Anglican Communion News Service - Digest News

By Glyn Paflin, Church Times

THE Archbishop of the West Indies since 2009, Dr John Holder, is awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list, announced last weekend. His award is for ser­vices to religion (Barbados list).

Also among the new CBEs, for services to conservation, is Dr Simon Thurley, the chief executive of English Heritage, under whom it has launched its Inspired! campaign to protect the future of England’s churches. He is also on the Council of St Paul’s Cathedral.

For services to transport and the voluntary sector, there is a knight­hood for an outspoken Free Church­man, Brian Souter, chief executive of the Stagecoach Group, and founder of the Souter Charitable Trust. His honour has attracted criticism, since he also campaigned to retain Section 28, which forbade the “intentional” promotion of homosexuality by local authorities.

There is a CVO for Allan Willett CMG, Lord-Lieutenant of Kent, who chairs the Canterbury Cathed­ral Trust Fund. There is an LVO for the head of St George’s School, Windsor, Roger Jones, the choir school for St George’s Chapel.

An Evangelical Synod member for Rochester diocese, Brigadier Ian Dobbie, who is general secretary of the Council of Voluntary Welfare Workers, is among the OBEs, for his services to the Armed Forces. He chairs the Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Scripture Readers Association.

In the diplomatic list for his ser­vices to the British interests and the community in Turkey, Canon Geoffrey Evans, Chaplain of St Nicholas’s, Ankara, also receives an OBE, as does Andy Hawthorne, the founder and chief executive of the Message Trust, for his services to young people in Greater Man­chester. Edmund De Waal, the ceramic artist and author, also receives an OBE for services to art.

Among the MBEs is Jonathan Bielby, Organist and Director of Music at Wakefield Cathedral, for his services to choral music. His oratorio This Precious Earth had its première last year (Arts, 16 July 2010). There is also an MBE for Prebendary Philippa Boardman, for services to heritage in east London, where, as Vicar since 1996, she oversaw the restoration of St Paul and St Mark, Old Ford, given a new lease of life for the community.

Other MBEs include Michael Butler, County Commissioner for Norfolk Scouts, for services to young people; Michael Clinch, for services to witnesses and victims in Somerset; Dr Karilyn Collins, a former USPG mission companion in Tanzania, formerly director of Muhuza Hospice Care, for services to medicine, particularly to the promotion of palliative care in East Africa; Richard Davies, director of the Marches Energy Agency, for services to sustainable energy; John Ebdon, who chairs Chichester dio­cesan advisory committee, for ser­vices to the community in Sussex; Barry Edwards, architect of the Commonwealth War Graves Com­mis­sion, for services to heritage; Pauline Geraghty, from Darwen, a programme manager for the Chil­dren’s Society, who has for 11 years developed the Lancashire Children’s Rights Project; the Hon. Paul Joynson-Hicks, the travel photo­grapher, for services to disadvan­taged persons in Tanzania, where he has enabled wheelchair-bound men to train as welders and sell their sculptures made from metal scrap.

Also: the Revd Wyn Jones, OLM in Ouzel Valley, for services to the community Leighton Buzzard; Dr Ed Kessler, founding director of the Woolf Institute of Abrahamic Faiths (a Church Times contribu­tor), for services to interfaith rela­tions; Margaret Langton, for services to the community in Chattisham, Suffolk, where her activities have included a monthly lunch club for a sheltered housing community; Kay Liddle, for her services to the Bible Society and to religion (Papua New Guinea list); and Jill McCleery, who chairs the governors of St Ebbe’s C of E Aided Primary School, Oxford, for voluntary service to education.

Also among the MBEs is Michael Macey, a church musician, for services to music and the commun­ity of Welling, Kent. He has been a PCC member and churchwarden, helped with Scouting and other community work, and set up choirs.

Also: Kathy Morrison, a Metho­dist who is administrator of the St Philip’s Centre, Leicester, and PA to its director, Canon John Hall; Robert Musgrave, a youth worker for more than 35 years at Providence House Christian Centre, near Clap­ham Junction in London, taking groups away on rural breaks; and Bill Nicholls, a Reader, for services to the community in Heath Town, Wolverhampton. He has served on Synod, as deanery lay chairman, and on the Bishop’s Council. A church-school governor, he has chaired Wolverhampton Link Line, a lunch club, and the New Park Village Activities Network for the young.

Other MBEs include: Colin Parkin, director of facilities for York St John University; Caroline Riley of Paignton, an administrative officer at Jobcentre Plus in Torquay; Ann Sankey, for voluntary service to the Church Lads’ and Church Girls’ Brigade in Leicestershire, especially at St David’s, Broom Leys, Coalville; Carolyn Shiptone, who works for the Christian charity Care for the Family on the Isle of Man, for services to the community; David Stuttard of Biddulph, Stoke-on-Trent, who, using skills learnt in the Royal Engineers, has improved water sanitation in Ghana through his organisation, MyUbique, to prevent sight-loss. He lost most of his own sight to diabetes.

There is an MBE, too, for Liz Woods, for services to the Garden Tomb Association. For the past 20 years, she has managed the staff and shop at the Garden Tomb, and has been described as its “lynchpin” amid the ups and downs of life in East Jerusalem.

[ACNS Editor's note: The Most Revd Dr John Walder Dunlop Holder is Primate of the Church of the Province of the West Indies]