St Mary Magdalene St Mary Magdalene Fleet Gedney St Luke’s St Mark’s Holbeach Hurn Holbeach St Marks The Mid-Elloe Group of Parishes Profile 2020 The Mid-Elloe Group of Parishes 0.5 Incumbent of the Mid Elloe Group Who we are and what we are looking for We are four rural parishes with two fabulous medieval and two charming Victorian church buildings, all of which are well maintained. We serve the rural communities either side of the A17 just to the North and East of Holbeach in a very pleasant and peaceful area of the fens with many opportunities for cultural and environmental enrichment. Under our last incumbent we began to reap the benefits of working more closely together as a group and we have a deep desire to see our parishes flourish and seek a leadership that will help us develop a sense of direction for the future. There is immense scope for outreach into the community, particularly through developing our contact with families via the children in the four schools in the benefice, but also through the Care Homes and Community Centres and the significant areas of new housing currently being built in some of our parishes. We are seeking a priest with a pastoral heart and a real passion for Rural Ministry who is: • Secure in their faith • An engaging and inspiring preacher who can relate to the congregation in a down to earth manner • Comfortable with different styles of worship • At ease working with children and their families and making themselves known in the wider community • Experienced enough to contribute towards the training of a curate • Willing to enrich our deanery with a skill and passion they have for a particular area of ministry which might be offered to the wider church for example o Adult Education o Lay Training o Pioneering a new congregation And can help us to: • see the spiritual in the everyday • deepen our discipleship and encourage us in ministry • increase our outreach into the local community • develop a vision for the future • work even more effectively together as a benefice In return we can offer you: • A warm welcome and enthusiastic support for the challenges ahead • Some hard-working fund-raising teams and PCCs • Excellent catering skills • An excellent, well presented and modern family home, next to Fleet Church • Good local primary and secondary schools • Full administrative support at a deanery level • A working partnership with the benefice of Holbeach An enhanced DBS check is required and will need to be in place prior to the appointment. Full expenses of office will be reimbursed. It is expected that the priest will take their regular weekly day off as well as their annual holiday entitlement. The importance of study leave, Spiritual Direction and an annual retreat is recognised. They will be encouraged to use this provision to enhance their ministry and our own. For further information or an informal conversation about this post please contact: The Ven Justine Allain Chapman (Archdeacon of Boston) Email: [email protected] Tel - 01522 504039 or Rev’d Canon Rosamund Seal (Rural Dean) Email: [email protected] Tel - 01406 424989 Closing Date: Sunday 23rd February 2020 Interview Date Thursday 26th March 2020 The Area The historic county of Lincolnshire is the The wide horizons offer both spectacular second largest county in England, stretching sunsets and sunrises. A huge variety of food from the Humber in the North to the Wash in crops, bulbs and flowers are grown in the the South and from Nottinghamshire and fertile fields. There is plenty of wildlife in the Rutland in the West to the coast of the North fields and waterways, and the dykes and the Sea in the East. marshlands of The Wash are a bird watcher’s paradise. The Mid-Elloe group of parishes are in the south-east corner of Lincolnshire in the The flat landscape makes cycling easy and district of South Holland. The area is largely there are lovely walks (with or without a dog) reclaimed from the sea, flat and criss-crossed out on the marshes which are peaceful and with a network of drainage channels, dykes soul-restoring. and roads. There are many surrounding historic sites, The benefice is home to a number of key towns and villages. Spalding is the principal players in the Food Processing Industry who town in the district with many Georgian provide employment for a significant number houses, shops and a market. of migrant workers from Eastern Europe on Tree-lined footpaths follow the River Welland whom our economy has become very and a water taxi boat runs between the river dependent. Many of these workers are now and Springfields Shopping Outlet on the edge on permanent contracts and have lived here of the town. The sea coast, including the lovely for several years and become integrated into resorts of North Norfolk, is within easy reach in the community and there are some exemplary 40 minutes or so by car. employers in the benefice who have contributed to the work of the Clewer The communities are largely rural and there is Initiative. Others, however, are employed by little unemployment, though much of the agencies on short term contracts at peak work is low paid. Some are employed in times of the year and, consequently the farming and the large number of food Modern Slavery Act is a live issue in the area, processing industries in the area, whilst other but one for which the council and the police people commute to the surrounding larger take their responsibilities very seriously. towns, or even to London. Many of the newcomers, who are retired, come from the south chiefly because the housing is more affordable and they have found a warm welcome from the people of the Fens. As an area previously renowned for growing tulips there are a number of spectacular and very well-supported church flower festivals in Ayscoughfee Gardens, Spalding South Holland. The Vicarage There is a kitchen/diner, dining room and large Fleet Rectory, situated adjacent to Fleet sitting room downstairs. Upstairs are four church, and sharing a boundary fence, was bedrooms, a family bathroom with a separate built in the 1970s and extended and toilet, a large en-suite bathroom off the master modernised in 2008. The house is now an bedroom and a spacious storage area above excellent, comfortable and easily maintained the garage. It has a single garage, several brick family home. It has a large self-contained built outbuildings, parking space for several study, capable of accommodating a group of cars and a large garden, currently laid mainly 12 people, with a downstairs cloakroom off to grass, but with a lot of scope for a keen the entrance hall. gardener. community groups in the area and lots to do! Local Facilities The following will just give you a taste of Medical Care some of them. Drama groups for all ages, art There are chemists and doctors’ surgeries in classes, Rotary, U3A, Air & Army Cadets, Holbeach and Long Sutton. NHS hospitals are Beavers, Scouts and Adventurer Explorers, the Queen Elizabeth in King's Lynn, the Pilgrim public cinemas, swimming pools and Hospital in Boston, Johnson Community theatres, bowls, football, tennis, dance Hospital in Spalding, Peterborough City classes, yoga and some excellent golf Hospital and the Fitzwilliam in Peterborough - courses! all within easy reach. In Wisbech there is the Communications North Cambridgeshire Hospital, a satellite of Apart from the A17, which bisects the the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, and in Holbeach benefice, the roads are largely rural and used there is a Cottage Hospital offering hospice by agricultural, domestic and an increasing and respite care for the local community as well amount of commercial traffic serving the local as long term care for the elderly. food producing industry. Rail connections to Education London and the Midlands are from King’s Lynn, Spalding and Peterborough. The The children within the parishes generally journey to King’s Cross takes 55 minutes from attend their local primary schools. There are Peterborough and 1 hour 50 minutes from Community Primary Schools in Fleet (161 on Kings Lynn. Local bus services run regularly roll), Holbeach Bank (68 on roll) and in Gedney between Spalding and King’s Lynn. There is a (77 on roll) and a Church of England Primary bus service (505) which runs between Kings School at Holbeach St Marks (51 on roll). Lynn and Spalding which travels through Others travel into one of the two large primary Gedney, Fleet and Holbeach, with up to two schools in Holbeach. Lincolnshire still buses an hour on weekdays and Saturdays, maintains a selective system at 11+ and pupils between 7am and 7pm, and at least one per travel into Spalding Grammar School (for hour on Sundays between 9am and 6pm. For boys) and Spalding High School (for girls). the outlying villages, Call-Connect is an ‘on Other local secondary schools are the demand’ bus service that operates in University of Lincoln Academy in Holbeach, response to pre-booked requests and links to The Spalding Academy and the University a hub that connects to the aforementioned Academy Long Sutton. There is also an 505 Service. There is no fixed timetable as the independent fee-paying Grammar School in route the bus takes is defined by passenger Wisbech, catering for children up to age 18 demand and can differ each day. The major with an infant section for ages 4+. There is a city centres of Peterborough (25 miles), secondary school for children with moderate Lincoln (45 miles) and Cambridge (55 miles) learning difficulties and also a 4-18 school for are within reach by road.