In July 2023 our leadership team will grow as Dr Karen Smith will join us as a full time Curate. Karen will then be with us for 3 years.

Karen says “I’m really delighted to be joining such a beautiful and interesting Benefice as your new Curate from next July. I think that there will be many wonderful mission and pastoral opportunities to get involved in and I can’t wait to get started! I’m particularly looking forward to getting to know everyone and being part of the worshiping and wider communities. Please pray for me as I complete my final year at Westcott House, Cambridge and prepare to move to the Benefice."

We are excited to welcome Karen to our Benefice and for the opportunities to learn and minister together. Karen will be ordained Deacon in St Edmundsbury Cathedral in July 2023, and will be Ordained Priest the following year.

About Karen:

I am from Glasgow but came ‘down south’ to study at Cambridge University in my early twenties and loved it so much, I stayed.

I was an academic (neuroanatomy) and then became a management consultant for several years. I returned to academia (working at Cambridge, UCL and UEA) as a specialist in developing high value transformative research initiatives through partnerships with private, public and third sector organisations. In recent years I have been training for Ordination at Westcott House, an Anglican theological college in the heart of Cambridge.

I have two grown up sons and enjoy sailing, travelling all over the world and pottering about in the garden, dojang and on the golf course. I am looking forward to lots of countryside walks in the stunning Stour Valley.