OCTOBER COUNCIL MEETING

Parochial hall, Kenilworth, 15.10.11                        10.30am to 2.30pm

President’s Remarks

It gives me much pleasure to be able to welcome you all to our newly refurbished Parochial Hall. I’m sure for those of you who have been to this hall before the renovation you will notice what an amazing transformation has taken place. Thank you for coming today. We will be following the usual pattern this morning and then this afternoon there will be an opportunity for you to share your thoughts on a number of ideas that we can report on back to MSH. This is Blue Sky Thinking.

I looked back on my Remarks from March and would just like to pick up on one or two points.

I mentioned the excellent turn out of Branch Leaders/Contacts at the BL’s sharing day in January. We have held 2 more sharing days looking at programme planning and most branches were represented. I know from the feedback how helpful members found these days. I am hoping that with the suggestions and guidance given, that your programmes will show more of what MU is about and linking as far as possible to the 5 Objectives. The other point we tried to stress was that it isn’t necessary to always have a speaker. Many members love to have discussions and to have them once or twice in a year would be really good. If you need any suggestions for discussions look on the Social Policy section on the main MU web or contact one of us. If you do this please let me know what you discuss and any outcomes. We have planned for another BL’s sharing day on January 23rd venue TBA. BL’s – if you are not able to attend please ask someone else to come along. For some of you the officers will be changing so please bring them along too. At this point I would like to thank Sheila Short our Training advisor for leading our imaginative and very useful sharing days.

Next I would like to thank most branches very much for raising the extra £1 per member to send to MSH and also for the excellent response to our own Diocesan appeal to help us with our Diocesan Fund. It is always helpful to have money raised for us as the cost of everything to do with running the Diocese is going up all the time.

At our last Council Meeting I said we were looking forward to the Lady Day Service at Bidford. I know from listening to you how much you enjoyed this service and the fellowship afterwards. We will be having another Diocesan Lady Day service again next year and this will take place on Monday March 26th. Venue is not decided yet. It would be lovely if every branch joined us for this service as we only have 2 Diocesan Services a year and this is one of them.

You will have read how successful the trip to Edinburgh and the General Meeting was in the last Link Up. Next year the General Meeting is to take place at Llandudno and we are in the process of organising a short holiday to Wales to include the Meeting. Details will be sent out as soon as we have them. The dates are 14th June to 18th June. It would help us greatly with our planning if you are interested in joining us to sign the list. We already have a number who came this year who have already said they are interested.

Our Silent Retreat was an amazing time for those of us who were there. I hope you will get a feel of how we felt from the piece written in Link Up. Those of us who were there are going to meet soon to share our feelings and to see what we might do in the future.

I have mentioned Link Up a few times now. Some of you are great at letting Rosemary have photos and articles about what you have been doing, but there must be many of you who are doing great things who don’t tell any of us. We really would like to hear from you.

Faithful in Prayer on August 9th was a very special day for many and I hope that everyone was able to think and pray about Mothers’ Union at some time during that day.

All of our Unit Coordinators have attended Unit Conferences this year. Each Year Mary Sumner House organise these conferences usually at Swanwick and they last for 3 days. It is a great opportunity for everyone to meet those from other dioceses who are doing the same work.

I mentioned Frances Westcott as having completed her accreditation as a Parenting Facilitator in March and I’m pleased to tell you that Sheila Short has also completed her training. Please let us congratulate them both.

Next year will be election time, so I would like you to be thinking if there is anyone who might fit some of the vacancies that are coming up. Sadly, we will be losing several of our Trustees and Unit Coordinators as they have served their 6 years, but all positions come up for re election in any case. There will be more about this in the end of year Link Up but we will be looking for the following positions: Action and Outreach Unit Coordinator, Finance and admin. Unit Coordinator, Faith and Policy Unit Coordinator, all of these are Trustee positions, a representative for AFIA who may or may not be a Trustee, Indoor Members Coordinator who again may or may not be a Trustee and 4 General Trustees. These roles might be something you feel called to do. If you feel this is, please get in touch with me and also Viv who will send you role descriptions. Election papers will go out next April and we hope that those members who fill the roles will be able to work alongside those who hold these positions at the moment to help with the handovers. We already have some Trustees who are eligible to stand again who have expressed an interest in some of these roles.

This year we have been helping and supporting Coffee Tots. This is a charity in the centre of Coventry who run a cafe for families but do so much more. MU will be running a parenting and knitting group as well as dropping in from time to time to talk to the parents there. Many are single parents and they are always assured of a warm welcome from the staff. As you know we cannot support them with money but we have been able to buy toys for them that they couldn’t otherwise afford. This will come out of the Action and Outreach fund. There is a great need in the centre of Coventry for this kind of place. If you find you have a few spare minutes do drop in, introduce yourselves to the staff and see for yourself what a great job they are doing. The Bishop has given them a grant to develop their work. Catherine who started the group is joining MU and who knows there might be an MU group there in the cafe.

When I became Diocesan President last year and as a result of what members had told us at the different Reaching Out days, I said we needed to promote Objective 1 ‘Supporting and upholding marriage’ and also to find ways of supporting those suffering loss and bereavement.

I’m pleased to say that some Deaneries are planning for something around marriage during Marriage Week next year. Alcester Deanery are holding Wedding Fair in St. Nicholas’ Church Alcester and Kenilworth Deanery is hoping to do the same. I am hoping too that the Diocese will enable us to work with any initiative they might have around marriage.

I am aware of many individual members who do much in their churches to support and help those suffering loss and bereavement and we are hoping that we may be able to work with Care for the Family in moving this forward.

I have put a request in Link Up for you to let me know what you are doing in your parishes with both marriage and bereavement but also baptism. So please respond as it will give us a wider picture of what is happening.

You will have heard that we have had to put up the subscriptions again. This is very regrettable but we don’t have a choice. We have kept our diocesan increase as small as possible and we will continue to be as economical as possible. We fully appreciate how difficult it is for many of you financially. One branch I know enables members to save this money over the year. I appreciate this isn’t possible for next year but it would be for 2013.

We are all passionate about Mothers’ Union and what it stands for and we try hard to put across that passion not only to our members but to those outside. We don’t always get it right but we do our best. Please remember we are all volunteers as you are.

Thank you again for all the hard work you do in raising money for the different projects and for the diocese too and thank you for coming and supporting us today.

Diana Sliwinski

October 2011