The Minutes of a Meeting of Monmouth Diocesan
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The Minutes of a Meeting of Monmouth Diocesan Conference. Held on 17 October 2015 St. Teilo’s Church in Wales High School, Circle Way East, Llanedeyrn, Cardiff. CF23 9PD Opening Worship: Conference was opened with worship led by the team from Cyncoed Ministry Area. The Bishop welcomed everyone to Conference with a special welcome to Mr John Spence, CBE was the guest speaker. Bishop Richard's welcoming remarks to Conference It is good once again for us to gather as a Diocese and although we are going through some challenging times it is always important for us to celebrate our life together as God's people and remember with thanksgiving God's generosity and faithfulness. Since launching the Diocesan Strategy our main objective has been to work towards a more coherent and economically viable service to the parishes. With the strains on the financial commitments of the Diocese we have inevitably focused this year on shaping the designated Ministry Areas and considering the deployment of clergy. These are ongoing projects and I would like to pay tribute to the Bishop's staff and the Diocesan Office for their enthusiasm and commitment to the task. I particularly want to thank Sandy Blair for his excellent contribution as Chair of the Diocesan Board of Finance who steered us through some choppy waters. It's good to welcome Peter Lea back into the role. We also want to pay tribute to our previous Chancellor, Judge Phillip Price who has now retired after many years of service as Chancellor and we thank him for his legal advice and guidance with the faculty process. Mark Powell is now our new Chancellor and comes with the experience of being Chancellor to Birmingham Diocese. I know he will be a great asset to the Diocese and we give him a warm welcome. Changing tack......Jesus seemed to spend a deal of time in a boat and it interesting to reflect on those stories and the impact of being in dangerous waters had on the gospel narrative. Well, we may be aiming to streamline the boat, but we need clearly to remember that the boat is not for sightseeing but for the hard and necessary work of fishing. Jesus constantly calls us to be disciples and be fishers of men and women. That is why we need to remind ourselves of the gospel imperative. Page 1 To this effect I am asking us to enter into a Time for Mission starting in Advent this year. We are going to ask everyone to reflect upon the five marks of mission so that we may be engaged in that essential work of the Christian Church. To inspire us we will have significant speakers arranged through the year to give us teaching and guidance. There will also be material available for parish use throughout the year. Also next year I will be launching a special Mission Fund instead of my Bishop's Lent Appeal. This is to encourage local initiatives in mission especially where resources are scarce. I hope the Mission Fund will provide opportunities for parishes to have a go and I promise I will try to make the scheme as flexible and easy to use. My message is: have a go and be creative! And introduce people to the kingdom of God! As part of the Mission... We are pleased to launch the new Diocesan magazine Grapevine at today’s conference. The new design reflects the feedback received over the summer and we are grateful to all who contributed. The title was suggested by two people and this encapsulates so many strands of our life – that we believe Jesus is the vine and we are the branches, the vine on which the grape grows which is so special to our Eucharist, and that the grapevine is how we find out about news around the Diocese. The magazine will now appear FOUR times a year, and we hope to focus on different areas of ministry, feature news from around the Diocese, and help make sense of broader subjects, facing us as Christians today. A new addition to the magazine is the ‘Back Chat’ feature, which is a short meditation, which appears, strangely enough, on the back cover, and will be written by a range of people involved in ministry around the Diocese. The magazine is in your conference packs, please take the time to have a look at it, and I’m sure Kathryn Stowers would appreciate any feedback you have on this new format. It will also be distributed in the usual way over the next few weeks, so please keep a look out for it in local church. Time and time again the importance of communication is raised and I hope the Grapevine will go some way to communicating the life of the Diocese. But this communication cannot be just for ourselves, for our family as it were. Selfies - mobile phone photos turned to oneself and some friends - are great fun, but true photography takes in the world which includes and sometimes excludes us. The church needs the wider vision. It cannot be just a selfie church - orientated to itself, with its own concerns. The mission of God is a nexus of relationships both in the church and in the world. It is a world of relationships with each other, living and being shaped by the work of the Holy Spirit. Let God shape us into the faith communities which he calls us to be and so live in his joy and share that joy with others. + Richard Page 2 1. Apologies for Absence were received from 10 clergy and 8 members of the Laity. 2. Declaration of conflict of interest: none were declared. 3. Minutes of the meeting of 18th October 2014 were received without amendment and duly signed by the Bishop. 4. Matters Arising: There were none. 5. The List of Members was produced and signed: Clergy - 1 Bishop; 88 Priests and Deacons under the age of 70 (61 stipendiary – 27 NSM) 26 Clergy over 70 (House for duty or NSM); Laity – 119, with 113 elected from the parishes, no Bishop’s Nominees and 6 ex-officio - Members. The Bishop reported that the matter of the 70 years of age rule for clergy is to be debated at provincial level and he will keep everyone informed. 6. The Report of the Standing Committee The Archdeacon of Newport presented the Report and thanked members of the Standing Committee for their work and he also thanked the Revd. David Collingbourne as Conference Secretary for compiling the report. The Archdeacon spoke of the 2020 Vision priority as the establishment of Ministry Areas as centres of Mission. Linked to this he spoke of the need for many more boundary changes. He informed members of Conference that the issue of the Archiepiscopal See is back on the agenda and the matter will come to Standing Committee for discussion. The Archdeacon spoke of the work and dedication of the Diocesan Advisory Committee, all volunteers, and thanked them for their willingness to serve and give advice. The Archdeacon introduced the new Chancellor, Mr Mark Powell, and invited him to speak. The Chancellor spoke of his pleasure in being asked to serve in this voluntary role and thanked the Bishop, the Archdeacon’s and the Registrar for their help so far. He informed Conference that he intends to deal with faculty applications as swiftly as he can, he is aware that congregations have spent time, money and much effort in getting to application stage and that it is not fair that they wait an eternity for a decision. He explained that the DAC is advisory to him, but the ultimate decision is his. The Chancellor intends to circulate to all parishes the parameters within which applications must work, he asked that parishes do not abuse the system by going ahead with works and then applying retrospectively for permission. If the system is abused, there is a danger that the planning authorities will take back the decision making to themselves. The Archdeacon of Newport proposed the acceptance of the Standing Committee Report and invited questions. The Revd John Davis – Tredegar, commented that there were experts on the DAC, but is there an expert on the subject of Mission? The Archdeacon responded that there are statutory requirements from the Welsh Government re, - areas of expertise for the DAC, but as a diocese we can choose to add to that statutory requirement e.g. for health and safety. When the clerical members were appointed, the Revd David Parfitt brought expertise on Mission. The Archdeacon of Monmouth seconded the proposal- all were in favour with no abstentions. 7. The Report of the Diocesan Board of Finance – The Chairman of the DBF, Mr Peter Lea paid tribute to the outgoing Chair, Mr Sandy Blair, and of all that he had done over the last eight years. Mr Lea informed Conference that this year’s Report of the DBF would be presented by Page 3 himself, Dr Paul Glover (Diocesan Secretary) and Mr Rod Davies outgoing Chair of the Property Board. He thanked Mr Davies for all his hard work and informed Conference that Mr Sandy Blair would now serve as Chair in his place. The figures for 2014: the Income for the year was budgeted to be £3.69M; by far the largest part of this was parish share. Mr Lea thanked the parishes for the great efforts made to meet this figure. However, unfortunately, £440K of this was not collected last year and when added to the unpaid share from earlier years it left £544K owing at the end of 2014.