Since September, Simon Toyne, the Executive Director of Music at the David Ross Education Trust, has served as our Interim Director of Music following the departure of Stephen Moore. It is never easy stepping into another's shoes at short notice and for a relatively brief period. (Simon's final Sunday directing the choir will be 8 January.) Simon has not only enabled us to maintain and develop our musical life at a moment when it could so easily have suffered, he has done so with great energy and enthusiasm. He directed our Music & Arts Festival at St Matthews-tide, and people are still talking about the rather wonderful Compline service sung by the Malcolm Arnold Academy Chapel Choir.

Building a choir and a consistently high musical standard takes time and skill, and Simon would be the first to acknowledge Stephen's legacy in this respect. You may also appreciate that these things are easily lost without the right person at the helm. Our choir is in excellent health, as evidenced by their outstanding contribution to our worship recently. We are indebted to Simon, who will continue to worship with us, for all that he has achieved and made possible.

We await the arrival this month of our new director of music, Justin Miller. Justin comes to us from Worcester Cathedral, and I know that you will welcome and support him as he sets about the task of getting to know us and the locality. Justin's first Sunday with us will be 15 January, when he will be inducted into the ways of our monthly All Age Mass!