At the end of August, Jacky Engel left to pursue a full time course in tailoring, wanting a new outlet for her creative talents. Jacky came to CMF as a researcher, with several degrees in biosciences and an MA in Medical Law and Ethics, and subsequently maintained high quality information resources. She did much of the groundwork for CMF's Submissions and press releases, and was closely involved in many aspects of publications and periodicals.

However, her creative and IT skills meant she also came to work more and more with CMF's websites, alongside our web designer Nick Mott who is an online part time contractor. When Jacky gave notice of her career move we felt it right to seek a full time replacement in a new 'web manager' role.

We were delighted when Robert Yaxley started with us in late October. Robert also has a background in biomedical science, and was working in website design and maintenance. He lives in Croydon with his wife Louise and they belong to Selsdon Baptist church, where they were recently baptised. His interests include running and military history.

You will have read opposite that Sarah Whitaker is giving some PA support to the department, and Wai-Ting So ('Ting') continues serving faithfully in many areas of distribution and logistics. Already these staff developments are helping us to communicate more effectively within the membership and further afield.

www.cmf.org.uk

Almost all of us become ever more dependent on the internet for information and entertainment, and we are trying to keep CMF up to speed. Our main site already receives an average 800 visits a day (a 'visit' represents a person going to the website). Our closely related www.healthserve.org gets 120 visits a day, and even the earlier www.ethicsforschools.org site whose future is currently being decided gets 100/day.

With a full time web manager in post the new-look homepage will soon be with us, easier to read and to navigate from, and all the thousands of pages behind it will be reviewed, updated, and refreshed as necessary. We are also exploring the use of audio and video material, and subject to funding for this hope to make our website an even more exciting place to visit. Keep an eye on it!

Broadcasting

Many of the journalists and media researchers and producers who contact CMF almost daily have come via our website, demonstrating its importance for the CMF Aim in ethics: 'To promote Christian values, especially in bioethics and healthcare, among doctors and medical students, in the church and in society'.

New Publications Catalogue

With this mailing you should have received the new CMF Publications Catalogue. We hope you will want to order some titles for yourself, or for others (though we appreciate it's a bit late for Christmas – this year!) but as you will see from the Introduction we hope it will also be used 'to introduce these books and periodicals to a wider audience'. There are plenty of further copies available on request from the office. Could you pass a copy on to a colleague or friend? Could you pass one on to whoever runs the bookstall in your church? Could you arrange finance to stock your church library with selected titles? Is there even a small Christian bookshop in your town you have a good relationship with? We certainly do standard trade discounts, and might discount for bulk orders from a church library.

Promotion to Christian bookshops

'Small Christian bookshops' were mentioned but centrally we are promoting CMF books to the largest 150 or so of the UK's Christian bookshops. We would be grateful for your prayer and for any practical support as we try to get CMF's excellent titles across to a broader Christian readership.

Books for 2009

We hope that Foundations, the book for juniors, will be out by the summer and are also making good progress with a collection of short snappy autobiographies provisionally titled I could do that! This is intended to encourage people to realise that those who work overseas are not superhuman – most 'missionary' books leave us with the feeling 'I couldn't do that', but Steve Fouch and I as editors want to turn that conclusion right round.

A new committee

With all these changes, and particularly recognising the extension of electronic media, CMF's current committee needs to evolve. We would welcome expressions of interest to join this expanded oversight at three evening meetings a year in London.

And finally, at the last 2008 meeting, we richly thanked Allister Vale and Andrew Brown who have each served on the various incarnations of the committee for some 40 years!

Andrew Fergusson is Head of Communications.