Reunion & AGM 2025

Two days of networking, learning, and collaboration. 

The theme this year is Pilgrimage.

In October, the Shrine of Saint Jude was proud to host the annual Churches Visitor & Tourism Association (CVTA) conference on the theme of Pilgrimage.

On Friday, the group were able to go on a tour of Faversham with CVTA Trustee and Manager of the Shrine, Matthew Betts. The tour included the Shrine itself, Our Lady of Mount Carmel church, the Almshouses chapel and Saint Mary of Charity parish church. Matt discussed how Faversham has a fascinating history which includes kings, pilgrimage, gunpowder and beer! The day concluded with a hearty meal at the famous Sun Inn.

On Saturday, the group met at the Welcome Centre and enjoyed several fascinating talks and presentations.

The day started with a presentation from Andrew Kelly on how to attract pilgrims to your church, whilst outlining his own work in the creation of a pilgrimage route - the Augustine Camino which goes from Ramsgate to Canterbury via the Shrine and our sister shrine Aylesford. This was followed by an interesting introduction to pilgrimage to Lourdes from Mr Brendan Roche, who as Chief Brancardier of the Catholic Association, has an important role in co-leading helpers to the pilgrimage town.

Next attendees were invited on a virtual pilgrimage of London by Dr Matt Valler. Matt was able to show us that there is more history to buildings than we often realise, and he was able to give us a reason to look much deeper into the history of the buildings in London and find an extra meaning to life’s pilgrimage. This is not unique to London either - and the message we all took away was - to look deeper and discover more about the buildings, but also about yourself.

After a lovely lunch, which was prepared by Saint Jude volunteer, Sue Bayford, we ventured on with our theme of pilgrimage.

We started first with a talk from John Beal (CVTA treasurer) who presented on medieval pilgrimage - often with hilarious tales of what people got up to on pilgrimage and some of the eccentric reasons why they would take part. It was an interesting talk on the reasons for medieval pilgrimage - one particular highlight was to discover that some of the more well off people in the middle ages could ask others to go on pilgrimage on their behalf to avoid the journey themselves! 

Next up, Torin Brown  discussed the contemporary motivation for pilgrimage. Torin works at Canterbury Cathedral and looks after all pilgrims. He has found there are many motivations for going there on pilgrimage and not necessarily because of a faith. Pilgrimage is a time for contemplation whilst walking great distances and perhaps searching for the meaning of life. Matt Betts agreed that they find this often with pilgrims who come to the Shrine and are often in search of something.

The talks then concluded with a presentation by Bishop Paul Hendricks, Auxiliary Bishop in Archdiocese of Southwark, who talked about the motivation to go on pilgrimage in Lourdes and around the world. Bishop Paul concluded that pilgrimage often brings many people together where they can discover new things about themselves. He also confirmed that bringing that sense of hope back to England and spreading it across parishes is one of the most important things we can do.

The day was concluded with CVTAs AGM, which was led by Chair, Richard Tulloch. A concluding blessing and prayer completed the day by Bishop Paul.

CVTA is very grateful to the Shrine of Saint Jude/Carmelite Charitable Trust for hosting their conference and AGM and to Carolyn Flanagan at the Faversham Almshouses and to Revd Simon Rowlands and his team at Saint Mary of Charity parish church for inviting the group to visit.