Bill Snelson was an Anglican priest from a Methodist background, he had already served as secretary of the Leeds Metropolitan Council of Churches and as West Yorkshire County Ecumenical Officer. At CTE, he helped navigate the Churches through some historic events: seizing the ecumenical potential of the Millennium celebrations in 2000 and Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee in 2002 and creating the Set All Free project to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in 2007. During his tenure, CTE greatly expanded its membership, especially to the Orthodox and Pentecostal Churches.
On retiring from CTE, Bill moved to the Anglican Centre in Rome where, among other posts, he served for a while as its interim director. In this international context, he felt he was making up for an opportunity he had lacked to engage in ecumenism beyond the national level. It was his comment: ‘I feel I have missed out on that, and want to encourage more take-up for such things among younger people’ which has inspired CTE to create this Fund in his memory.