It’s high time I introduce myself.  My name is Angie Kateley and I am looking forward to joining you as your new vicar very soon. During June I will be moving to the vicarage in St Weonards, and then on Monday 1st July I will be licensed by Bishop Richard and installed by Archdeacon Derek as Priest-in-Charge of the St Weonards Benefice.  After that, our adventures together begin!   I will be joined by my dog Benji, and my adult daughter, Phoebe, will be around on and off.

I’m coming to you following a happy curacy with the team in the Abbeydore Deanery.  It was there that I learnt to love the beautiful countryside and communities of these borderlands, with their hills, valleys and rivers, narrow winding lanes, every type of tractor and of course especially the wonderful people.  My joy at being able to move just a little south and east to join you in your remarkably handsome benefice is resounding and abundant.

This will be my first time as a priest-in-charge, and I will be doing some learning as I go.   It is my nature to take a more informal and pondering approach to things, and I think there are few situations and conversations that can’t be vastly improved by throwing in a nice cup of tea.   I will take my commitment to pray for you very seriously, in fact I’ve already begun.  And being a vicar I’m likely to bang on about Jesus a bit too.

There’s going to be plenty of time: I won’t so much hit the ground running as hit the ground at a gentle but enthusiastic potter.  My big first priority will be getting to know you and your communities.  In that spirit, to give you a head start in getting to know me, here is a randomly selected, fairly useless bunch of facts:

1. If looking for me in a crowd, you often just need to follow the sound of my outrageously loud laugh.
2. I am a scouser by birth.
3. I once ever so slightly headbutted a former Archbishop of Canterbury.
4. I was a secretary and portfolio PA before training for ordination.
5. Despite best efforts to avoid it, I find myself at 48 looking very like my paternal grandmother (short and round with a crop of recalcitrant curls).

So, good people of Garway, Hentland, Hoarwithy, Michaelchurch, Orcop, Pencoyd, St Weonards and Tretire, get that kettle on and I’ll be round soon.

God bless you,