The past year has been a busy one for the Central Council. It began with the appointments of Fr Dennis Touw, who succeeded the late Fr Peter Latham as National Director and Fr Keith Stoakes, who succeeded Fr Kevin Jordan as Westminster Director. Both these appointments have been very successful as Fr Dennis and Fr Keith are great supporters of the Guild and have certainly made their mark in modernising the work of the Central Council. Fr Dennis has been heavily involved in revamping the web site to make it more user-friendly while Fr Keith has very kindly allowed the goods stock to be stored at his Church. The Central Council would like to thank Fr Kevin Jordan for the work he did during his time as Westminster Diocesan Director.

The last of the Centenary events took place on Friday 11th November 2005 - the Centenary Dinner- was held at the Tavistock Hotel and was judged a great success with more than 75 people plus invited guests enjoying an excellent meal. The Guest of Honour was the Papal Nuncio, His Excellency Archbishop Faustino Sainz Munoz, who gave a very inspiring address.

One ongoing Centenary project is fund-raising to install a mosaic of St Stephen in Westminster Cathedral. It will be positioned at the back of the Sanctuary near the credence table and above where the Altar Servers sit. This is a long term project as it will cost an estimated £60,000. It is being looked after by Nicholas Tilbury. He is currently running a Create a Mosaic campaign throughout the country and funds have been coming in a steady rate. But the Central Council is under no illusion that this will take some considerable time and effort.

The sale of Guild Goods continues to flourish with over 300 orders being processed during the past year. Unfortunately Kevin Bryant had to resign as Goods Manager last July as he was under immense pressure at work which meant he was no longer able to devote time to processing and dispatching the orders. As mentioned earlier Fr Keith has very kindly agreed to store the goods stock at Our Lady of Fatima Church in White City for which our thanks go to him. Until a new Goods manager is appointed, a team of about seven volunteers have been meeting on monthly to process the orders and this has been highly successful in decreasing the turn-round time of orders. A packing session takes two to three hours, so one can imagine how long it took one person to prepare invoices, pack and post the orders and also hold down a full time job. The Central Council would like to thank Kevin for all the work he did as Goods Manager during the past five years. The Central Council ask everyone to be patient when ordering goods we hope to get orders dispatched within one month of receipt.

Publicity is important to the work of the Central Council but unfortunately due to Michael Moriarty being unwell during the year he was unable to publicise some of the events in the Catholic press. Michael is now much better and we look forward once again to seeing his excellent articles on Guild events in the papers.

The circulation list continues to be updated but as stated last year it is a monumental task that will take some time to come.

Under the guidance of Nicholas Tilbury development of the Training DVD progresses at a steady pace. It is the aim of the Central Council that the finished product will be of good quality and will reflect the high standard of serving expected of the Archconfraternity.

With thanks to Fr Dennis a new Webmaster has been appointed, Liz Toolan, also looks after a variety of websites. Liz has revamped the website making it easier to navigate. 'Who's who' on the Central Council will soon appear complete with photographs.

After many years of dedicated work, Fr Aldo Taparro, retired as Diocesan Director of Birmingham. Fr Jan Nowotnik who is continuing the good work done by his predecessor has taken his place.

Three Diocesan Directors positions are still vacant; they are in Cardiff, Hallam and Portsmouth. The Central Council thanks the Diocesan Directors for the work they do in promoting serving within their dioceses.

Members of the Central Council attended altar servers' celebrations in Birmingham, Brentwood, Northampton, Nottingham, Portsmouth, Southwark and Westminster. Members are always willing to attend such events as well as Gold Medal presentations, providing adequate notice is given. It was with great joy that Central Council members attended Fr Gregory Moore, the former Diocesan Director of Southwark's Golden Jubilee.

The Cardinal's Mass for Altar Servers attracted approximately 1000 servers together with family and friends to Westminster Cathedral in February. It was a great success. The Council is looking forward to the Cardinal celebrating the Mass again in February 2007. This event was organised by the Events Committee under the chairmanship of Michael Chute.

The Annual Dinner was held at the Parish Centre of Holy Trinity Church, Brook Green, in early July. The Principal Guest was Bishop Malcolm McMahon from Nottingham who gave a very inspiring talk on service at the altar. The evening was a great success and enjoyed by all who attended and thanks goes Mark Brophy for organising this event.

During the year the Council approved the award of the Archconfraternity's Gold Medal to the following for completion of 50 years of serving as enrolled members of the Guild.

The Gold Medal of Merit was awarded to the following for completion of 50 years of serving but not necessarily all that time as members of the Guild.

The Council is greatly appreciative of the dedication of the many priests and servers throughout the country who uphold the ideals of the Archconfraternity. Maintaining high standards of serving, a primary object of the Guild can only be achieved by training and encouragement in local parishes. The Council's role is to support and encourage these efforts.

Michael Chute

CHAIRMAN OF THE
CENTRAL COUNCIL