Dear Friends,

2009 was an extraordinary year for the Jersey Retreat Association.

We started the year with our programme booked and speakers lined up all in good time. We were looking forward to a year when everything would run smoothly. Then, in March, almost by accident we found out that for 2009 the Highlands Hotel was intending to close a few days before our Autumn retreat! After an anxious few weeks we eventually booked the Les Charrieres Hotel, at much greater cost and conditions on numbers. All this in a year when everyone was worrying about the recession. All went well in the end and we had a most enjoyable retreat with Liz Babbs.

Apart from the anxieties of the retreat arrangements we enjoyed great satisfaction from our Quiet Days. We were delighted with the Bishop of Basingstoke, Trevor Willmott's offer to conduct a quiet day for us whilst on a visit to Jersey in April.  We were blessed with a beautiful sunny day for our first ever outdoor Summer quiet day led by members of the committee in June, and, in December, we enjoyed a very different audio-visual Advent quiet day led by Rev David Coote, Chairman of the Jersey Methodist Circuit, assisted by Liz Lambotte, youth worker for St Aubin's Methodist church.

Your Committee tries to maintain an ecumenical outlook when choosing leaders, subjects and locations for retreats and quiet days. We would be delighted to consider any suggestions from members about any of these for future events.

Unfortunately, I close on a sad note. As I write this our dear friend, Graham Chanter, is absent from the committee as he is quite ill. On behalf of all members of the association I would like to extend our best wishes to Alice, and to Graham for a speedy recovery and hope that he will be back with us soon..

John Noel