Letter to Sam Richardson, SPCK

Dear Sam,

It was a pleasure to meet you and Alister albeit briefly at the CRE event last Wednesday.  I am enclosing a small cheque in return for your tea-bag and biscuits.  Your names I found in your excellent accompanying pamphlet.

God knows why but I am writing to you on the penultimate piece of writing paper that I sourced in Eilat back in 1992.  It was me that joked ‘tongue-in-cheekily’ with Alister about Southwark being a finer cathedral than Durham although of course we do not have a bend in our river  –  and then I hope I handed you one of the enclosed leaflets about Being Alongside / APCMH the charity with which I am involved.

We very much hope to get our act together in time to participate in the CRE South event near Southampton on 27th November  –  we will struggle to produce enough promotional material by then,  but will try.  There didn’t seem to be any stalls up at Manchester with a particular ‘mental health’ flavour so I feel there is a place for us.

One of my tasks at present ( as new chairman ) is to develop a codicil template for people’s wills which seems a good way to fund-raise in the future.  Look at the work that Smiths’ Charities are now able to fund for example  –  their original benefactors are named in All Saints Church in Wandsworth.  I was wondering if SPCK had any documentation regarding wills and codicils that I could peruse ?  Please send any stuff you have to the address overleaf  –  thanks.

I shall be passing on extracts from your ‘Tea Break with SPCK’ brochure to Johnny Cameron who is working with prisoners and ex-offenders after his bad times at RBS and the ‘History and honey cakes’ article will be of interest to my friend Stuart Hall who has recently learned that one of his ancestors was the vicar on the Mayflower.

Stuart is helping me with my ‘blog’,  www.shirtyletters.com.  Please have a look  –  first perhaps at the two tabs top right,  ‘About Shirty Letters’ and ‘About the Author’;  then have a browse around the categories.  Being Alongside / APCMH gets much mention.

Once again,  very good to meet yourself and Alister and I hope we can cross our paths again soonest,

Yours in Christ,

Jamie Summers