As of July 2026 we have had three of our regular meetings with the CCT in addition to the presentation by the CCT to various representatives of the town in April. This April meeting was about the various options available to the CCT in running Sudbury Arts Centre once the funding from the Lottery Fund ceases at the end of 2026. There is a separate post about this as it is clearly a very important topic which is here.

A summary of our regular meetings with the CCT since the start of 2026 is below.

Friends groups: the CCT has decided that going forward it will only work with Friends groups that are either CCT volunteer groups (i.e they are legally part of the CCT) or the Friends group is constituted as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation – normally referred to as a CIO. The reasons for this policy change are not entirely clear although it seems to be related to some Friends groups being treated as legally part of the CCT only for the CCT to realise that this was not the case.

What this policy change has meant for us is that our requests for authorisation for investigation works to be carried out on the organ have been returned to us until we confirm whether we will become part of the CCT or we convert to a CIO. Currently we are an unincorporated association which is neither of the two accepted Friends groups types. The trustees of the Friends strongly believe that Sudbury and St Peter’s would be best served by an independent Friends group firmly rooted in the community so we have decided to convert the Friends of St Peter’s to a CIO. This is a two stage process, the first stage is to update our constitution and the second stage is to apply to the Charity Commission for conversion of the Friends to a CIO.

Extraordinary General Meeting: We have a meeting open to all on 14 September in the Hive at 6:30 pm to set out our proposals for changes to the constitution. While formally only members of the Friends can actually vote on these proposals we do want to explain these changes to the commnunity and get their views. Once the changes to the constitution have the approval of the members and also by the Charity Commission then stage 1 of the process will have been completed. More details on this and on stage 2 are set out here.

The organ: the organ in St Peter’s is struggling at the moment with sets of pipes becoming inoperable due to long term damage, caused either through damp, temperature changes, sheer old-age or a combination of all three. The CCT does not take responsibililty for the organ, if we want it fixed we need to fund it (including finding funding) ourselves. As of May 2026 the CCT have recommended a firm to us to investigate the causes of issues with the organ and we will be taking this up.

The Bells: There may be a chance to ring all 10 bells from the mezzanine floor by judicious re-hanging of some of the bells. We look forward to more detail from the Suffolk Guild however this is taking more time to progress than we had hoped but we are still hopeful that it will happen at some stage in the future but we are talking years here.

Religious services in St Peter’s: the CCT has now confirmed that up to six services a year can take place in St Peter’s. Up to now it has been very difficult to get bookings for services in the building, this includes the St Peter’s Day service which traditionally always took place in St Peter’s and this year falls on June 29.

Lighting in St Peter’s: Good news, the CCT may well use the funding it has from the renovation project to replace the existing lights with LED ones. Not I am afraid ones that are all the colours of the rainbow (just plain white light) but at least the new lights should last longer than the existing ones.

Banners hanging from lamp-posts outside St Peter’s: We have been asked to fund replacement ones out of the orginal donation we gave the CCT to purchase equipment.

Installation of cleaners sink: Currently St Peter’s does not have a sink that the cleaners can use to dispose of dirty water, the ones in the kitchen are, as you would expect, purely for food related activities. We were asked to fund the installation of one but the CCT has in fact managed to find alternative funding so hopefully this will be going ahead soon.