Governance & Chapter
Truro Cathedral received charitable status on 12 April 2024 (registered charity number 1207821). Its Board of Trustees is known as the Chapter.
We are currently recruiting for strategic leaders to help shape our future as chapter trustees and committee members. For more information about these roles, please see the Volunteer page. The deadline to apply is the 11 March.
The Trustees are -
Dean Simon Robinson. As a former teacher and headteacher in inner-city contexts, Dean Simon has wide experience in education, strategic leadership and change management. In the church, he has been involved in the work of discerning vocations to the ordained ministry, pioneering ministry, spiritual direction, supporting clergy and is the Superior of an internationally dispersed community of priests, men and women, called The Sodality of Mary.
Helen Davies lives in Launceston and is a solicitor specialising in business and agricultural property. She is active within the parish, a director of Launceston Foodbank and Launceston Money Advice Centre, serves on the Deanery and Diocesan Synods and is ordained. She brings her legal skills and experience in education, compliance and governance to Chapter.
Rev’d Canon Alan Bashforth joined the cathedral in 2014. He is Canon Pastor and Chapter Safeguarding Trustee and sits on the Finance and Audit Committee. He has a wealth of experience in the wider life of the Church of England in Cornwall, having served the Diocese both as a parish priest and in various governance roles.
Daphne Skinnard is a lay chapter canon and was appointed in 2015. She is the chapter representative for the Friends of Truro Cathedral and brings a wealth of marketing and media skills, from her work with BBC Radio Cornwall. She was awarded a fellowship by Falmouth University in 2013 for her outstanding contribution to broadcasting.
Robert Perry has been a Chapter member since 2018, having been a regular worshipper in the cathedral since 1986. For much of that time, he has been Secretary of St Mary’s PCC and of the Cathedral Council and is also a Lay Assistant and one of the cathedral bellringers. By profession, he was a chartered surveyor, and for most of his career worked for Cornwall County Council.
Jeff James was appointed in 2022. He spent 30 years as a senior manager in the NHS, five of which were in Cornwall. He was ordained in Gloucester Cathedral in 2001 and spent 12 years as a self-supporting minister in that Diocese before becoming Priest in Charge at Mylor. He retired from incumbent ministry in 2020.