Mackman Group, the Churches Conservation Trust and the Bridge Project put their heads together to look at the branding of the new St Peter’s and all its planned activities. The aim was to make the new St Peter’s attractive to people who had never thought that anything inside St Peter’s was relevant to them and so they never entered the building. Considerable time and effort was made to find out why people, even those who had been born in Sudbury and lived here all their life, had never gone into St Peter’s – what was stopping them? 

Was it lack of curiousity, was it fear there might be something inside they did not feel comfortable with, was it peer pressure? Was the building seen as something that “other people” did but not them? Was the building just a boring throwback to another age that people did not connect with. Maybe their life was already full and they just did not need St Peter’s. Were there so few events on in St Peter’s that it was just not considered as an interesting venue.

So those are some of the reasons for the name change. A new name will never please everyone. Of course, names are not everything, its what goes on in the building that counts. It would though have been nice if the Friends had been consulted on the new name or if the Local Advisory Group had been asked for their views before the new name was adopted. But it was not to be.

My personal view – the building is St Peter’s. What goes on inside maybe call it Sudbury Arts Centre in St Peter’s. Getting more and different people into St Peter’s is what counts. 

I promised you all a summary of the Bridge Project presentation at the Friends of St Peter’s AGM and I know that was nearly six weeks ago.  So to keep it current and useful, I have added in later news updates.

Report on the works in St Peter’s – this report was given by Alli Burke, formerly of the Churches Conservation Trust and now operations manager for St Peter’s employed by the Bridge Project.  Alli summarised the works carried out to date, all of which is on time and within budget.  The roof works are now complete and most of the external scaffolding taken down.  Internally the kitchen, toilets and gallery areas are nearing completion.   Much of the internal repair works in the chancel area have been completed.  Additions to the original project include a new heating system and redecoration of most of the walls  – much of this work has now been completed as well.  

Alli also set out the work she has been doing with schools and others to get the interpretation displays and opening events all up to speed.  If you want to view her latest project newsletter and sign up for future ones, do please click here.

Future vision for St Peter’s  – this report was given by Dave Jackson of the Bridge Project.  Dave talked through the many opportunities that St Peter’s will give the Bridge Project to enhance the lives of the people of Sudbury, particularly people who are disadvantaged in some way and/or were seeking help.  The café did feature strongly in the Bridge Project vision for St Peter’s.  Clearly though some of the issues of marrying this vision up with running an event venue were not yet settled and we will have to wait to see how this will work out in practice.  In the meantime hirers who want to express an interest in booking St Peter’s should contact Alli Burke on alli.burke@thebridgeproject.co.uk.  You might also want to keep an eye out for the St Peter’s twitter feed (@StPeterSudbury) and the instagram account (@stpetersudbury) which often have more up to date information.  There is also the St Peter’s website for information.

Role of the Friends going forward – this is a really interesting discussion point and one that is evolving.  For now we have a number of roles, the main one being to provide funding for new equipment in St Peter’s and maintaining the organ and bells.  This we will do either through fundraising or from existing funds.  As part of this we received a request recently from the Churches Conservation Trust to fund the purchase of £30,000 of new equipment for St Peter’s and we have in principle agreed to this request, we are just negotiating on the terms of the funding as we would like to ensure that all equipment funded by us remains in Sudbury (so, not transferred out of the area if it is no longer required in St Peter’s) and we would like to ensure that all equipment funded by us is made available to community users of St Peter’s and for no charge in the case of lower value items and for only a modest charge in the case of higher value items.   

Initially we also see that we have a role in helping out and publicising volunteering opportunities in St Peter’s during the early phase when the soon to be recruited Engagement Officer is not yet fully up to speed. 

As you know the Bridge Project will be running St Peter’s in the future and the Churches Conservation Trust will continue to be responsible for maintaining the fabric of the building.  Funding for the Bridge Project management of St Peter’s is provided by the Lottery Fund in the short term – what happens after the end of this funding period will be a test for the Bridge Project.  This test is likely to be in 2024/25 and the Friends see they may well have a very positive contribution to make at this time to help secure the long term future of St Peter’s.  

AGM  formal business – all the formal resolutions were passed so there are no changes to the Trustees and management committee.  We are still a merry band consisting of myself (trustee and chairman), Roger Green (trustee and president), Phil Ivins (trustee and treasurer), Paul Lincoln (trustee and secretary), Peter Gray (trustee and vice chairman) and Graham Hall (management committee member).   

Conclusion – I know this summary leaves a number of key questions unanswered, and I know some hirers are feeling frustrated about the lack of certainty in the likely hiring arrangements.  I don’t think that the Bridge Project themselves know how things will work out in practice and it may take many months before things settle down but we do know that Alli, as operations manager for St Peter’s, will be doing her best for St Peter’s and we will support her strongly in this. 

For now though we are looking forward with huge anticipation and excitement to the re-opening of St Peter’s in September as this building plays such a key role in the community life of Sudbury.    

Sometimes things just get too difficult. We were all in favour of a heating upgrade BUT we wanted to make sure that any new heating system would not only be cost effective if St Peter’s was used seven days a week but also if St Peter’s was only used on a much more limited basis.  New heating systems do not come around very often and we wanted to ensure the most appropriate system was chosen and this choice was backed by a detalied report from a professional firm with fully qualified engineers. Unfortunately we could not be provided with such a report so we had to turn down the offer of funding the heating upgrade.