We are looking for a number of new trustees with knowledge of any of the following:
- Net-zero carbon programmes, environmental management and similar
- Estate and land management
- Funding and fund-raising
- Hospitality industry
You will be joining an active trustee body offering their time and talents to support and develop the Abbey’s work of prayer, hospitality, community and sanctuary at both a local and national level. We expect trustees to be in sympathy with our practice of the Christian faith. The board meets six times a year at the Abbey on Fridays. To express an initial interest, please write to the Warden, Revd Alison Myers, with a CV and an indication of why you are interested, via [email protected] .
About Us
Launde Abbey is owned and run by a charitable trust. At the heart of the site and its activity is a chapel – incorporating the remains of the 900-year-old priory church – in which a pattern of daily prayer is observed. Over the last couple of years, we have been rebuilding Launde Abbey’s activities post-pandemic and re-imagining them for our current context. Aware of our history both as an Augustinian priory and as a Tudor manor house, we have re-focused our vision around four words that characterise who we are and what we offer: ‘prayer’, ‘hospitality’, ‘community’ and ‘sanctuary’.
The core of the Abbey’s community consists of the clergy and lay people who live on site or close by and who daily participate in our pattern of prayer and share in our work of hospitality. Around this constant core, the wider Launde community ebbs and flows each day as staff, volunteers and guests participate in its life in different ways. The Launde community is shaped by a shared understanding that the image of God is embodied in human community, that the loving welcome of Christ is extended to all, that God by his Spirit speaks to human beings, that a listening heart is cultivated in stillness, that spiritual practice forms us to live well, and that we live in the hope of the risen Christ.
Between the Tudor manor house and the 17th-century stables, the Abbey has 39 bedrooms, a selection of meeting rooms, a dining room, and a café open to the public. Indoors there is also a small library, prayer rooms and communal areas for residential and day guests. Outdoors there is a walled garden under partial cultivation, wider gardens largely managed by volunteers, a ‘way of the cross’ walk and a grass labyrinth. We ‘serve those who serve others’, and in doing so our focus is first towards the Church and church-linked organisations and charities. We serve 8 or 9 Anglican dioceses beyond Leicester and Peterborough for whom we are the named retreat house, as well as regional and national church bodies and a wide range of other denominational bodies and para-church organisations. However, our hospitality also encompasses others undertaking educational, social, recreational and well-being activities where they are compatible with our core purpose. 
Daily hospitality in the café reaches a more local community including walkers and cyclists. Many of those who come – both groups and individuals – are repeat visitors and regard Launde Abbey as a kind of ‘home’.
In the last year, we have made planned changes to staff structure, put in place more robust working practices and governance procedures and, most recently, installed new industry-standard software, all designed to increase our sustainability into the future. We are at various stages with a series of further development projects, including: extending our own programme of retreats and courses; making more of the grounds and estate; building the Companions of Launde Abbey network; strengthening relationships with a broader range of potential stakeholders and conference customers; and extending our fundraising approach.
In 2023, the Trust’s turnover was around £1.2m and it has around 45 staff and 30 volunteers on its books. As a business, we aim to deliver an excellent service to our guests, generating sufficient financial surplus to ensure that the facilities and presentation of the historic buildings and gardens are maintained and developed and there are adequate reserves for a business of this size. There is still some rebuilding to be done in our finances post-covid and in meeting the challenges of the cost-of-living crisis. All this is to be done mindful of the character or ethos of Launde as a place of Christian prayer, hospitality, community and sanctuary.
To express an initial interest, please write to the Warden, Revd Alison Myers, with a CV and an indication of why you are interested, via [email protected] .