Nurses

New flyer hits the mark There's been a hugely encouraging response to a new nurses' flyer aimed particularly at freshers and timed for the start of the new academic year. It has already opened up fresh contacts at Belfast, London, Oxford, Dublin and Nottingham with reports of groups meeting to pray and share fellowship. Our thanks to colleagues from UCCF for help in making this possible.

Cardiff explores leadership

For the last three years we have been working with a small but dynamic and growing Christian Union for health professional students at the University of Cardiff, including a good number of nurses and midwives, linked with our Cardiff CNM group. In October the Cardiff CNM Group ran a day on Christian leadership in nursing, looking at different biblical models of leadership and how they relate to leadership in the NHS today. Sue Allen (Emeritus Dean of the School of Healthcare at Northampton University) led the day, and there was input from Gwyn Ratcliffe, a midwifery tutor in South Wales who has also been working in Bangladesh with a new midwifery school.

Abstracts sought

CNM is part of a wider, international network called Nurses Christian Fellowship International (NCFI), very similar to ICMDA. The NCFI European region is holding its quadrennial conference in Madrid next September, and is looking for papers, workshops and presentation from Christian nurses that address the following three themes:

• The history of whole person nursing (with an especial focus on the Christian roots and development of the practice and concept)
• The current practice of whole person care (with a particular focus on Christian perspectives)
• Reflections on new directions and innovations in practice of whole person care Abstracts should be submitted in English or Spanish by 15 Feb 2014 to enfermeria.cristiana@gmail.com

For more details about the conference and to download the abstracts form go to: www.ncfieurope.org

Cardiff mission

'Convinced' was the theme for a mission for Cardiff nursing students held during the third week of November. Michael Ots, a highly engaging speaker, shared the gospel in programmes interspersed with music, videos and testimonies. Annie Leggett, CMF nurses staffworker, spoke and fielded lots of searching questions. Pray and give thanks for students who during the week professed faith and signed up for follow-up courses. Pray too for the Christian students who organised the mission whose task will be to stand alongside and mentor new believers.

Christmas appeal

You will have already received our Christmas appeal letter which focuses entirely on the growing ministry to nurses which we launched with Christian Nurses and Midwives three years ago. The work is still in its infancy but has the potential to grow beyond CMF in numbers and to complement our own ministry hugely. Please help us reach our appeal target of £100,000 which matches what we aim to spend on nurses in 2014.

graduates & communications

Links update

Our dream is to have a CMF link person in every church, workplace, locality and specialty where there are Christian doctors. Our most recent head count puts the number of CMF Link Persons at 235 in 405 roles. It's a great encouragement to see this level of takeup. The result will be a stronger, better connected fellowship. It's now possible for CMF Link Persons to access people in their area via our online database and make contact with them. The next phase of database development will be complete early in the New Year with every member able to login and update their personal details. Remember, the office is here to help should you need it.

London and the South-East

We are delighted to report the founding of a new local group in the Wanstead and Woodford area of north east London. It's an addition to other regular London groups meeting in Southall, Putney, Bromley, Dulwich and Stepney. Outside the M25 there are regular group meetings in Billericay, Harpenden and Chorleywood. There are occasional meetings too in Eltham, Farnborough and Chelmsford.

Talk to Julian Churcher CMF London and Southeast staffworker if you'd like to be linked to one of these groups, or about starting one in your area. julian.churcher@cmf.org.uk

Calling former Canonbury students

Are you a former resident at the MMA Hostel? CMF member Alison Davies is organising a reunion of students who were at Canonbury anytime between 1977 and 1981. If you would like an invitation to the reunion, please email graham.sopp@cmf.org.uk who will be passing on replies to Alison.

Media influence

In November CMF Blogs moved up to number 12 in the Ebuzzing rankings for UK religion and belief blogs – its highest position. This is largely thanks to a high frequency of posts and people sharing our content on Facebook and Twitter. Overall, CMF's social media influence is growing strongly, with a healthy 2,600 fans on Facebook and 1300 followers on Twitter. Also look out for our videos on YouTube.