Annual Report 2020

Annual Reports 2020 General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches unitarian.org.uk The 92nd Contents 5 Presidential Team Report 2020 Annual 7 Chief Officer’s Report 10 Our Trustees Reports Who are we? Our Report 20 Our Volunteers General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches Registered Charity No. 250788 21 Local Leadership The Nightingale Centre Hucklow Summer School Buildings Advisory Registered Charity No. 242256 Worship Studies 27 Ministry Interview Panel 32 Visibility Lindsey Press Penal & Social Affairs 34 Wales 35 Youth 36 Nightingale Centre 38 Annual Meetings 40 Our Finances and Organisation AGM Accounts GA Finance Nightingale Finance Governance Staff 52 Our Members Honorary & Associate Members Congregational Contributions Published by the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches Essex Hall 1 Essex St London WC2R 3HY Tel: 020 7240 2384 email: [email protected] unitarian.org.uk 3 Presidential Team Report Team General Assembly President 2019-20 Reports Celia Cartwright This year’s report is not easy to write. Having warmth, kindness, and generosity of spirit remained as President by default, there (and food!) was alive and well. We may be having been no AGM at which a motion to small in number but we are huge in love. I accept our new President, Anne Mills, was shall treasure my memories well. possible, I am still holding the badge of office safely in Cumbria. I will do so until we find a Since March 2020 I have been isolating. way to hold an AGM and I can, with delight, I cannot risk being ill. I have family pass the baton of the presidency to Anne who responsibilities and have seen first-hand the I know will be a fine and worthy President of effect of Covid19: the death of two friends; this wonderful denomination. three friends who have contracted the illness and are still struggling with long-covid My term of office should have ended in months after they fell ill; both my children April 2020, but sadly the Covid19 pandemic working with the public, in caring for the overturned all our plans. My last four elderly and in working with the sick. So my presidential appointments were cancelled actions as President have been few. Ministry and though I still hope to be able to get to has been in the form of a daily blog on my FUSE (The Festival of Unitarians in the South Facebook page and I have kept in contact East), Godalming, the LDPA (London District) with the Executive Committee when possible. meeting and to Dublin, I have no idea when I have also taken a few Zoom services and this will be possible. taken part in meetings. The rest of my year was splendid. I visited From my home in Cumbria, I wish you well. congregations throughout the UK - Scotland, Please take good care of yourselves, stay Northern Ireland, England (N, S, E & W) safe and well, take care of each other and and finally Wales, where neither floods or don’t put yourself or others at risk. Photographers: pandemic managed to prevent a splendid We would like to thank all those couple of days meeting, greeting, being Celia Cartwright who provided photographs for entertained and leading worship. I have this Annual Report. always loved my Unitarian family and during 2019 and a little bit of 2020, I found the Cover Image / design: This Ain't Rock'n'Roll. 5 General Assembly Presidential Chief Officer's Report Team Report General Assembly Vice General Assembly Chief Officer President 2019-20 Elizabeth Slade Anne Mills This has been a most unusual year! As Vice- I had to learn about Zoom, very abruptly: Exactly one year after beginning my role We will need to think differently about President, during 2019-20, I carried out 60 a steep but successful learning-curve. My as Chief Officer we closed up Essex Hall money, how it flows, and how congregations official engagements; from April to the end of primary aim is to maintain contact, so I for the office-based staff to start working become sustainable. We have also found November 2020, I carried out as many again have striven to attend a variety of virtual from home, just ahead of the first national many unexpected upsides – online worship ---but differently! I am grateful to Celia and services and other events, whenever possible, lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. reaching more people, the ability to have Sue for their efforts and support, particularly although this will never replace personal meetings without the hours of train travel, when they tried to arrange alternative contact. I have also sent out messages of I am grateful for the visits, meetings and and a refocusing on what matters most. Presidential installations, in March. Lockdown support, as appropriate, to individuals and Zoom calls that I had made in my first put an end to these plans, but I appreciated groups. I am grateful to everyone in the year that enabled me to go into this long The national response to the pandemic has their concern and flexible approach. Many Unitarian denomination who has provided the crisis with a good web of relationships and naturally prioritised people’s physical health, of my scheduled engagements melted wealth of seminars offered; all have been of understanding of the current status of the particularly of those who are more vulnerable away, but alternative arrangements were high quality and informative; their benefits will movement – although of course the more I to the effects of coronavirus, through subsequently made. These have included steer us through the challenges presented by learn, the more nuance and depth I see that lockdowns and social distancing, and for conducting services, or contributing to them, our immediate future, when congregations there is to learn. many people this has had a negative impact and attending many formal and informal have to reorganise and reassess. We must on their mental and spiritual health – on top meetings. Strangely, I have been very busy, support and encourage smaller, struggling It’s clear that there will be no ‘back to of the grief and loss that so many people without moving from my armchair! groups. We must ensure that ministers and normal’, for the Unitarian and Free Christian have experienced. church-leaders remain enthusiastic, but not movement, or for wider society – too much overburdened. As we approach a period of has changed. It’s unlikely that there will be As the risks around physical health reduce change and improvement, positive attitudes a clear moment when we are ‘through’ the as the virus comes under control, there will be necessary. May 2021 bring us all hope, pandemic, and the economic and social will be a great need to invest in rebuilding energy and determination! impact will last for years. spiritual health in our communities - not just to reconnect with our own congregations, Anne Mills We need to find our path within this new but to understand what is needed by those context – considering the outside impact, around us. The past year has been hard for all and that on our congregations. Many chapels of us, but even more so for those without the have struggled through the loss of rental support and strength offered by being part of income and other sources of funding, shining a spiritual community. a light of the lack of financial resilience in our movement. 6 7 Report awaited Liz Slade Unitarians and Free Christians can play a role religions because of their sexuality. But if theologies can bring to the surface the in leading this renewal of spiritual health – at we see spirituality as a universal part of differences of our many spiritual paths. My the local level, by offering support to those being human, then those who do not see belief is that focusing on this oneness, while nearby, and in more widely in public dialogue themselves as religious will also be suffering holding open the space for all the different helping to show the value that spiritual spiritually from the effects of pandemic perspectives we bring, will give us the community can offer. – and from all else in today's culture that strength to find our future path as we emerge dishonours our spiritual lives. from the pandemic, and ensure that we With more than half of the British public rebuild with unity. not seeing themselves as belonging to any The poet John O’Donohue writes “The religion, and with two-thirds never attending reductionism and fragmentation of our I’m so grateful for the creativity, resilience, ordinary religious services (according to culture has relegated the sacred to the adaptability and support of all of our British Social Attitudes data), there is a large margins. Yet ironically this very process members, leaders, the Executive Committee, spiritual gap in our culture. Our charitable has only intensified the spiritual hunger that and the staff team, as we have navigated this object is centred on ‘promoting a free and people feel.” difficult year together. inquiring religion’, and for much of our history we have been focused on the ‘free and My hope is that our own post-pandemic Elizabeth Slade inquiring’ part as more people were already renewal as a movement will come from us actively religious; this spiritual gap means finding new ways to draw on our traditions in that we now also need to engage with many order to meet this spiritual hunger. people on the ‘religion’ part too, offering a way into a religous life that meets people The branding and communication work that where they are. has unfolded through this year to help us reach more people has shown us that we Of course, it’s important that our doors are must build on the strength of the diversity always open to those who already know the within our movement, rather than focus value of a spiritual life, and are coming to us on the differences in how we gather and from other faith groups.

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