The Church of England’s General Synod will meet in London from 10 to 14 February. The agenda and papers for the meeting were released today.
There are links to the papers below the fold, grouped by the day on which they are due to be debated. There are also a number of GS Misc papers and items of deemed and contingency business.
Also available are these two zipped files.
Monday, 10 February
Tuesday, 11 February
Wednesday, 12 February
Thursday, 13 February
Friday, 14 February
Other information
GS Misc Papers
Deemed and Contingency Business
Notice Papers
If the Hereford motion (GS2396A) falls, most of the rest of this will be irrelevant – Dioceses will go bankrupt, clergy will be laid off, and the whole system will continue to slowly collapse in upon itself. Total fixed assets of the Church Commissioners in 2013 were £5.877bn, in 2023 they were £10.104bn. Inflation over those 10 years was 34.2%, and had assets grown at the inflation rate they would have been £7.886bn. So in the last 10 years the Church Commissioners have a windfall of over £2bn in asset gains over and above inflation. The money is there. Parishes… Read more »
All anyone needs to know about the efficacy of the Synod – or the AC’s manipulation and lack of respect for it – laid bare to see. I think I counted 68 assorted items varying degrees of importance all mixed up and a couple of order papers. So a large group of volunteers are herded into rooms suffering from severe information overload and will then be hounded and timed from item to item because otherwise it will be all their fault if decisions aren’t made or the Synod falls short…. Guys it is time to stop playing, joining in the… Read more »
It is unclear to me at the moment (and I have just read both papers, rather than digested them) how this interacts with the recommendations of Diocesan Finance Review GS2380, which are also significant and are directed towards a similar objective. Notable is that both financial papers are brutally realistic and contrast with the picture painted in the material accompanying Statistics for Mission. The material in GS2396A does not include projections of stipendiary clergy numbers and assumes that more money will mean fewer/shorter vacancies. However clergy are a scarce resource as well as money and that is a matter of… Read more »
Really interesting financial stuff. Will be fascinating to see how the debates proceed and conclude. I would just ask the question, in case the B+W/H proposal turns to reality – what will happen to Parish Share? The money paid since 1997 for clergy pensions didn’t come originally from dioceses. It came (certainly in my diocese) from Parish Share increases. Will the money stay with DBFs, or will there be a clearly defined way for it to impact Parish Finances. If this is evident and I have missed, please enlighten me.
The proposed changes to the Vacancy in See Committee Regulations are interesting. It’s noteworthy that (apart from the entirely uncontentious one about Sodor and Man) they are opposed by the central members of the Crown Nominations Commission. GS 2397 is being discussed right at the end of the Synod meeting when some members might have slipped away for an early start to the weekend. I’d make three comments myself. First, the proposals to prevent a single place of worship having multiple people on the ViSC (unless they are all ex officio members), and to prevent a single place of worship… Read more »
Let us pray for the members of General Synod that (a) they may survive this information bomb, and (B) know the wisdom of the colours of King Solomon’s curtain to discern the important bits, and (c) have the energy to focus on the important bits.
“Bits” in this sentence is a technical liturgical response.
Thanks Lottie I for one would very much appreciate this. Although I have experience of sitting on a board and dealing with information bombs like this, the current offering is exceptional in its quantity and significance so focussing on the important will be even more necessary than ever. So the prayers of all of you for wisdom would be very much appreciated.
GS 1402 (Response to Scolding Review) covers some of the more obvious failings of both the Scolding Review and the Diocese of St Albans, without appearing to address many of the obvious failings of the complete lack of Independence of a Review commissioned by SSW and whose ToR were written by SSW. Thus was why so many victims & survivors refused to participate & Fiona kept on having to issue repeated requests in the hope that some victims would actually take part in her review, whereas so many still chose not to. In the light of this paper it is… Read more »
How ‘on earth’ is a General Synod member expected to ‘find time’ to read 66 papers in the not unlimited time available, let alone to mark and inwardly digest; nor to sleep, eat, work and fulfill obligations to family, listen, befriend .. I’m sure I’ve already neglected to consider something important. This is more than inconsiderate; it is a kind of mental assault- there must be some ‘psychological term’. I have not the time to add up the total wordcount, nor to assess the time needed to even read at a ‘normal’ rate of reading. This is more Politburo than… Read more »
I have long pondered this question. This time the Charity Commission has significantly increased the amount of material, moreover implying that reading it is mandatory.
School governors are required to read this185 page document and to sign that they have (and understood?):
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66d7301b9084b18b95709f75/Keeping_children_safe_in_education_2024.pdf
It is reviewed and revised annually; helpfully ‘substantive changes’ are identified in a two-page Annex, although the actual new wording is not highlighted.
I have read these papers but how does anyone expect a human to fully understand or digest what is in some of these papers totally gobidilgook?
how can the church have a fair safeguarding authority when it falls under the Director of finance along with HR. I am sorry to say that the church, the church I love is on a course to self destruct! We are ruled by self-opinionated and bigoted individuals only interested in themselves, their positions of power and authority and in many cases lacking in truthfulness.