Garden Party: vistors, farewells, and sunshine

5 July 2012

We had welcome (and somewhat unexpected) sunshine for the annual Trinity Garden Party last week on Thursday 28 June, attended by friends of the college, former students, staff past and present, and local people including some of Trinity's neighbours and the Lord Mayor of Bristol, Councillor Peter Main (above), and two former Mayors, Councillors Geoff Gollop and Chris Davies, and their wives.

The Lord Mayor talked to children from the Trinity Day Nursery, letting them try on his hat. The children had come along to bring cards which they had made for the three staff members who leave us this term: Sally Leader, our Receptionist (above left and centre), who has been the welcoming public face (and voice) of Trinity for the past 26 years, Bill MacDougall (right-hand photo) who has been Director of Pastoral Studies and more recently Director of Part-time Studies, and Revd Sonja Arnold (right-hand photo) who has had responisbility for our context-based and pioneer training and our student missions. Revd Dr John Nolland gave a speech of thanks to them all during the afternoon; Jen Eyles, one of the kitchen staff, had made a special cake (below).

The Garden Party took place duing our summer conference, 'Looking to Jesus - Looking to the Future', at which the main speakers were Trinity faculty members. Subjects ranged over the environmental crisis (Dr John Bimson), ethical issues (Revd Dr John Nolland), global mission (Canon George Kovoor), biblical studies (Dr Gordon Wenham on Psalms and Revd Dr David Wenham on the Sermon on the Mount), prophecy today (Revd Dr Knut Heim), revivals past and present (Revd Dr Nigel Scotland), worship and mission (Revd Dr Paul Roberts) and growing the church today (Revd Dr Ron Jackson).

The previous week we held a conference especially for our research students and next week our part-time students have their own summer school at which the main teaching will be on early church history by Nigel Scotland.