Alban News - March - May - 2024

Worship

Regular Services

Sundays

8am Eucharist

9.30am Parish Eucharist

11.15am Choral Eucharist (1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th Sundays)

11.15am Matins (3rd Sunday)

12.30pm Eucharist (3rd Sunday)

6pm Choral Evensong

Weekdays

7.30am Morning Prayer

8am Eucharist

12noon Eucharist at the Shrine

5pm Evensong (Evening Prayer on a Monday)

Saturdays

8.30am Morning Prayer

9am Eucharist

12noon Eucharist at the Shrine

5pm Evensong

Monthly Services

10am 4th Wednesday

Mothers’ Union Eucharist

2.30pm 5th Saturday

Diocesan Service for the Deaf

Ecumenical Services

Roman Catholic Mass is celebrated every Friday at 12noon.

German Lutheran

A service in German is held on the last Tuesday of every month at 7pm.

Free Church

First Wednesday of every month at 11am.

Orthodox Liturgy

A service is held once a month on a Tuesday at 10.30am.

Opening times

The Cathedral is open daily 8.30am – 5.30pm.

Special Services

30th Anniversary of the Ordination of Women to the Priesthood

Saturday 9 March, 5pm

Mothering Sunday

Sunday 10 March, services throughout the day

Commonwealth Celebration

Sunday 17 March, 2pm

Passiontide Service

Sunday 17 March, 6pm

Holy Week and Easter Services

Sunday 24 March - Monday 1 April

Visit our website for more details.

Volunteers Evensong

Saturday 20 April, 5pm

Ascension Day Choral Eucharist

Thursday 9 May, 5pm

Highlight Events

Let the women speak tour

Friday 8 March and Saturday 27 April, 10.30am

St Albans Bach Choir Centenary Concert

Saturday 23 March, 7pm

Candlelight Concerts: Elton John

Wednesday 10 April and Thursday 11 April, 7.30pm

Candlelight Concerts: The Beatles

Friday 12 April and Saturday 13 April, 7.30pm

A Day Chaplain is available to talk most days.

Tickets for all our events are available through our website.

Message from the Dean

Welcome to the spring edition of Alban News. The longer days and spring buds offer us hope that warmer days are coming.

This year also brings us Easter almost as early as it can be, and therefore our Lenten journey is well underway. This season of the Christian calendar is one which calls us to re-turn ourselves towards Christ in prayer, fasting, selfexamination and acts of loving service, preparing ourselves for the great celebration of Easter and the gift of resurrection life.

The renewal of this Lenten season, seen visually in signs of spring around us, and the life and hope of Easter echo in much of our Cathedral life at this time.

This spring we will celebrate the launch of our Cathedral’s new mission and ministry priorities which are the result of our diocesan wide consultation from Pentecost to Advent 2023.

In December Chapter and the Mission and Ministry committee met together to review the considerable feedback and to agree the conclusions. In the weeks ahead we will all have the chance to read about and discuss what, together, we have discerned for our way ahead.

This will be a particular focus of our AGM on Sunday 19 May, do mark the diary for this important meeting. Sincere thanks to Beccy and Andrew Baird who have led us through this process.

This spring we also celebrate the appointment of our new Director of Music, Will Fox, currently Assistant Director of Music at St Paul’s Cathedral. You can read more about Will in this edition.

Thank you for the part you play in the life and ministry of this holy place. Do enjoy catching up on some news in the pages ahead.

Jo Kelly-Moore | The Dean

© Still Cast Photography

Environment

Some readers may have participated in an online travel survey of the cathedral community a couple of years ago, which was described in the Environmental and Social Justice Newsletter of December 2022.

The baseline data collected at that time will be used to inform the development of a Cathedral Travel Plan, using the templates and accreditation system of the ‘Modeshift Stars’ service offered by Hertfordshire County Council. The transport sector has overtaken energy to become the largest contributor to the UK’s carbon footprint, with cars and taxis responsible for more than half of total domestic transport emissions. It is our Christian duty to address these issues, both as stewards of creation and in fulfilment of the Church of England’s mandate for Carbon Net Zero by 2030.

A responsible travel plan will maximise the opportunities for its visitors and staff to reach the cathedral on foot, by bicycle or using public transport, whilst setting realistic targets for the number of private vehicles it should accommodate.

Considerable progress has been made in recent years in supporting sustainable transport measures, with the barrier control of vehicular access to Sumpter Yard, the replacement of parking spaces with award-winning landscaping, and the provision of dedicated cycle racks. We would like to hear from readers about the obstacles they experience in travelling to the cathedral, and any remedies they would like to see for overcoming them.

Please email in confidence to: will.gibbs@stalbanscathedral.org

Geoff McMahon | Eco Team

Who IS William Fox?

Learn a little bit more about the Cathedral’s new Director of Music.

What do you listen to in order to relax?

Maybe this is a bit at the highbrow end, but I love listening to Jessye Norman singing the Strauss ‘Four Last Songs.’

What are you reading at the moment?

Robert MacFarlane’s The Old Ways.

What is your signature dish?

Scrambled eggs on toast. My secret is lots of sea salt, ground pepper, and chorizo.

Do you have any pets?

I don’t! But I’d quite like to have a dog…and a cat…and bees! And possibly chickens as well. I have big garden plans for my move to the wild North!

What sustains you outside of music?

I love walking on my day off, I’ve walked a bit of the Hertfordshire Way recently! While I’ve been in London I’ve been doing a lot of walking in Kent. I like long distance walking, with a pub, and somewhere to relax in the evening.

Were you a chorister?

I was, at York Minster with Philip Moore and Robert Sharpe, and it completely changed my life.

Do you play any other musical instruments?

I used to play clarinet and double bass, and I like playing the piano too. But my life is almost solely playing the organ now.

If you could play the organ at any venue, what venue would you choose? The Walt Disney concert hall!

What attracted you to the job at St Albans?

I think St Albans is a very special place: it has a great organ, a brilliant choir, and lovely people, and a very warm positive atmosphere. I’d always heard of that being the case about St Albans, so I found that really attractive. And of course it being in striking distance of London as well!

William Fox will join the Cathedral later this year as Director of Music.

View from the Back Row

1998 was an extraordinary year for musicians. It saw Elton John get knighted, Cher spend 7 weeks at the top of the charts with ‘Believe’ and Andrew Lucas appointed Master of the Music at St Albans Cathedral. 26 years on and we have been going through another appointments process, this time for Andrew’s successor. 26 years feels like an awfully long time to me, though admittedly only 2.5% of this building’s life. But there are three members of staff in the Cathedral who have been here for that length of time, and four members of the choir who were singing 26 years ago, all the way back in 1998.

Photo Caption: Owen Hughes, Roger Mullis, Will Houghton, Neil Baker and other members of the Cathedral Choir in 1998. Prizes for correct identifications.

Bass lay clerks Will Houghton and Owen Hughes were choristers then, and I asked them what that appointments process was like, and how it was different to now. Owen, who was head chorister, didn’t skimp with the detail:

“I genuinely can’t remember anything. I’ve heard Andrew say that I stared at him, and that I sang with my head tilted to one side.”

Will improved on this, remembering that there were four candidates: one he can’t remember, then ‘a funny Northern man’, Geraint Bowen (now at Hereford Cathedral), and Andrew Lucas. Neil Baker, one of two current alto lay clerks who sang 26 years ago, shed more light on ‘the funny Northern man’.

“One of the candidates told the choristers that if they got a certain phrase right he would arrange for them to have an evening with the Spice Girls, and if they got it wrong he would arrange for them to have two evenings with the Spice Girls. Which baffled us all. N.B It wasn’t Andrew.”

When pushed on musical details of the rehearsal, Neil began to unlock some trauma:

“I remember Andrew rehearsed some Bruckner (was it Locus Iste?) and he gave the Altos a really hard time about one of the phrases and made us do it again and again.”

“But he was by far the best candidate and we liked him.”

When considering the differences between the two processes, I wanted to know if, 25 years ago, the lay clerks were asked for feedback. Roger Mullis, the other alto who was singing 25 years ago, and who its always worth giving the final word to, revealed this:

“Dean Lewis gathered us all around in the south aisle and asked us what we thought. We said ‘we want Andrew Lucas’. He said ‘that is the correct answer.’ “

William Glendinning | Lay Clerk at St Albans Cathedral

Herts Young Homeless Charity

At Herts Young Homeless, our mission is to break the cycle of youth homelessness through education, advice and support for young people and their families. We work with 1624 year olds who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. Many of the young people we support are ‘hidden homeless’, which includes anyone who lacks a safe, stable, permanent home. Homelessness has a detrimental effect on young people’s physical and mental health, their employment and education prospects, and relationships. We offer a variety of county-wide specialist services, aiming to meet each individual where they are at, to provide the best possible tailored support.

Our Education service aims to prevent family conflict and breakdown, the biggest cause of youth homelessness. We run sessions in schools and youth groups on a range of topics such as housing, relationships, and independent living.

We also offer early intervention services such as our mediation service where we provide unbiased support to help families work through their issues.

Last year we saw a 78% improvement in family relationships through our mediation service. And the hyh hub, funded by Herts County Council, offers advice and information to 16 and 17 year olds reaching the point of crisis, working alongside other agencies to prevent homelessness. We offer specialist support with mental health, family relationships and drug and alcohol issues. For careleavers and those leaving supported accommodation who are aged 18-24, we offer our Outreach service, also funded by Herts County Council, which provides advice on housing related issues and supports young people to develop independent living skills over a period of up to six months.

Our workers empower young people to make positive, informed choices and ultimately to find stability. At hyh, we are so passionate about turning around young people’s lives and putting them at the centre of everything we do. We want to ensure that anyone struggling with housing issues, knows we are here, ready to listen.

Jodie Godfrey | Herts Young Homeless Charity

Reflections

St Albans Cathedral recently hosted an incredible installation created by Peter Walker Sculptor known as “Peace Doves”.

The piece consisted of thousands of paper doves hanging suspended below the Cathedral’s central tower. Each dove bore a message written by visitors to the Cathedral, members of the congregation, or participants from local schools. The display also featured light and sound effects, which combined with the doves to produce a unified message of peace.

I was lucky enough to attend the first viewing of the Peace Doves exhibition on the 5th of January. I was first struck by the sheer scale of the sculpture, which hangs above the crossing area in the centre of the Cathedral. I also found that the lights were very effective, with fading colours lighting the doves all the way up the tower, with soft colours that reflect the theme of the installation.

The sound effects combine with this to produce an incredible atmosphere of calm and serenity unlike anything that I’d experienced before.

Fr Calum, Youth Chaplain at the Cathedral, had this to say:

‘It has been quite moving to see the effect that the Peace Doves installation has had on visitors during the six weeks. Seeing those who took time to pause and reflect has been very poignant – especially while praying for peace is so important at this time.’

There have also been many related activities which have taken place under the peace doves, such as yoga sessions, poetry recitals, and a jazz concert. All in all, it has been a powerful installation and a great success. The question now is, what could we do next?

Benedict Moriarty | Cub Reporter

Events

2024 is an exciting time for Cathedral events having begun the year with our Peace Doves installation and the accompanying events programme.

We hosted yoga, concerts, talks, a theatre performance and even a fashion show.

Through the installation and its events we increased our January visitor figures by 12,000 on 2023.

Coming up over the next 3 months we have concerts from Russell Watson, Heather Small and Soul II Soul to look forward to. We will also be welcoming back the Silent Disco and Candlelight Concert teams after their popularity in 2023.

We continue to plan for the rest of the year and we can’t wait share with you the exciting events we have in store in the next issue of Alban News.

Carys Duggan-Rees| Events and Visitor Experience Manager

© Toby Shepheard

Learning

The summer of 1381 would have been a tumultuous time to live in St Albans, with the Great Rebellion (now known as The Peasants Revolt) in full swing and both monks and townsfolk fearful for their lives!

Here in the Learning Department we are always looking to bring to life key events in the Abbeys history and the role of the Monastery in this uprising is a natural story to tell.

The forthcoming 1381 Exhibition, which will be on display in the North Transept throughout July, examines the local and national background to the conflict, as well as the impact on members of the monastic community and residents of the town.

Would you have been a leader of the rebellion, an enthusiastic supporter or a reluctant follower? As a monk would you have stayed to defend the rights of the monastery, or fled for your life?

Visiting school groups will re-enact the events of that summer in St Albans, as well as exploring some key locations –Romeland, the Gatehouse, the Abbey Orchard - so they can stand on the spot where history was created.

For school groups and the visiting public, the interactive nature of the exhibition will bring the Great Rebellion to life, and challenge you to question where you stand on power, protest and rebellion.

Steve Clarke| Education Officer

Lent 2024

The Holy Season of Lent, is our annual preparation for the commemoration of the Suffering, Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and is a time for spiritual development and growth which all Christians should take seriously.

Part of the season is about simplifying our lives and this is reflected in our worship too. In part, this is to express a spirit of penitence, but it is also in order to provide striking contrast with the joyful celebration of Easter. This ‘giving up’ traditionally includes the omission of the Gloria at the Eucharist, the absence of flowers from the church, the restrained use of the organ to accompany

worship, and the careful selection of hymns in order to avoid the use of the word ‘Alleluia’ and similar expressions of joy which we will ‘save’ to greet the resurrection on Easter Day. These are only examples of how a distinctive atmosphere will pervade our worship with an air of austerity, but something that I hope is quite different from dreariness. Alongside this, we encourage members of the congregation to attend to their spiritual lives and there are some good Lent books for sale in the Cathedral shop and spiritual MOTs on offer for those who would like a 45-minute one-toone with a member of the ministry team.

Lent Groups

This year we have 15 Lent groups meeting around various homes on different days of the week in order to deepen our faith and study the psalms using material prepared by the Cathedral clergy. Entitled ‘Praying the Psalms for Today’, the five sessions look at different moods and styles of psalm, exploring the text together to consider what they might be saying to us in our faith journey. We hope that the discussions will be fruitful and will allow us time and space to grow in love for God and also strengthen our bonds of fellowship. Of course, we have home groups meeting around the year so if your experience of a Lent discussion group has been a good one, then do speak to Dawn Knight (dawnandandrew@ntlworld.com / 07795 117312) who will be happy to find a home group for you to join and enjoy.

Holy Week and Easter

As we enter the final days of Lent and enter Holy Week itself we enter a kind of ‘real time’ in our services as we journey with Jesus to Bethany, the Upper Room, to Gethsemane and Calvary and encounter the people and places of this most Holy Week, central to our life and at the very core of our faith. We are delighted that our Holy Week preacher this year is The Rt Revd Christine Hardman, former Bishop of Newcastle. In devotional addresses on Palm Sunday evening, the first three days of Holy Week and the Maundy Thursday liturgy and in the three hours devotion on Good Friday she will help us to immerse ourselves in the people, places and events of this most Holy Week.

The Revd Vanessa Jefferson | Precentor

Governance

At the end of last year Bishop

Alan approved, on Chapter’s recommendation, the appointment of Helen Gray as the first senior non-executive member of St Albans Cathedral Chapter.

Helen Gray is a longstanding worshipper at the Cathedral and is an existing Chapter member.

Helen was Development Manager and then Head of Operations here at the Cathedral, taking a lead in the Alban, Britain’s First Saint project. Leaving the Cathedral to be Foundation Director at Herts Community Foundation, Helen is now Trust Director for Benefact Trust.

The following people have also all joined Chapter as new members:

Judith Relf is a member of the congregation at St Mary, Woburn and is a retired finance professional having worked for HSBC. Judith is a fellow of the London Institute of Banking and Finance and is an experienced volunteer, treasurer, trustee and chair in the charity sector. Latterly she is the founder and team leader of the wonderful St Albans Cathedral ‘Holy Dusters’! Judith has also agreed to join the Cathedral’s Finance Committee.

Alan Stewart is a chorister parent with two sons in our Cathedral Choir. With his wife Jo he is a regular Choral Evensong attendee. Alan has had a career in law and finance and is currently Director of Finance Performance for the House of Commons. Alan is to be our new Chair of the Finance Committee, as Graham Field steps down from his faithful service in this role.

Julian Bowrey and Sarah Keeling continue as lay members of Chapter, with Sarah also now joining the Cathedral’s Mission and Ministry Committee.

In addition to these changes to Chapter, Nikki Loan, who is a member of our congregation and a leader in our children’s ministry, becomes the Chair of our new Audit and Risk Committee. Nikki has a long career in accountancy, specialising in audit, and is a partner at Peters Elworthy and Moore.

We give thanks for these talented people and the many gifts they bring to the leadership and mission of our Cathedral.

Tim Fleming | Chief Operating Officer

The Cathedral’s AGM will take place on Sunday 19 May at 7pm in the Alban Room.

Please make a note of the date and come to the meeting if you possibly can. As well as reviewing and giving thanks for the past year and receiving and approving the annual accounts, the following elections will also take place:

The election (or re-election) of our three Cathedral Wardens and the election of one new member of Mission and Ministry Committee.

Opening times

The Cathedral is open daily 8.30am – 5.30pm.

Entry is free

Entry is free, donations welcome. It costs £6000 a day to keep this historic Cathedral open and free of charge.

Tickets

Book online at www.stalbanscathedral.org, in-person at our Box Office, located in the Cathedral Shop, or call 01727 890290.

For the latest information visit our website and sign up for our What’s On newsletter.

St Albans Cathedral

Sumpter Yard, St Albans, Hertfordshire, AL1 1BY

Cathedral Office: 01727 890210

Email: mail@stalbanscathedral.org

/StAlbansCathedralOfficial @stalbanscathedral @StAlbansCath @stalbanscathedral

“St Albans Cathedral exists to glorify God and, inspired by the witness of Alban, proclaim Christ’s message of love.”