14th
SEPTEMBER
2024
Kent Ride & Stride - NEWS
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Each of the 700+ participating Kent churches, has their own Local Organiser (LO), and there are 40 or so Area Organisers (AO’s) who are the contact point for their area's Local Organisers. Each Area Organiser may look after a few, or as many as 20 churches in their patch.
The Area Organisers distribute the publicity and paperwork for Ride and Stride to each Local Organiser and feedback any concerns or comments to the Kent Ride and Stride Organising Committee at the Area Organisers meetings.
One much-loved and respected Area Organiser was Steve Press – Area Organiser for Folkestone for many years. Sadly, Steve Press died earlier this year.
Here we have a tribute, written by his friend Susan Randall.
Steve Press, RIP
Steve Press – Area Organiser for Folkestone for many years
Dear friends
I have known Steve (& Rosie) Press for just about 20 years. When I joined the URC in Folkestone, they both became firm friends and allies. Steve was both charming and disarming – he loved people & wanted them all to reach their full potential. He was a free spirit.
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I used to meet him at the AO meetings but in the last couple of years as his health took a downward turn, I would collect his paperwork and hand it over to him. After the Area Organisers meeting last November, I took his paperwork for him and dropped it off at home (his health was seriously deteriorating, he having succumbed to cancer.)
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Anyone less diligent would have contacted his LOs and asked them to collect the paperwork from him. Not Steve! Even though he didn’t feel too well, he hand delivered all his paperwork, (often down narrow country lanes, and along circuitous routes).
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We were privileged to attend his funeral / thanksgiving service. I have been to a number but his was amazing! The church was full to overflowing as people stood up in the aisles and joined us through the open windows! All walks of life were in attendance, many I knew but many I did not! It truly was a celebration of his life and faith and Rosie was “held up” by living prayer as she pointed to a picture that had been in their home and described exactly how it revealed aspects of Steve’s life and personality.
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(The weather was also amazing, the storm clouds threatened but mostly held off until after the refreshments when the heavens opened and hailstones lashed down, once we were in the cars.)
Kent Ride and Stride organising committee members, past and present, at the Area Organisers meeting, July 2023
Susan Hooper, Kent Ride and Stride Treasurer, hands over a cheque for £52,000 to Jane Bird, Friends of Kent Churches Treasurer, for the money raised by Ride and Stride in 2022.
