Esgobaeth Llanelwy :: Diocese of St Asaph
Adroddiad Pwyllgor Sefydlog 2018/2019 Report of the Standing Committee 2018/2019
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The following meetings have been held since the 2018 Diocesan Conference: 27 November 2018 - Holywell
1. 2020Vision- Unlocking our Potential a) Metanoia The Bishop, the Rt Revd Dr Gregory Cameron reflected upon the challenge he posed at the Diocesan Conference when he had asked members of the conference to identify what all of us together as the ‘Teulu Asaph’ had to turn from, and turn towards in order to follow Christ more closely. The challenge resulted in ninety response cards being submitted that have been grouped into five headings:
• We need to turn from the old to the new • We need to turn from a focus on property to a focus on mission • We need to turn from being inward facing to being outward facing • We need to turn from grumbling and towards boldness • We need to stop following society and start following Jesus b) Diocesan Strategy and Review of the Eight Priorities The Bishop presented the ‘Strategic Plan 2018 – 2023’. The plan groups and refines the Eight Priorities under five headings: • Growth: Building the life of God’s People • Service: Ministry in the name of Christ • Youth: Sharing Good News with young people • Enablement: Discerning the breadth of God’s work • Mission Areas: Focussing on God’s Kingdom The Bishop asked members of the Standing Committee to commit to the plan and take ownership of it. The 2018-2023 Strategic Plan was approved and will be adopted subject to the refinements agreed above.
2. Progress on the Growth Priority The archdeacons presented an update on the progress so far towards achieving the Growth Priority and their future plans.
3. Evangelism Fund Bid – Resource Church The Bishop thanked the Standing Committee for its commitment to establish a Resource Church in our diocese. It is evident that enthusiasm for this exciting initiative is gathering pace.
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Bishop Gregory reported that since the last meeting we have been able to acquire a suitable property to base our Resource Church – No 1 Hope Street, Wrexham. We will work in partnership with Church Revitalisation Trust (CRT). CRT is the recognised trailblazer for similar projects, its mission is to be a catalyst for a movement of church planting, to reach a lost generation and to see communities transformed.
The Bishop thanked the group that had put together the first draft of the bid for a thorough piece of work. He said that he considered 1 Hope Street to be a sign that God is at work to help us to reach the 97% of people who currently have no contact with the Church.
A proposal to submit a bid to the Evangelism Fund to develop a Resource Church was approved by the Standing Committee.
4. Report from the Diocesan Grants Committee Mr Clive Myers, Chair of the Diocesan Grants Committee presented a report on behalf of the Committee. The current membership comprises of: • Mr Clive Myers • Mr Chris Hinds • Revd David Lewis • Mrs Diane McCarthy • Mrs Sue Sawyer • Revd Jonathan Smith The Committee meets four times a year and the members are supported by diocesan officers with expertise in finance, funding, buildings and administration who attend the meetings in an advisory capacity. The Committee administers six separate sources of funding: • The Transformation Fund (now fully committed) • Buildings Grants • Youth Grants • Social Engagement Grants • Bursaries for Education, Training and Learning • Diocesan Offering Mr Myers provided details of the expenditure from each of the above funds
5. Review of the Diocesan Conference 2018 The Diocesan Conference was held on 13 October at St Joseph’s Anglican and Catholic School, Wrexham. Mrs Diane McCarthy thanked everyone who helped in any way with the planning and execution. The St Asaph Diocesan Conference is the largest in Wales and it is a wonderful example of the Teulu Asaph coming together.
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The attendance figures at this year’s conference was the best for some time, 61% of the lay membership and 85% of clergy members were present. The feedback forms submitted were very positive. We made greater effort to meet our commitment as an Eco-Friendly Diocese by reducing plastic waste and we will build on this in the future.
6. Matters raised by the Mission Areas a) From Dyffryn Clwyd MA The Dyffryn Clwyd Mission Area Conference requests the St Asaph Diocesan Conference to submit a request to the Church in Wales Governing Body to initiate a Province wide consultation on the re-use of burial spaces. Mr Llyr Williams, Diocesan Registrar responded to the question stating that the Church in Wales has no control in this matter. Unlike England, where canon law applies, in Wales it would require an Act of Parliament to change current legislation that prevents the re-use of burial spaces. b) From Penedeyrn MA What is the impact and follow up to the many initiatives we have had in the last 5 years? These initiatives provide a toolbox of resources but what demonstrable take-up and impact have they had? What evidence is there that the investment was effective and worthwhile? Where are the results and follow-up reports? The Bishop responded to say that initiatives are always evaluated, and next steps carried forward. He will prepare a handout providing a full report on all recent initiatives and arrange for the handout to be circulated to all members. c) From Tanat Valley and Vyrnwy MAs • Please could we have further specific guidance (which explains properly the advice given in the Membership Returns booklet) on how the Membership Return should be completed? • What do others think with regards to including figures for the 'Worshipping Community' along similar lines as to the that used by the Church of England in their 2017 report 'Statistics for Mission. Diane McCarthy confirmed that the diocese will issue its own guidance in the new year to help us to produce statistics that more accurately reflect the church that we are today.
27 March 2019 – Llandrinio
1. 2020Vision- Unlocking our Potential a) Delivery of our 5 Year Strategic Plan The Strategic Plan is the outcome of the work carried out by the Standing Committee to define our eight priorities. The priorities have been reformulated into themes, resulting in five distinct Strategic Aims:
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1) Growth: Building the life of God’s people 2) Service: Ministry in the name of Christ 3) Youth: Sharing good news with young people 4) Enablement: Discerning the breadth of God’s work 5) Mission Areas: Focussing on God’s Kingdom Recent emphasis has been on Aim (1) which has resulted in the adoption of the objective to achieve 10% growth and the proposed establishment of Hope Street; and Aim (5) which has resulted in institutional and cultural changes across the diocese. The Bishop explained the main focus of Aims (2), (3), (4) and (5) Aim (2) Service: Ministry in the name of Christ • Development of lay ministries • Rise in vocations • Cymry’r Groes (young vocations group)
Aim (3) Youth: Sharing good news with young people • Church Schools • Youth Forum, Youth Church, Youth Pilgrimage • Confirmation partnership with the Diocese of Helsinki
Aim (4) Enablement: Discerning the breadth of God’s work • Dementia Church • Holiday Hunger • Cold Weather Shelter • Modern Slavery
Aim (5) Mission Areas: Focussing on God’s Kingdom • Organisation, Finance, Mission Area Conference, Shared Ministry Team • Growth targets
The Bishop asked members to be sure to take the Strategic Plan back to their Mission Area Conferences to be discussed, received and implemented. b) Maintaining a focus on Growth in 2019 The Ven Andy Grimwood, Archdeacon of St Asaph provided an update on the progress of the 10% growth target.
2017 2018 Percentage 2019 target St Asaph 1940 1871 -3.6% 8% Montgomery 933 925 -0.8% Wrexham 1840 1851 0.6% 3.9% Total Diocese 4713 4647 -1.4% 6%
The Ven Dr Barry Wilson, Archdeacon of Montgomery said that although the figures are useful for enabling targeted interventions to be applied
5 | P a g e appropriately, annual or two-yearly statistics are merely a snapshot, for a more balanced viewpoint it is necessary to analyse statistics over a longer period. c) Review of ‘Leading your Church into Growth’ (LyCiG) Mrs Tracey White, Director of Resources, provided an update on ‘Leading your Church into Growth’. The initiative has received significant investment from the Transformation Fund which has enabled three residential courses and follow up days being run. A total of 398 people have now engaged with the course overall, this equates to almost 10% of our worshipping congregation. Feedback has been extremely positive. At the end of each course, participants are invited to make a pledge, the most common pledges offered are based on the following three themes: • User friendly services • Prayer for growth • Invite other persons A ‘LyCiG Local’ course is being offered to all Mission Areas, this works best where there is a good concentration of people. The LyCiG prayer was prayed by everyone present.
2. Hope Street, Wrexham – our bid to the Evangelism Fund The Bishop announced that the concept of a Resource Church in the diocese is closer to becoming a reality. The purchase of the former Burton’s Store at 1 Hope Street Wrexham has been completed. The Evangelism Fund Committee has approved the first stage of the diocesan bid for funding to support the project, the second stage of the application has been submitted and will be presented to the Fund Committee in Wrexham on April 11th. The Bishop asked for members to pray for a successful outcome at Stage 2 in order for us to proceed with planting this new Christian Community and to begin work to convert the building to provide space for worship, meeting rooms and hospitality facilities.
3. Report from the Engaging Steering Group a) Eco - Diocese Jonathan Abbatt reported that the Diocese is now a registered ‘eco-diocese’ and he asked members to be mindful of their Christian duty to protect God’s world and to encourage their churches to register as eco-churches by logging on to www.ecochurch.arocha.org.uk. Jonathan invited interested parties to contact him personally and said that he would be willing to go out to churches to talk about eco-church or offer support: [email protected] b) Cold Weather Night Shelter Winter 2019 Sarah Wheat, Diocesan Engagement Officer reported that the Wrexham Church and Community Cold Weather Shelter Project operated for ten weeks from January to 17 March 2019. The project was staffed by outreach officers from Wrexham Council and teams of approximately 200 volunteers. The Shelter
6 | P a g e was based in a number of different centres across Wrexham including three Church in Wales buildings. The Shelter welcomed guests for seven nights a week, providing them with a bed, a hot meal and basic amenities. It also provided an opportunity for guests to talk to a trained volunteer and acted as a gateway for accessing support and welfare services. As a result of attending the Shelter, three guests have been allocated accommodation.
4. Matters raised by the Mission Areas Mr James Turner had submitted the question ‘What are the diocesan plans to celebrate the centenary of disestablishment in 2020?’
The Bishop responded to say that we will join with the Province wide series of celebrations including a national service of thanksgiving taking place in all the Welsh cathedrals on Sunday 7 June 2020, and in other churches the following Sunday.
Karen Maurice, Diocesan Communications Officer outlined the Provincial communications campaign for celebrating 2020 which will commence in Advent 2019. The campaign will focus on celebrating the Church in Wales as a national institution: ‘A Century of the Church - celebrating the presence of the church in every community.’
5. Reports from Provincial bodies a) Report from the Bench of Bishops The Bishop outlined some of the subjects discussed at the last two meetings of the Bench of Bishop, including: • Bishops Review System • The Children’s Society • The Church in Wales Centenary • Clergy Remuneration Review • Liturgical resources • Draft Electoral College Review • Seal of the Confessional • Lambeth Conference 2020 • Governing Body stance on human sexuality b) Report from the Representative Body The Very Revd Nigel Williams, the Dean of St Asaph outlined the subjects discussed at the last meeting of the Representative Body including: • Election of Sir Paul Silk as Deputy Chair of the RB • Breaches in data protection • Report on investments • The Evangelism Fund • Report from Dame Clare Clancy, Chair of the Remuneration Committee
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6.Bishop Gregory’s sabbatical The Bishop outlined the plans for his forthcoming sabbatical which will take place between July and October 2019. He proposes to use the time for: • Study in the United States and in Egypt • Spiritual Renewal • Re-creation and personal time During his absence the Diocese will be managed by the Bishop’s Staff Team.
25 June 2019 – Garden City
1. 2018 Diocesan Accounts Helen Jones, Chair of the Diocesan Board of Finance presented the 2018 Diocesan Accounts.
There was an increase of 3% in Mission Area Share in 2018 to cover the increase in clergy stipends and lay salaries of 2.7% and the increase in clergy housing costs of 2.7%. Mission Area Share now represents 72% of the diocesan income. The popular Mission Area Share Discount Scheme was continued in to 2018 and 20 out of the 21 Mission Areas qualified for the discount.
The Block Grant from the RB represented 23% of total income in 2018. This is a reduced amount as the St Asaph contribution to St Padarn’s Institute of £75,000 p.a. is now netted off the grant. Dividend income was good despite a turbulent year on the stock markets.
The Diocesan Board of Finance is very grateful to our churches and Mission Areas for their support. The Board understands how fragile the financial situation is in many churches and is committed to working to find creative ways to fund the mission and ministry of the diocese. The diocese has a large number of ordinands in training at St Padarn’s Institute so the fixed annual cost of £75K represents very good value. The Investment Sub Committee continues to work very closely with both of our Fund Managers to drive income from the DBF’s investments whilst also protecting our capital base.
The total expenditure was £4,556,000 (-7.19% on budget). Clergy vacancies were higher than forecast leading to an underspend on stipends and associated costs. Church inspections are now completed by the Diocesan Churches Inspector with the cost reflected in the diocesan salary cost and with a corresponding saving on quinquennial inspections. Rigorous cost control helped to bring most other costs in on budget, with savings made where possible.
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We ended the year with a deficit of £109,924 on operations. This was an improvement on the budgeted position due to the efforts of our Mission Areas to pay the Share in full and on time, more clergy vacancies than anticipated and rigorous cost control. Our overall outcome is good.
A graph of the Surplus/Deficit trend for the 12 year period 2007 – 2018 indicated how 2018 represented a significant step in the DBF plan to return to a period of balanced budgets after investing heavily in growth through the Transformation Fund over the past few years in accordance with the ‘The Five Year Financial Plan’ covering the period to 2023.
The accounts have been fully audited by Sage & Co, the diocesan accountants, who have declared they are fully satisfied with internal accounting processes and controls and with the accuracy of the information presented.
After an opportunity for questions and comments, members were asked to vote to accept the 2018 Diocesan Accounts, which were accepted unanimously
2. 2020 Vision – Unlocking our Potential a) Hope Street and the Evangelism Fund John Lomas, Archdeacon of Wrexham announced that £1.95 million for the creation of Hope Street Church, Wrexham has been secured from the Church in Wales Evangelism Fund. Work on the project is commencing with a planned opening date of September 2020 and we are very grateful indeed to the Representative Body of the Church in Wales for the support of this bold vision and step in faith. John stated that over his 25 years in ministry he has witnessed considerable decline in the church, but Hope Street offers a real opportunity for us to address this challenging issue. b) Developing a Rural Strategy Barry Wilson, Archdeacon of Montgomery presented the proposal for a Rural Strategy for the Diocese of St Asaph. The aim is to develop a rural strategy to reimagine the rural church for a sustainable future. The draft consultation document has been prepared by Canon Dr Jill Hopkinson, National Rural Officer for the Church of England 2004 – 2018 and Rural Ministry Tutor at Sarum College from 2018. Three questions were posed: • What does a rural strategy need to address? • What should the priorities be? • Who should be involved? It is recommended that the strategy be devised by a small working group of up to ten people with an additional lay independent Chair. Three sub-groups would report to the Working Group.
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The timeline for the development of the Rural Strategy is one year, September 2019 to September 2020.
Michael Plane, Diocesan Churches Inspector, spoke about shaping a vision for buildings in a rural context. He described the experiences of two rural churches who have faced real challenges, but have been able to ensure a sustainable future by working with their local communities, being willing to evolve and ready to embrace change.
3. Report from the Developing Steering Group Andy Grimwood, Archdeacon of St Asaph presented a report on behalf of the Developing Steering Group. He stated that the language of growth is becoming part of our culture, the principles of ‘LyCiG’ (Leading your Church into Growth) are being used across Mission Areas. Around 400 people have engaged with ‘LyCiG’ to date which means that we have reached the target that we had set.
We are in a position to be able to celebrate discernment, there are currently 19 people in the discernment process including younger vocations.
Tracey White provided a report on behalf of ‘Training Together’ and the Training Forum. A decision has been taken not to produce a Training Prospectus brochure this year as it does not generate enough bookings to make it good value for money. Instead, the Training Forum intends to move towards providing more bespoke type of training. The shape and content of future training will be determined by the response to a survey to be conducted in August.
4. International Partnerships in Mission and Evangelism a) South West Tanganyika (SWT) Dr Hilary Murray and Dr Adrian Murray, members of the diocesan South West Tanganyika Association (SWTA) spoke about the work of the Association and their forthcoming visit. The link between the Diocese of St Asaph and the Diocese of South West Tanganyika was formalised in 2010. We have undertaken a number of projects, including the purchase of motorcycles for priests to travel around their parishes, IT equipment, medical equipment and educational equipment.
Hilary and Adrian stated that they had decided, after prayer to accept an invitation to go to SWT for a long-term visit of up to two years commencing on 12th August 2019. Adrian has registered with the appropriate authorities so that he can practice as a doctor in SWT. He intends to share his expertise in obstetrics and provide clinical training as needed. Hilary will focus on hospital management, and on clinical education, including addressing the stigma associated with HIV and Aids, the empowerment of women and respect of men.
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Bishop Gregory expressed his heartfelt gratitude to Hilary and Adrian for the huge commitment they are undertaking. In a brief ceremony, Bishop Gregory commissioned them both as ambassadors of the Diocese of St Asaph and an embodiment of our link. Our ambassadors in SWT will maintain a blog for the duration of the visit: https://brechdan.wordpress.com/about/ b) Partnership with the Diocese of Helsinki Bishop Gregory outlined the history of the relationship between the Anglican Church and the Lutheran Churches of Scandinavia and explained how we have now formed a link with the Lutheran Diocese of Helsinki. He presented the recently signed Agreement between the Diocese of St Asaph and the Diocese of Helsinki which is available in English, Welsh and Finnish.
It is a living link, focussing on young people, and in particular confirmation. In Finland, over 80% of young people aged 14-15 years are confirmed and alongside the year long confirmation programme is a successful culture of Leadership Training for 15 – 20 year olds.
Tim Feak, Diocesan Under 25s Officer led a visit by a group of young people from St Asaph to Finland earlier in the month and members of the group were present at the meeting to talk about their experiences and how it has impacted on their lives as young Christians. A group of young people from Finland plan to visit St Asaph in October 2019 and in 2020 a year long Confirmation / Discipleship project and Young Leaders Training will commence. The link with Helsinki will complement the mission of Hope Street.
5. Matters raised by the Mission Areas a) From Valle Crucis Mission Area: Has there been any progress on the appointment of a Welsh Language Officer for the Province, and if not, what may be done to speed progress on the matter?
Comprehensive responses had been received from Simon Lloyd, Provincial Secretary, Manon Ceridwen James Director of Formation for Licensed Ministry at St Padarn’s Institute and Jeremy Duff, Principal of the St Padarn’s Institute. b) From Penedeyrn Mission Area: As a diocese, we have made a commitment to be a “Fairtrade” diocese which means that 70% of our churches signed up to Fairtrade. In visiting churches across the diocese, we have noticed on several occasions, non- Fairtrade tea and coffee being served. Are we sure that 70% of our churches are still committed to Fairtrade? Are we promoting Fairtrade events and Fairtrade fortnight? Should we ask for an annual commitment? We have two choices if we realize that we are not fulfilling our pledge: either we withdraw as a diocese from our commitment to Fairtrade or we renew our commitment and re-emphasize to our churches the commitment that is necessary. Fairtrade
11 | P a g e tea, coffee and sugar are widely available in supermarkets with plenty of choice of brands. Which choice should we as a diocese make?
After a discussion on this matter, it was agreed to ask Lis Perkins and Jean- Audrey Speare from Fairtrade to attend a future meeting of the Standing Committee to provide advice and guidance.
6. Provincial Reports to Standing Committee a) Report from the Bench of Bishops Bishop Gregory outlined some of the subjects discussed at the last meeting of the Bench of Bishops, including: • Clergy remuneration package, including stipend, fees, occasional offices and accommodation • Resourcing the cathedrals • Covenant of Churches • Order of Service for the celebration of the centenary of disestablishment • Enquiry into child sexual abuse • Anti Semitism and religious prejudice • Life events – development of resources • St Padarn’s Institute • Provincial website b) Report from the Governing Body The GB report ‘Highlights’ is available online on the Church in Wales website.
25 September 2019 - Holywell
1. Diocesan Budget 2020 and the Five-Year Financial Plan Mrs Helen Jones, Chair of the Diocesan Board of Finance presented the 2020 Diocesan Budget and Five-Year Financial Plan. Income: • Our largest source of income is the Mission Area Share which will be held level on the previous year in 2020. • The Mission Area Share Discount Scheme which offers a discount of up to 4% to Mission Areas that pay promptly and regularly will be continued. • We continue to work with our investment bankers to maximise return on investment whilst maintaining capital growth. • This year, we have negotiated with the RB to use the net income from our rented surplus vicarages as part of our general funds. This provides an additional source of income of £160k. • Budgeted income: £4,755,882
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Expenditure: • We have budgeted for an increase in stipends and salaries of 2.1% and an increase in clergy housing costs of 4%. • We have budgeted for 67 stipendiary clergy and 8 training curacies. We are also funding 4 stipendiary lay ministry positions. • We have assumed that there will be 3 clergy vacancies at any one time. • Diocesan administration team salaries represent 8% of our expenditure. Expenditure has decreased on the 2019 figures due to some full-time roles being replaced by part-time roles and a reduction in the pension contribution. • We will invest in the new Rural Strategy • Total expenditure is reduced to £4.742m compared to £4.801m in 2019. Summary of 2020 Budget Proposals • The Board of Finance proposes to run a balanced budget with a small surplus of £14,087 • This is an important stage of our five-year plan to return the diocese to balanced budget by 2020. The DBF agreed to go into deficit in 2015 to support the investment in the Transformation Fund and this was covered by the surpluses in earlier years. • The DBF believes this budget represents the right balance between confident investment in the future and careful control of costs. • The contribution to the Clergy Pension Scheme has been budgeted at 40% of our stipend bill in anticipation of the triennial review of the Scheme that will take effect from 1 January 2020. • The diocesan contribution to St Padarn’s Institute has been fixed at £75k pa and this is deducted from the Block Grant received from the RB. The Block Grant has been maintained at £1.041m. After an opportunity for questions and comments, the 2020 Diocesan Accounts were accepted unanimously
2. 2020 Vision – Unlocking our Potential a) Hope Street John Lomas, Archdeacon of Wrexham reported on the progress of creating our Resource Church at Hope Street. The newly appointed Hope Street Church leaders are Rachel and Andy Kitchen and they will lead a team to run Hope Street, making it an integral part of the structure of our diocese and ready to ‘plant out’ in three years’ time. The building work is progressing well, and the appointed architect is Lawray Architects, a local Wrexham-based firm. We are working on developing the internal plans to make best use of the available space. b) Developing a Rural Strategy Barry Wilson, Archdeacon of Montgomery reported on the progress of the development of a Rural Strategy.
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The Rural Strategy is a process of recognising who we are, realising that people may not want what we are currently offering and meeting the needs of those living in rural areas. Most of our rural churches are small and some are fragile, but there is also a deep-seated commitment. The faithfulness of our current congregations provides the basis from which we can build the future and the Rural Strategy is a mechanism by which we can do this. The Strategy will start with prayer and prayer will remain at its heart. A Rural Strategy Prayer Book and Prayer Card have been produced and made widely available. Over the next few months we will instigate a listening process to gather thoughts, fears, frustrations as well as dreams and hopes for new expressions of faith that might emerge in the future. We will also look outwards to what is happening elsewhere. Timeline • The Working Party has had its first meeting earlier this month • Rural clergy and lay leaders will meet on 19 October in Eglwys Crist Bala • Recruitment of members of sub-groups in October • Wider consultation November 2019 – March 2020 c) Developing a Coastal Strategy Andy Grimwood, Archdeacon of St Asaph reported that work had begun to develop a Coastal Strategy. We are entering the process without any pre- conceived ideas. In the first instance we will approach the initiative from the following three strands: Prayer; Listen and Dream; and Grants and Resources. Members were encouraged to contact Archdeacon Andy for details about how to get involved.
3. Proposal to merge the Mission Areas of Tanat Valley and Vyrnwy Barry Wilson reported that initial discussions are underway to consider the merging of Tanat Valley Mission Area and Vyrnwy Mission Area nd that he will report back to Standing Committee with the outcome of discussions in due course.
4. Diocesan Conference 2019 Diane McCarthy, Diocesan Secretary, provided an update on the arrangements for the forthcoming annual Diocesan Conference on Saturday 12 October The theme of the Conference will be ‘One Shared Hope’ and the keynote speaker will be Canon Simon Ponsonby from Oxford. This is the last time that we will have the Conference at St Joseph’s as we will be moving to Glyndwr University for our 2020 Conference.
5. Matters raised by the Mission Areas From Borderlands Mission Area: 1) We were recently informed of changes to the way marriages were to be registered in churches due to the 2019 Marriage Act. Would it be possible to
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Response from Chancellor Pam Powell, Director of Ministry: The change to legislation governing the process for registering marriages that was due to come into effect in December this year may now be delayed. However, the General Register Office is continuing with its training schedule to prepare clergy for the new procedures. Mission Area Leaders and Bishop’s Staff will receive training in the first instance and arrangements will be made for this to be cascaded to others.
2) As MAC members are now trustees, a question has been raised whether all members of the MAC need to be trustees? If we accept that all elected church representatives and clergy should be trustees, is there then a need for other clergy and readers, associated with each church to also be trustees? Are trustees the only ones allowed to vote? Also, where reps and clergy are frequent non-attenders at MAC meetings, is there a way of removing them from the MAC?
Response from Mr Llyr Williams, Diocesan Registrar: All members of the clergy are trustees by virtue of their position (providing that the number of lay people outnumber the clergy). This means that the number of trustees can be large, however work can be delegated to sub-committees as appropriate. All members of sub-committees do not have to be trustees but only trustees are permitted to vote.
How to manage the issue of non-attendance can be handled by local agreement because Mission Areas are free to administer their Mission Areas as they see fit providing that they work within the framework of the Constitution. The question of deputies for elected Mission Area Representatives was also raised, along with the issue of proxy votes. The Registrar responded in general terms and will provide detailed guidance in due course.
From Valle Crucis Mission Area: When a church is declared redundant it becomes the responsibility of the Representative Body. However, the responsibility for its churchyard remains with the Mission Area. This may represent a considerable burden on already stretched resources of time and money, especially where the churchyard is full and there is no prospect of receiving further burial fees. Would it not be consistent for the RB to accept responsibility for redundant churchyards as well as for redundant churches?
Written Response from Alex Glanville, Head of Property, Church in Wales: I have enormous sympathy with the question. The reality is that it can be very difficult to sustain a closed churchyard (no room for further burials) especially where it surrounds a redundant church. However, there is no obvious funding
15 | P a g e stream to take on responsibility by the RB at present without changing some fundamental aspects of funding. There is nothing to stop the Diocese requesting the RB to assess this possibility formally and I would be happy with that but as ever there are no new pots of money so new commitments would need to be funded by changing what we give in another area. It was agreed that the Diocesan Secretary would formally request the RB to assess this possibility.
6. Report from the Engaging Steering Group Sarah Wheat, Engagement Officer presented a report on the current work of the Engagement Steering Group. Kathy Stewart, representing Mold Mission Area, spoke about the Wellfield Charity Trust, a charity that helps homeless persons and the trust’s Wellfield Farm Project which provides temporary accommodation and support for men with alcohol addiction problems. Yvonne Pryce, representing Offa Mission Area, spoke about the Bereavement Café that had been launched in Offa and now operates every month.
Juliet Fraser, representing Aberconwy Mission Area, spoke about how she is developing a church presence in Mochdre in an innovative non-traditional way. There is no church building – the church is rooted in the community and responsive to community needs.
7. Provincial Reports to Standing Committee a) Report from the Governing Body Andy Grimwood provided a brief update on matters discussed at the last meeting of the Governing Body earlier in the month, including: • The St Asaph Hope Street presentation which was enthusiastically received. • A report from Dr Sandra Miller about ‘Life Matters’ – the Church in Wales is looking at adopting some of the Church of England materials relating to life events such as baptism and funerals. • A motion to campaign against human slavery was supported. A full report about the meeting will be available shortly in the GB publication ‘Highlights’ and on the Church in Wales website.
8. Closing Blessing This was the last meeting of the current triennial period of the Standing Committee. Nigel Williams, Dean of St Asaph closed the meeting with a blessing and thanked all members for their three years’ service.
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