A new team of three people joined the Diocese in September to take forward the goal identified through Diocese-wide consultations two years ago of establishing sustainable finances for mission and ministry.

Archdeacon of Cleveland Sam Rushton took to the road in the last year to meet with clergy and lay people across the Diocese, to explore with them the nature and the scale of the challenges we face as a diocesan family of churches.

Beginning in September 2018, the Generous Giving and Stewardship Team plans to offer a range of resources, advice and support to parishes, deaneries and clergy as they enable regular givers to respond in gratitude to the generosity of God.

  • Team Leader Jo Beacroft-Mitchell (top picture) comes to York with nine years’ experience of working in stewardship and a career in charity fundraising before that.
    Jo represents the Northern Region on the National Stewardship Committee, and in recent years has been involved in the National Legacies Strategy and in developing resources for the Parish Resources website.
  • Adviser David Smallwood (middle picture) has been a British Telecom data analyst for 36 years and was a long-serving Treasurer and then Churchwarden at St Luke’s, York, bringing experience of parish administration and personal faith commitment to his new work.
  • Adviser Sammi Tooze (lower picture) comes to the Diocese of York with a background in stewardship and ministry, and is a member of the Diocesan Leading Your Church into Growth (LYCiG) team.
    She is closely involved in the worshipping life of York Minster, and brings a wealth of experience in liturgy and worship.

Working closely as part of a wider team led by Martin Sheppard as Director of Communications and Parish Resourcing, the team is already at work analysing financial data, obtaining and adapting resource material, and reviewing the helpful work of former Archdeacon for Generous Giving David Butterfield.

They plan to start visiting around the Diocese before the end of this year.