As we roll into another year my mind is fixed very much on the National Students’ Conference on 10-12 February, ‘Radical King, Radical Kingdom’. By the time this newsletter reaches you, bookings will be rolling in and final preparations will be being laid. Pray for Mark Ashton, giving Bible addresses from Matthew 16-18, Peter Saunders giving the conference address on ‘Radical Discipleship in Medicine’ and all the seminar leaders making their preparations. Year after year the conference is a great blessing, encouragement and challenge to our student groups around the country. It gives a real boost to groups who bring a good number of students, so pray for reps as they publicise the conference and encourage bookings. If you’re a student reading this and haven’t sent in your booking form yet, let me encourage you to do so now! Further details are on our website – follow the links at www.cmf.org.uk/events to find them.

As usual we plan to welcome a number of international students to our conference to show our solidarity and help them as they develop their own Christian medical movements back home. Around 20 will be coming to the International Students’ Preconference in London and Oxford on 6-10 February, immediately preceding the conference. It has already been a great help to have Jonny Thiessen, our new International Coordinator, on board to make arrangements for this. There is a good group of leaders and potential leaders hoping to be there from Eurasia and beyond – please pray for the necessary financial and visa arrangements to be made and for a stimulating programme as it comes together.

I have now officially handed over my role as ICMDA area student rep for Western Europe to Euan Dodds, a paediatric SHO in Glasgow. I am excited about this development as Euan, with more time and language capability than me, is already contributing to the expansion of Christian medical activity in this area. Pray for him as he takes on this new role.

Part of the key to having strong local student groups is the support offered by their local medical school secretary; these are graduates linked to each medical school. Although they often do very valuable work we have not offered them much in the way of support and training.We hope to develop this by starting with a training workshop for medical school secretaries (particularly new ones) at the graduates’ national conference on 28-30 April. If this is successful we plan to take it forward regionally and make it more regular.

John Greenall (student chairman) and I have made further progress on plans for a new national student committee, with the aim of increasing ownership and involvement of students around the regions in the core activities of CMF’s student ministry.We see this as a significant step forward and would really value prayer, particularly in terms of recruiting the right students from each region to join the committee, defining its scope and priorities and making sure that it results in a genuine growth and strengthening of CMF’s student activity.