[Gselections2015] Meeting May 11th

[Giles Goddard]

Dear all

I'm looking forward to our meeting at 11 a.m. on Saturday 11th May.  The meeting will now be at St Andrew's, Short St., London SE1 8LJ

The purpose of the meeting will be to begin planning a coordinated campaign to ensure that the next elections result in a more inclusive Synod. I'll circulate, before the meeting, some of the materials we sent out last time, and I hope that these will be a useful base to work from.

Since setting up this meeting there have been several helpful conversations with WATCH, of which I'm a firm and committed member, as I expect most of us are. As you know, WATCH is planning to put a great deal of time and resources into the pre-election campaign as well, including the development of their diocesan network.  But the decision has been taken within WATCH that the question of women bishops must be kept separate from other issues of inclusion, for political reasons - sadly, not everyone supports all of them -  and they are therefore intending to run their campaign independently. 

This isn't a problem, it's an opportunity!  In our conversations, I think there's been general agreement that there is no point in having two groups independently trying to set up Diocesan networks.  It would be much better for the IC group to be clear that it will support the WATCH initiative in whatever ways we can.  

But we will also need to ensure that the other questions of inclusion - poverty, mental health, disability and LGBT inclusion - are also clearly on the agenda, by providing resources for candidates and electors etc;  and we will need to ensure that we engage the members of our organisations well, so that they can spread the message.  

So I think the meeting - and I'm hoping that reps of WATCH will be there too - will need to focus on what we can do nationally and as organisations, and how we can assist WATCH in their Diocesan campaign.

Does that make sense?  Any thoughts welcome, and as I say I'm looking forward to our meeting on 11th May,

Giles

Canon Giles Goddard
St John with St Andrew, Waterloo
07762 373 674
www.stjohnswaterloo.org



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