By Jill Taylor
At the 25th Anniversary celebration of the formation of the girl choristers in November, the Dean announced that Gordon Pike had kindly agreed to lead the appeal for a very much needed new piano (the old one has been on loan to us for many years and the owner wanted it returned).
Over the intervening months Gordon has taken his duties very seriously and encouraged a huge number of you to kindly contribute. I spotted him after the Business Carols doing his very best encouraging, no doubt many of you have also seen Gordon in action. I said to him that he has excellent talents as a fundraiser; talents for which we are extremely grateful.
Thank you to all of you who have noted how much Gordon has contributed to our Cathedral over the years and sent in donations directly to the development office too, all are appreciated. We promised that we would acknowledge everyone publicly and to this end have purchased a very fine red leather bound book to record everyone’s name, which in due course will live in our archives for posterity. In due course, we hope to also record donors who contribute to other facets of our development appeal as it unfolds in the coming months and years.
There is a bit of snag with working from home, in that we are not quite so connected with other colleagues in other teams. So to make sure we haven’t inadvertently missed your name off the donors list please let me know if your name is not included here as a donor. And indeed, if we have typed your name incorrectly please do get in touch as we want to get it right for the first page in our new book!
As you may know, the piano is now with us and will be dedicated in due course. If anyone else wishes to contribute, the fund is still open, as there are wheels still to purchase (to make it easy to move around). Any surplus that may ultimately arise will be saved and put towards tuning and maintenance costs to keep the new piano in tip top order.
Thanks once again to all of you, and huge thanks to Gordon – I am sure we can all agree he is a complete star!
List of Donors to the 25th Anniversary ‘Mr Pike Piano’ Fund: