We are very pleased to welcome the Revd Katie Wakeman-Toogood as our new vicar. Her licensing date will be announced in due course. Here’s an introduction to Katie and her family:
I am deli
ghted to be joining you as your new vicar and I’m very much looking forward to getting to know Earley better. A bit about me…. I am from Birmingham and lived there until I left to study Maths at the University of Leicester. After graduating I travelled around East Africa for 5 months and then did my teacher training in Manchester; I went on to teach maths for 7 years, first at a community high school in Bury and then at a Salesian Catholic school in Bolton. I left teaching to train for ordination at Ripon College Cuddesdon in Oxfordshire and was ordained in 2014, serving my curacy in the busy and historic market town of Louth in Lincolnshire.
For the past six years, I have been Chaplain at Reading Blue Coat School where I established and grew the chaplaincy, which serves the school in a variety of ways, and also taught some maths again. Alongside my school role I have also had the privilege of being the associate vicar of St Andrews in Sonning for six years, where I have engaged with the community in a variety of ways.
It has been a joy to be able to combine both school and parish ministry in these two roles. However, I have felt a strong and growing sense of calling back into full-time parish ministry and I’m very excited about my move to Earley St Peter’s.
Apart from my love of maths, my other passion is music and I enjoy going to concerts, ballet and musicals. I sing and also attempt to play the violin and piano! I’m looking forward to taking some ABRSM music exams at the end of the year but also rather daunted as I haven’t sat a written exam for 21 years! I am also an animal lover and have a beautiful cocker spaniel, a friendly cat and a small herd of adopted guinea pigs!
Alongside my many pets, I also live with my husband of 19 years, Lawrence, who is a tree surgeon and my sons Noah (17), Harry (15) and George (10).