An Important Announcement from the CaSS Trustees
24th April 2025
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Everything that happens in this world happens at the time God chooses. He sets the time for birth and the time for death, the time for planting and the time for pulling up. Ecclesiastes 3: 1-2
CaSS is 40 years old this year, and we will celebrate this on Thursday 3rd July (details below). During this long time we have employed two excellent Advisers who have linked churches and individual Christians with schools in a great variety of imaginative and effective ways. Linda Chambers and Fiona Walton have faithfully served God and Sheffield Schools, with very good administrative help in recent years. Linda retired after 26 years in 2011, and Fiona retires this summer after 14 years. We owe them both so much.
Over the last 9 months or so, the Trustees have thought deeply and prayed often about our future direction. We have seen other Christian groups move into several areas that were previously ours exclusively. We have felt that God was closing doors which were previously open. Following much discussion amongst ourselves and with Christian colleagues and supporters, the Trustees formally and unanimously agreed on Thursday 28th March that we will finish our work on 31st August 2025, and close the Sheffield Schools Christian Worker Trust on 30th September 2025. We do this with sadness, but with a deep conviction that this is right.
We will continue our work for the next 5 months, and we will need our usual funding to do this. We also wish to make sure that the legacy of our work is maintained for the benefit of Christian groups and individuals into the future. This, too, will require funding. Some of our activities will move easily into other Christian organisations. The very successful annual Joined Up Conferences will still have their organising committee in place. Our highly praised School Chaplaincy and School Ministry training course needs to have its resources made available for others to use in the future. This will be one of our two major projects over the next few months, and we are actively seeking funding for this. The other major project, a schools’ resource pack on Christian leadership as exemplified by Sir John Laing, is already funded.
Fiona and our excellent part-time administrator, Jacqueline Ryan, will be very busy over the next few months, both with these two major projects and with the mechanics of transferring our many resources (both physical and on our website) into their new homes. Please keep Fiona and Jacqueline in your prayers during this difficult and uncertain time.
The Trustees are very grateful to all of you who have supported our work, in some cases for all the 40 years. God has blessed our work because of your faithfulness and generosity. Whether you have prayed or donated or supported practically in any capacity, for a short time or for a long time, we would like to invite you to a celebration of the work of CaSS on Thursday 3rd July, from 7pm - 9pm at Bents Green Methodist Church at the junction of Ringinglow Road and Knowle Lane. Please RSVP by Thursday 26th June by emailing Jacqueline at admin@cass-su.org.uk if possible; otherwise, please phone or preferably text Fiona on 07812 855 332, so that we can cater properly. Thank you.
We pray that God will bless all of you who are continuing to support the young people of Sheffield.
Linda Chambers, Philippa Dand, Richard Donkin, Glenn Evans, Cherry Mair, Alan Nickless (Trustees).
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