Meet The Team
Who are the people who make it happen? Read about them here. Meet team members past and present.
Sarah Beresford, Director
Meet Sarah
Writing one of these "introducing" things is always a little odd: you're never sure who is going to read them and what you need to say.
Canvey Island is quite new to me: in fact, I've never lived on the East coast of England before, although my husband David is from a small village near the banks of the Humber not far from Grimsby: on the East coast but about 250 miles north of Essex.
I grew up in Derbyshire: "beautiful" I hear you say, and it is, although I come not from the glorious beauties of the peak district but the run down former mining area on the borders of Nottinghamshire!
My mum still lives there in a flat she bought a few years after my father died.
Molly (my daughter who is 3 in September) is very excited about coming to live at Walsingham House, and David and I share her enthusiasm.
We both started our working years at the Briars - the equivalent centre in the Nottingham Diocese - and there found a passion and a love for residential retreat work with young people.
The retreat experience is something that can be quite profound and life changing in a way that other youth ministry cannot come close to.
It is a real privilege to be working in this way with young people, teachers and catechists throughout the Diocese.
In my time I have worked in a few different retreat centres and parishes doing youth ministry both before and after completing my degree in Youth and Community studies at St Martin's college Lancaster way back in the early 1990's.
This includes time at the SPEC Centre, Westminster, and CHAS, working to support the homeless.
My most significant recent experience has been as a member of the Sion Community, involved in youth ministry and training most specifically with the young people taking gap years with the community.
Being part of God's tool box to bring people closer to him has, and continues to be, a real honour.
I'm looking forward to learning a new geography and will need some help at times mastering the intricacies of the A12, A13 and the various other roads that will see me travelling to meet you and your young people across East London and Essex.
I'm looking forward to bringing my own personal flavour to the menu at Walsingham House, building on the strengths of my predecessors and working hand-in-hand with Jon and the rest of the team who will need to show me the ropes at first.
I have a great passion for music, and teaching young people to sing, and I look forward to developing this within the retreats offered at Walsingham House.
I'm also looking forward to doing some gardening in our grounds and beginning a vegetable patch.
If you or your young people are up for some digging and planting then please get in touch and bring your wellies!
I hope that our schools and parishes will continue to bring many young people to Walsingham House and that together we can build up a vibrant community of young Christians who share a common bond.
I hope to work closely with teachers and catechists to develop the retreat potential in a way that works for each school and each parish and is complementary to the rest of the great work the Brentwood Catholic Youth Service is achieving within the Diocese.
I remember doing a presentation skills training course once and they taught me that if it's important that people remember your name then tell that to them near the end when they've got a sense of who you are rather than at the beginning.
My name is Sarah, I am 36 and very happily married to the lovely David and we have a beautiful daughter Molly.
I have a passion for Jesus and a love of young people.
These are the important things about me and my life, the rest is detail.
I look forward to meeting you and working with you over the coming months and years.
Peace be with you always
Sarah