Union Nominated
- Chris Maggs (Moderator)
- Tony Pike
- Jenny Drake
- Paul Chilcott
Member Nominated
- Stuart Glen
- Hilary Mason
Member Communications - July 2025
Dear Member
You may recall that we wrote to you back in October 2024 regarding a pending vacancy for an MNTD position. We now write by way of an update.
As a consequence of various other developments within the Scheme, the process has taken longer than we initially anticipated. However, we can announce that, after receiving four initial expressions of interest, only one member followed the process through to formal application stage. The successful applicant is Hilary Mason, who was formally appointed as a Trustee Director at the Trustee Board Meeting on 17th June 2025. A short bio for Hilary is set out below. We are pleased to welcome Hilary to her new role and look forward to working with her as the Scheme enters a new phase, as Defined Contribution only, with the old Defined Benefits section having now been successfully wound-up.
Finally, we plan to issue a Newsletter to members in the very near future though we are always happy to deal with any member queries on any aspect of the Scheme which we’d encourage you to raise via email to pensionshared@baptist.org.uk
Hilary Mason – Brief Bio
"After working in Financial Services for about 30 years, doing administration relating to pensions, life assurance, mortgages and savings plans, in the last 9½ years I have been engaged in other administrative work in the Baptists Together specialist teams in Didcot. However, I still miss the world of pensions very much, and would love to be involved once again with the Baptist Pension Scheme as more than just a contributing member. My eyes probably light up when ‘annuities’ are mentioned, as I know so much about them – they have had a bad press in recent years, but at heart they are straightforward and rather wonderful, with a long history. So I look forward to getting to grips again with the ‘Trustee Knowledge and Understanding’ training provided by The Pensions Regulator.
Some aspects of the pension scheme have changed over the last ten years, but the importance of good governance, management and administration has not changed. Trustees of a pension scheme have responsibility towards the members, and I would count it a privilege to be chosen to help continue the good work being done by the Baptist Pension Trustees.
As well as experience and familiarity with the Scheme from being one of the in‑house pension admin team from 2007 to 2015, I would bring a deeply held conviction that member engagement is essential. By this I mean that contributors to a pension scheme need enough information to dispel the feeling many of us would otherwise have, of unease about the mystery and strangeness of how it all works. Jargon is sometimes necessary to convey specific concepts but I feel strongly that people who need to use specialist terminology also have a duty to explain it clearly."
Yours sincerely
Steven D Kaney
Pensions Manager
Update July 2025