General Synod, Westminster 2019 - Day 1

Much enjoyed the later start to the day, heading to the train station for a lunch time train is better than my normal 07:22 to work!

No problem with the trains or underground - did my flat in central Coventry to Church house in about 2 hours door to door.

Always nice to meet synodical friends again - it's a bit like when you went back to university after the holidays.

After the normal opening worship and welcome the first items of business was the business committee's report. Then a motion was moved for meeting dates in the next quinquennium.

There followed a quite frankly tedious debate about whether meeting a weekends was a good idea or not with amendments to change the dates moved.

I abstained on the debates as I am fortunate in that both my current and previous employers were happy to give me unpaid leave to attend synod and I claim back loss of earnings from the synod. (So a big shout out to The Harley Medical Group and Fluid7 for being good employers!)

Following on from this we heard from visiting Anglican Communion guests The Rt Rev'd Paul Korir, Bishop of Kapsabet in Kenya, and The Most Rev'd Dr Prem Chand Singh, Moderator of the Church of North India and Bishop of Jabalpur giving addresses on Evangelism and Discipleship. The contents of these addresses should be made available to read.

The Archbishop of Canterbury had the tough act of following on with his presidential address.

Then there were appointments of Clive Mather as Chair of the Church of England Pensions Board and Rev Charlotte Cook and Mr Joseph Diwakar as members of the Archbishops’ Council for a term ending on 22 February 2024 to be approved. 


Finally we moved on to Questions. I had somehow managed to get a written question at number 4 on the order paper!

I was disappointed  that the
Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich as chair of the Ministry Council felt he could not give a breakdown by diocese as it might identify people, so I asked if he could do it over a 5 year sum total.

He said he would look in to it and indicated that it might be useful as it might show variance between diocese - this is the information I am after. 

Ian Wyllie has a good analysis of question response at http://www.exior.co.uk/wp/archives/2019/78

After staying and listening to more of question time I grabbed my bag and headed for my hotel where I am now typing this up.