Marsh Charitable Trust – Marsh Volunteer Award with Church Recording Society

Marsh Volunteer Award with Church Recording Society

This Award recognises the invaluable work and significant contribution of a volunteer in achieving the charitable objects of the Church Recording Society and in the service of Church Recording.

These volunteers shown their dedication and innovation to Church Recording through their church, and help to deliver exceptional results that can be used by historians, antiquarians and researchers.

< back

Kate Nightingale, Paul Stillman, Sara Day, Sue Medcalf, and Wendy Woods 2024

Kate Nightingale, Fife Church Recording Group, Scotland

Kate has been at Fife Church Recording Group for over 25 years and has been an exemplary leader of the team. She has been able to recruit a continuous supply of volunteers as well as conducting their vital training. The two most recent churches recorded under Kate’s guidance have been done with obstacles at every turn. St Athernase was tackled with a novice compiler as well as two new recorders while the building was undergoing a major refurbishment. Following this, Kate’s team embarked upon Crail Parish Church with a group of three experienced members and four other volunteers. This recording period was interrupted by the pandemic and the sudden death of their compiler. Kate soldiered on, despite encountering health problems, and has only now decided to pass the baton to her successor making the current church she is working on the last that she will record.

Paul Stillman, Reigate Church Recording Group, Surrey

Paul has been with Reigate Church Recording group for 4 years, a group who have been recording the fixtures and fittings of St Mary Magdalene, the Parish Church of Reigate for 10 years. It is a large church with over 75 monuments and 29 stained glass windows, which give an insight into the social and religious life of the town. Sadly, their photographer died during the project that they are undertaking and so Paul stepped in to continue this important work. During Paul’s involvement with the project, he has taken 350 images that will bring to life the final record to be presented to the church. His expertise is especially marked when working with stained glass and his determination to provide the church with the best possible results. He has responded to the technical demands of providing images to meet the requirements for the printed record for the church. Paul’s contribution has enhanced the quality of the church record and will allow for better preservation and access to the church’s heritage and history. Paul is always willing to give time to the group and does not mind returning to retake photographs if needed.

Sara Day, The Arts Society Granta, Cambridge

Sara has been an outstanding leader of the Arts Society Granta Group of Church Recorders for many years. Her extraordinary comprehensive knowledge of church furnishings, architecture, and history has guided the group over the years so that both new and established volunteers can be sure of her expert help on any subject. Each of the churches recorded has had its treasures expertly described and on top of that Sara has collated, checked and typed all the volunteers’ notes, which is an immense amount of work. Records recently completed include St Andrew’s Stapleford and St Helen’s Little Eversden, two of the latest churches added to the long list of Cambridgeshire churches recorded under Sara’s brilliant leadership. Without Sara’s leadership and inspiration, it is very doubtful whether church recording in the area would have continued.

Sue Medcalf, The Arts Society, Suffolk

Sue supports a number of Arts Societies and Church Recording Groups across East Anglia. She has been leader of the West Suffolk and Bury Church Recording group for nearly 25 years, and an area representative since 2007. Sue is always generous with her time and keen to share her knowledge with other members through presentations of complete records, as well as welcoming new recruits. Each year, Sue has organised area meetings, covering a broad range of relevant subjects such as church silver, medieval graffiti, church pewter, stonework and woodwork. Sue wrote the Textile pages on the Church Recording Society website, and she has also held immensely helpful study days on Textiles for recorders to improve their understanding. When St Edmund’s Cathedral requested a record and there was no group available to undertake such a big project, Sue organised the recording herself, a huge additional project and one greatly appreciated by the cathedral. Not only does she lead her team in church recording, but she also organises interesting visits to other churches of interest. In total Sue has been responsible for, involved with or checked more than 85 Church records.

Marsh Lifetime Achievement Award

Wendy Woods, Horsham Church Recording Group, West Sussex

Wendy has been involved in Church Recording locally and nationally for many years. She has aided the Horsham group to record 23 churches and has also come to the rescue of 4 more churches that had either been abandoned by the loss of the group or had ground to a halt. Many Church Recorders have been taught by Wendy. She goes through every Record to extract and record the information, names, categories, locations which goes to the public index of information in Church Records. Wendy’s knowledge and skills is spread nationwide, and many groups rely on her expertise. She is currently copying, for their archive of Church Records, records kept in digital format at the V&A, a major project to increase the number of Records of which the Church Recording Society has a copy. The list of things that Wendy has done, and continues to do for Church Recording is endless, and nobody is more respected than her.

Previous Winners

Judith Jeffcoate, Monica Slater and Sue Behrens

Judith Jeffcoate – North Buckinghamshire

Judith was one of the earlier members of the Arts Society North Buckinghamshire, volunteering to help organise the committee. She has given 15 years of committed service to the group, previously as Group Leader and Compiler of Church Records. She still continues to record Stonework and is a highly-respected source of advice and guidance to other recorders, whilst also training new recorders for the future. She has recorded Stonework for 6 churches and has single-handedly undertaken huge tasks of exceptional recordings. Judith is able to give recorders confidence with her welcoming, calm and patient manner and is always willing to stop what she is doing to offer help to lead the group to achieve a successful completion of records. She arranges monthly meetings to report on any progress or queries which has helped to establish a well-rounded, committed team. Judith’s I.T skills meant that she is more than capable of coping with the rather complex Microsoft Word ‘template’ which recorders were asked to use to write the detailed descriptions of the objects they were researching. Judith is always keen to encourage recorders to attend Study Days that are offered by experienced recorders, so that team members can increase their own knowledge.

Monica Slater – Hampshire and Sheffield

Monica has demonstrated inspiring leadership both locally and across the North-East region over the past 20 years, eventually becoming the leader of the group and encouraging members to learn from each other. She was essential in growing the group to create a loyal band of committed volunteers who she motivated and led to help grow even further and arranges regular meetings to discuss progress, share findings and inspire further work. Monica took on an exceptional amount of responsibility for initiating recordings, seeking support for its continuance. She was able to gain access to churches which had never considered they had any remarkable features but trusted Monica and her team’s investigations. Before her involvement, very little work of this nature was undertaken in and around Sheffield and the lack of recorded information on some notable historic sites was initially very daunting and challenging. Monica did not allow these factors to overwhelm the group. She set about remedying this state of affairs in the most constructive ways she could, using the available time, skills and abilities of the members, and growing and developing their skills.

Susan Behrens – Harrogate

Susan has made an enormous and valuable contribution to Church Recording at a Group, Area and National level for over 26 years. Susan shows leadership as a Group Leader steering the recording of many churches and sharing her expertise in training and willingness for hard work as well as inspiring others. As a Church Recording Area Representative responsible for and assisting 11 groups, she regularly visits members and provides support for the meetings. Sue helps to run study and training days to help increase the standard of work being produced. Being aware that there was considerable expertise around in the different groups, Susan initiated and arranged opportunities for more experienced recorders to visit newer groups to share their knowledge. At a national level, Sue uses her expertise in photography to help churches change to digital photography for Church Records and previously helped to rewrite the Handbook of Church Recording.

Kip Warr

From 2015 -2019, Kip Warr was the national Church Recording Team’s technology expert. He played an invaluable role in the implementation of digital production and delivery for church records and took part in the exploration of other technology which would enhance the making, promotion and use of the records. Despite a heart attack forcing him to resign from his post in 2019, Kip got involved once again when the Church Recording Society was formed in 2021. He took on the task of creating the Society’s website on a voluntary basis, which turned out to be a huge task as he was dealing with people with little to no experience in developing websites. Kip has spent many hundreds of hours creating the website and has been outstandingly patient, as well as saving the Church Recording Society up to £20,000 (which they would have had to pay to have a website of this quality created professionally). The website is essential to the Church Recording Society, without it the national Church Recording Project would not be able to continue.