 Conference Report
JOURNEYS: travelling together through faith
14th – 16th January 2025Hosted by Peterborough Cathedral
This conference aimed to explore the theme of Journeys and how we can travel together through faith, bringing together people from different religions, denominations, backgrounds and beliefs. Through shared practices such as pilgrimages, we explored parallels and partnerships with a focus on community and heritage.
Our annual conference this year was hosted by Peterborough Cathedral. There were 52 delegates in total, including the organising team and Council members, and we were joined by a total of 14 speakers, guests and sponsors. It was heartening to realise that 73% of our membership were represented at the conference. Most of our delegates stayed at The Bull Hotel in Peterborough city centre where we were very well looked after by the management and staff.
The conference was opened by our Chair, the Very Revd Dr Anthony Cane, Dean of Portsmouth. He led us all in expressing our thanks to the hard-working Peterborough team, led by Alex Carton with Toni Morgan-Ray. They were supported by a delightful team of volunteers who helped with registration, excellent catering and refreshments, and guided tours. They all ensured a smooth running of our activities and transitions between different areas of the cathedral spaces.
The Dean, the Very Revd Chris Dalliston, and Vice Dean, Canon Tim Alban Jones, gave everyone the warmest welcome and displayed great generosity towards the conference events and all participants. One of the highlights was a tour of the cathedral by night, a Sons et Lumières experience in which Canon Tim took us through centuries of history and political turmoil.
Revd Michelle Dalliston kindly hosted several sessions in the nearby St John’s church, so we enjoyed a wide range of comfortable spaces, even if the ambient temperature in the cathedral was occasionally a challenge. No wonder the wonderfully tuneful Peterborough choristers wear a snug winter cloak at Evensong!
This year, once again, we were able to offer a delegate bag with contents supplied by generous donors (such as Westhill Endowment Trust and the Catholic Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham) and the delegates themselves, who brought examples of materials from their own sacred spaces or souvenirs from their gift shops. Ecclesiastical Insurance kindly sponsored the printing of the tote bags this year and our thanks go to Scott Hayes for arranging this, and for his continuing support for our work. A short booklet highlighting the work of Cathedrals Plus was also distributed, sponsored by McCabe Pilgrimages with the support of Revd Paul Ellerby, with 10 copies given to each delegate to distribute to colleagues in their organisation and to their diocesan teams.
During the conference, Sarah Page relaunched the exciting Resources Hub, our members-only resource base hosted through Dropbox on our website. Additional contributions are requested and very welcome so that colleagues can share their fabulous ideas and learn from one another.
Laura Arends coordinated the Regional Hub sessions once again. These hubs have proved very helpful to colleagues, providing a useful network of support within each region and an opportunity for a CPD day when meeting too.
Diana Ives encouraged people to join the Education teams’ WhatsApp group and coordinated another inspiring Sharing Ideas Session for those in learning or education roles.
Owen Towndrow did the same for the Visitor Experience colleagues and led discussions on volunteers, visitor donations and the different types of engaging and profitable activities that those present have run and recommend.
As usual, everyone’s contributions at these sharing sessions, with practical examples of successful initiatives, was greatly appreciated. Ideas/notes from both are uploaded to the Resources Hub for our members to download, and especially for the benefit of those who were unable to join us for the conference this year.
The workshops were also very successful. Delegates were able to attend 2 out of 7 choices (see Conference Programme) and Cathedrals Plus is very grateful to all the workshop presenters who prepared and so effectively contributed to the event.
Workshops included sessions by:
- Phil Stephens and Hilary Young from Ely Cathedral who presented their innovative work with providing sensory spaces for the needs of neuro-diverse students;
- Stacey Burman presented the work of the RE Hubs (https://www.re-hubs.uk/);
- Charlotte Nobbs of the Diocesan Youth Trust ran a workshop on Growing Faith, connecting school, home and church;
- Dave Cramp explored Banning the ‘F’ (for FREE) word, the dynamic donations journey at Peterborough, with useful lessons for other churches and cathedrals;
- Jen Stratford of Chester Cathedral shared how science experiments can engage children to explore spiritual concepts, using electricity, light and materials;
- Toni Morgan-Ray, of Peterborough Cathedral and Steve Clarke of St Alban’s led colleagues through their Cathedral Classroom, sharing creative teaching ideas and resources;
- Canon Tim Alban Jones described Peterborough Cathedral’s Eventful Journey, moving from running 2 income-generating events per year to over 60.
On the second day, we held an Interfaith panel discussion on spiritual journeys / pilgrimages, chaired by Canon Tim. One of our panel unfortunately had to drop out but Stacey Burman, of RE Hubs, kindly agreed to contribute the perspective of Judaism. She was joined by Mr Chowdhry of the local mosque; Revd Paul Ellerby of McCabe Travel, one of our sponsors; and former Cathedrals Plus Chair, Revd Canon Jane Brooke. Delegates had submitted questions in advance which gave a framework to the very interesting discussion about individual and collective journeys of faith.
Our conference dinner, sponsored by Ecclesiastical Insurance, was enjoyed at The Bull, and was preceded by a talk by Helen Gray of The Benefact Trust. Helen presented several opportunities for our cathedrals and other sacred spaces to apply for funding or support through the different Trust categories. After dinner, Revd Steve Benoy, Bishop’s Chaplain, spoke about his pilgrimage journeys over the years, with good humour and good grace!
All three of our plenary speakers spoke powerfully on the conference theme of journeys and travelling together through faith.
- Our first speaker was Revd Professor Dee Dyas, a long-time ally of Cathedrals Plus, whose department at York University has contributed much hugely valuable research into cathedrals and other sacred spaces.
- Our second speaker, Dr Renie Chow Choy, who is based now at Westminster Abbey, outlined her very personal journey from Hong Kong to the UK. Her research into contested heritage and challenging church monuments gave everyone a great deal to consider.
- Dawn Champion of the British Pilgrimage Trust gave the final plenary session. Her powerfully illustrated overview of what pilgrimages and faith journeys can offer groups and individuals brought the conference to a meaningful close.
Revd Professor Dee Dyas 
Dr Renie Chow Choy 
Dawn Champion, BPT To find out more, there are detailed summaries of these talks to view by clicking on each of the named buttons above.
Council held an informal meeting over a working lunch and everyone attended the AGM in St John’s Church. Minutes of the AGM are available on our website here.
The conference feedback forms have been summarised and the summary is available here.
In brief, the feedback was VERY positive with the overall average mark being 9.3 out of 10 (Last year it was 8.6)
The planning group, which meets once a month throughout the year, are delighted to see that 100% of the delegates thought the conference was Excellent or Good and 97% delegates felt the content of the conference was relevant to their work.
It was also heartening to read the acknowledgements of our response to last year’s feedback.
Our next conference is being planned for 2026. Two offers to host it have been received by Council who will decide the venue by the end of March. Several ideas for themes have been suggested for the planning group to consider. So, please watch this space and keep these possible dates free!
January 27-29 2026 ….. (tbc)If you’d like to download a pdf of this conference report, click on the button at the top of the page.
Report prepared by Jackie Holderness
Secretary Cathedrals Plus
- Annual Conference 2025 – Peterborough
Here are just a few photos of our annual conference hosted by Peterborough Cathedral a couple of weeks ago.
We have received extremely positive feedback from and about everyone attending, from delegates to speakers, Peterborough staff to local businesses. Thank you everyone who was involved in organising and contributing in any way! It was fun, informative, inspiring, and thought-provoking on many levels.
Our theme was Journeys: Travelling together through faith. And here is a list with links to all those we thank for their contributions! Our key note speakers: Revd Professor Dee Dyas, Dr Renie Chow Choy, and Dawn Champion from the British Pilgrimage Trust. Visiting speakers, workshop leaders and session leaders: Hilary Young and Philippa Stevens from Ely Cathedral; Stacey Burman from the RE Hubs network who also stood up and sat down (!) on our interfaith panel discussion; Charlotte Nobbs of the Diocesan Youth Trust; Dave Cramp of DCrampy Consulting; Jen Stratford of Chester Cathedral; Steve Clarke, St Albans and Toni Morgan-Ray at Peterborough.
Delegates received a fantastic assortment of gifts in their ‘goody’ bags this year: books on pilgrimage, flyers on events & workshops, craft and activity resources, magnets, bookmarks – quite a bundle of inspiration and souvenirs. Thank you to all those who brought along items and in particular to Westhill Endowment Trust and to OLW shrine for their generous donations.
The cathedral at night was very special – extremely atmospheric – and with the lighting, the candles, the tour and the sound effects, we were truly absorbed in a multi-sensory story-telling of the cathedral’s history presented by Canon Tim.
One of our biggest thank yous goes to Alex and Toni at Peterborough for all they did to host us! Plus of course huge thanks to Revd Canon Tim Alban Jones, Vice Dean and all those in the team at Peterborough Cathedral. We received a very warm welcome in a very cold cathedral! On that note, I think we all understand that these ancient buildings can be (very) cold in the winter months, afterall they are huge spaces to heat. However being in such glorious surroundings for some of our talks only added to the ambiance and instilled a sense of place in the concepts we were exploring.
We certainly appreciated having the time to experience the space and the history whilst sharing time with colleagues, making new friends and being captivated and encouraged with speakers’ insights and anecdotes.
St John’s Church in Cathedral Square also hosted us for lunch and for some of our talks – thank you therefore to Revd Michelle Dalliston too! Our Sponsors and supporters were represented by Scott Hayes of Ecclesiastical Insurance, Revd Paul Ellerby of McCabe Travel, Helen Gray and Usman of the Benefact Trust
We were blessed to experience friendship, fellowship and fun whilst ‘working’ – where else could you find a better environment to conference?
More to follow soon and a detailed conference report will also be uploaded for you to enjoy.
- Let’s go Medieval!
Daniel Parnell, Director of Welcome, Learning & Engagement at Worcester Cathedral, takes us back to a medieval summer…
Fancy hunting a dragon? Firing an arrow? Dancing like a maiden? Or want an Audience with the worst King of England? Well then, Worcester Cathedral was the place to be this summer!
The summer of 2024 was our first attempt as a Cathedral to group our regular summer activities into a “festival” offering, and draw in multiple departments to work closer together than usual in what we offered to our community.
Like most cathedrals for a long time, we have put on “family” friendly craft and activities in the school holidays, offered for free, although with donations encouraged, that cover various themes and ideas. These are usually offered for a few days together during a week or two of the holidays. But the summer is different, as the long six weeks have always prompted us to ask – how can we best play our role in the community in this regard? In the past we have tried putting something on every week on the same day, so local families know it’s there, and also tried concentrating everything together into a few days for a bit of a focused intense period.
The events & visitors’ teams have also offered their own events and activities, traditionally under the loose heading of “Discover Something Different”. But staff changes and team reorganisation as well as an office move that meant the Events, Visitors and Learning teams were all in the same office, has prompted us to try our first joined-up Cathedral summer festival.
The theme we instantly agreed on was “Medieval”, playing a bit fast and loose with what counts as medieval, but leaning into our strong heritage with this period. In the planning, ideas included movies in the Nave, falconers on the green, dress-up box available all week in the Old Bishop’s Palace with photographer available. Finances, logistics and capacity put paid to some of these, but we still managed a lot!
Key to the success of the week was the 4 Dragons that were hired to be situated around the Cathedral, along with a half dozen home-made dragon eggs that populated our Dragons’ Quest.
We had a medieval camp on College Green, on the opposite side of the Cathedral to the city, with archery (plastic) and axe throwing (foam).
Local reenactors got on board and spent the week “hanging out” at the Cathedral, adding to the atmosphere. Plus, our cathedral volunteers joined in with the dressing up too!
Toddler story time and family crafts also brought in a lot of families, and evening talks provided by local experts on medieval themes proved popular for a (mostly) older audience.
Saturday of the festival saw the culmination with King John Day, where several hundred visitors over the course of the day had an audience with “King John” and explored what his tomb tells us about his life, and in the evening, there was a Medieval Banquet in the Great Hall of the Old Bishops Palace.
Was it a success? Well, visitor numbers were up significantly, 56% on the rest of August and 75% on last year – children were up 143% on the rest of August and 3 times as many children came on this Saturday compared to the other Saturdays in August.
Financially, donations were also up in totals, although not significantly, and per person it was the lowest week of August. Both the shop and the café had their best week of the summer, with the café 16% up on sales compared to the rest of August and the shop 12% up. The charged-for activities, which included the Banquet, refreshments and merchandise in the camp (provided by partners, but for which we took a cut) and the talks, brought in enough to cover costs, but not make a huge difference to overall income.
No formal feedback with visitors was carried out, but anecdotal feedback was very positive, and the only negative feedback was when we were unable to carry out some of the smaller, hoped-for activities due to staffing levels caused by illness.
So, our experience was – it was worth it! But there were definite learning opportunities for next year. Yes – we’re going to do it again next year. Bigger…. Maybe, better… hopefully!
Daniel Parnell, Head of Welcome, Learning & Engagement
Worcester Cathedral
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