Annual Members’ Meeting at London 17 November 2012

A  view by Judith Allinson

CEL held its Annual Members Meeting at St Mary’s Church, Eversholt Street, near Euston Station on Sat 17th November 2012.

 

Paul Bodenham,  Chair of Christian Ecology Link Steering Committee, highlighted points from the Annual Report.

He thanked two people who are now standing down – Deirdre Munro, who has been Minutes Secretary for several years and Roger Shorter who is a Founder member of CEL.

 

Deborah Tomkins joins the Steering Committee and Rev Peter Grimwood is the new Minutes Secretary.
Paul emphasised that there are many other roles and volunteer jobs to do in CEL.

Howard Gardner brought a box of the brand new Green Christian Magazines and gave extra copies to people to take home and share with others.

Ruth Jarman publicised the upcoming Operation Noah Lecture by Andy Atkins of FOE this coming Wednesday 21st., and also the Climate Service in London on 1 December.

In our Steering Committee Meeting before the AGM, the Committee voted to support and sign the Lausanne “Call to Action on Creation Care”

Planning for Future Generations

After the meeting there was a workshop led by Haleena Ward of the Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development. FDSD. This is linked to the Alliance for Future Generations.
The Charity is working to see how things can be changed so that governments take future generations into account. (The charity is funded in part by the Insurance Industry – which shows that the insurance industry is concerned about the future..)

The problem is:-
Our governments are mostly elected for about four years.
So they only plan for the next few years and not for the long term

Our short-term approach to law and democracy has culminated in a series of ‘crunches’ including high fuel prices and the risk of peak oil, high food prices, the financial crisis and the climate crisis

Governments do things to help themselves get re-elected, rather than things that will make the world a good place in 50 or 100 years time.

What can we do about this?

The FDSD have decided to make a Manifesto.

A Manifesto is some writing which tells people what you would do should you be elected. It is a document that sets forth the principles and goals of an organization.
Manifestos are public declarations of principles and intentions. They set out a platform for action.

The FDSD was keen to have input from a Faith group.

We discussed questions in small groups and wrote answers on post-it notes. Haleena took these away to analyse.
Whilst I had problems with long words in the jargon, it did make us all think.
You can  read about the manifesto that they are writing here: http://www.fdsd.org/manifesto
You can contribute to it by answering their questions

At the end of the day I was keen to show the group three flowers that were growing – flowering in November – within 2m of the church door:- Gallant Soldier (Galinsoga parviflora), Common Chickweed (Stellaria media) and Annual Meadow-grass (Poa annua) – consider the Lilies of the field – they neither sow nor reap. (I had taqken the pictures below earlier in Amsterdam and in Durham)

The following day (having stayed overnight in London) I was even more delighted to find Annual  Mercury (Mercurialis annua)– which does not grow in Yorkshire.

For note – as someone who only comes to London occasionally  I:

• enjoyed travelling on the clean new tube trains
• finally got a grip with, and enjoyed using, Oyster Cards
• appreciated the new Kings Cross Station vaulting
• marvelled, as most of the population is controlled by Iphones and Tablets
• appreciated seeing more bike stands and bicycles
• enjoyed walking along the railway which is now a nature reserve
• enjoyed staying with mine hosts (who are taking part in ecocell) – looking at their new insulated bathroom wall, the solar panels, the led lighting, the mini Traidcraft store in the house
  

  Annual Mercury

• enjoyed visiting their church where we had a “healing service”, there was a group playing instruments to accompany the singing rather than an organ, and where the  project to encourage youth was to plan a recording studio.

Previous AMMs: 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007

Next: ecocell workshop on travel, Saturday 12th January 2013 (Publicity)

Previous: Is your ecology too small? The CEL Noddfa retreat 2012

Date: 20 November, 2012 | Category: Green Christian Events | Comments: 0

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