The Friends of Wells Cathedral have been supporting the Cathedral from 1933. This support has been financial, practical (less so now than in previous years), and by publishing or funding publications.

The Friends have made grants for projects, great and small. The largest to date being £1.8M for the Friends Building which houses education space and the Cathedral Song School.

At present, the Friends are fundraising for the refurbishment and renovation of the Cathedral’s Organ, estimated between £2M and £3M pounds.  

There are about 1,300 Friends around the globe, the majority of them pay an annual subscription.  Like other Friend associations, the Friends is a membership organisation. There is an Annual General Meeting.

The Friends have a Patron (currently the Bishop of Bath and Wells), President (currently the Dean of Wells) who are both elected by the AGM.  The AGM also elects the Chairman (to be changed to Chair if agreed by the 2025 AGM), Treasurer, Membership Secretary (vacant at present and to be discontinued, if agreed by the 2025 AGM)  and up to seven (to be eight) members of Council.  The Officers (Chairman and Treasurer) and Council members are elected for a term of three years.  To complete the Council, the Chapter of the Cathedral can nominate two further members of Council.   Council meets four or five times a year and has a number of committees which meet with a similar frequency.

The Secretary is not an elected but appointed by Council and is not a Council Member.  In recent years, the Friends have employed a part-time administrative assistant (Memberhsip Support Officer) to assist in the running of the Friends Office with the Secretary and Treasurer.

Click on the link below to find out more about the role of Chairman of the Friends of Wells Cathedral, and click here to visit the (new!) Friends website.