Chairs blog May 2021: CPW BGM Report
Introduction
It has been an interesting 4 years and if you are like me, as I begin to recount where we were at the last BGM, you may feel as though I’m describing events from a very long time ago. So much has changed, but many of the things that matter remain. We have had the opportunity to learn a great deal about ourselves, about our priorities and about our mission. Today is a line in the sand, a moment to take stock, the first step into the future. What happens next is up to us.
2018
I’ll start where we left off on the 17th November 2018. We were at Boar’s Hill, Oxford. The Dora Turbin Lecture on ‘Disability and a Theology of Hope' had been delivered by Dr Pia Matthews, and was followed by the BGM . The centre had boiler problems, I think, and was double booked with another group. We had to phase our mealtimes. Greg had stepped back from being Chair 11 months earlier due to a health scare, and he and Lizzie Allerton officially stepped down as trustees at this meeting. Pablo Guidi became the new Vice-chair.
The 2019 brochure was almost ready.
The new web site was unveiled.
There were 33 people in attendance, 6 apologies.
2019
In February the new board of Trustees met at Northampton for our overnight strategy meeting. At the end of it we had a plan :
• for 3 years of study based on our baptismal anointing Year 1 would consider Priesthood, Year 2, Prophesy, and Year 3, Kingdom
• we opted for a return of the Easter week which we planned to hold at Barmouth
• We proposed a new Autumn lecture interfacing faith with culture The first one would be Faith and Politics delivered by Mike Kane MP, member for Wythenshawe.
We had the programme, we had the teams and the brochure was almost ready.
Later in February we lost a dear priest friend, Owen Hardwick whose wit and wisdom will be remembered fondly by many members. We also held a winter weekend chaired by Helen Floyd entitled the “Church at the Crossroads’ at Boars Hill in the same difficult circumstances. We had tried unsuccessfully to source an alternative location.
In March the spring weekend at Hyning was a sellout as it featured the hugely popular scholar Tom O’Loughlin speaking about Eucharist. Unfortunately with just a few weeks to go Tom had a serious health scare which caused him to cancel all his engagements. The weekend’s chaiir Mike Campbell and the chaplain Nicjk Postlethwaite rose to the occasion and presented a wonderful weekend using Tom’s writings and videos. Putting his theories into practice in our liturgies was a joy.
The brochure was still unavailable and I got a good telling off from Mary O’Brien. I was beginning to realise that when you are the chair, even if something isn’t your fault, its your fault. I was also beginning to realise the vital importance of good communications!
The brochure was available by the end of March/beginning of April but bookings may have been negatively impacted by its delay.
In April we celebrated a CPW Easter in Barmouth, chaired by Clare Guidi - the sun shone on us and the week had all the ingredients of a classic CPW. - prayer, mountain walks, more prayer, discussions, visits to the beach, more prayer and riotous intergenerational games.
June saw Mike McGowan leading his intrepid walkers out each day from the luxurious accommodation of the Willersley Castle Hotel.
In July Team Vin -Vin Allerton, Sr Teresa Brittain, Anne McGough - presented ‘Living the Sacred’ at Hyning and it was here that we received the icon commissioned by CPW and written by Sister Stella to commemorate CPW’s 75th Anniversary the next year. Sadly, while were together at Hyning, we heard that a much-loved member, Maura Chadwin had passed away.
In August we held 2 all age events at, the first at Kintbury, entitled “Living Eucharistically’ chaired by Rebekah O’Keeffe and the second at Malvern entited,’With Power comes great responsibility” chaired by Mary Huckfield. Both weeks were lively and delightful. Neither were fully booked.
October saw our Inaugural Autumn lecture with Mike Kane MP held at a Catholic School adjacent to Euston Station ( we hoped its proximity might encourage some out-of-town members to join us. We utilised the CCLA sponsorship to pay for refreshments and an advertisement in the Tablet.
Our final offering was in November, a weekend at Penmaenmawr entitled ‘Living Stones’ and chaired by Anne Dixon.
It had been a very full year with 9 events and some key learning as follows:
• one all-age summer week is sufficient
• an Autumn lecture is a good idea to attract new people, but limited in appeal to existing members as an evening event
• sponsorship is possible
• costs are escalating, centres becoming scarcer
• new processes need to be learned for handling online bookings
• new teams need to be constantly recruited
• well-timed communications are vital
New processes and initiatives were put in place. CPW needed to tell its story better - the first 75 years has been great - now what?
By the end of the year we had a special edition brochure for 2020 which invited everyone to the much anticipated 75th Anniversary celebrations in its centre spread. Thank you to Sarah Dixon for all the hard work, designing, editing, procuring images and producing an eye-catching publication for our enthusiastic distribution. We were 2020 ready - bring it on!
2020
On the last weekend of January the Trustees met at Kintbury for their annual strategic meeting. The trustees have not met again face to face since that meeting!
CPW’s 2020 events began with one of the new initiatives - moving the Dora Turbin lecture to the beginning of the year and to a new Centre. The idea was to top and tail the year with lectures: Dora Turbin and Autumn culture interface and hold a glorious day of celebration for all members at Kintbury on our anniversary. All age and 18+weeks were planned to run simultaneously in well-known venues less than an hour by car apart - it should have worked!
February saw the plan go into action. The Dora Turbin lecture on ‘The Prophetic Imagination’ was delivered by Professor David McLoughlin at Hyning Hall in Leeds. It was very comfortable with excellent facilities and catering but expensive so we just booked one night. The event attracted some new faces but attendance was disappointing - We began to wonder if one winter weekend is sufficient. There were forecasts of extreme stormy weather which caused some older members to cancel at short notice. This was unfortunate as the weekend offered a good speaker in a lovely venue with potential to attract new members but numbers were low.
At the end of February about 20 CPW friends gathered in Banbury with the Brown family to say a last farewell to Frances. This would also be the last time many of us would meet Anne McGough, who co-chaired her last CPW in 2019.
About this time, at a meeting in the City, where office workers were just beginning to bump elbows instead of shaking hands ,but face masks were still for the paranoid, we secured the sponsorship from CCLA for our next Autumn lecture with Monica Grady, Professor of Space Science
How do I tell the story of what happened next?
On the eve of the March weekend on Prophesy, chaired by Teresa Saunders, we were awaiting the outcome of a government COBRA meeting to advise us on the dangers of holding our meeting. No advice forthcoming at that stage we took the decision to protect our members and postpone the event ( as it happens for 12 months but we didn’t know that then.)
At this stage there seemed to be no need to cancel all, our programme as we thought we were looking at a minor adjustment and as soon as it was safe to come out we would carry on as before.
2 updates to our usual practice would prove to be key elements in our response over the next few months:
• We had updated our electronic communications in 2019 adapted to bookings and deposits taken online and created a regular communication through the monthly e-bulletin.
• We had established a CPW zoom account created to enable the trustees to meet more economically and ecologically at least once a year! Despite initial resistance from some trustees we were beginning to see the advantages of this.
As the hold of the pandemic tightened the impact of isolation and separation from our beloved community began to bite and we were asked if there was any way we could mark Easter together. So, on 1st April, we tentatively opened the Zoom platform for a CPW prayer, not knowing if others would join us. Seeing all those familiar faces after the what was at that stage a relatively short separation was extremely moving.
April was also tinged with sadness as we learned of the deaths of Kathleen Hypher and Agnes Milne. We remembered them both in the only way we could - in our, now regular, online prayers.
As year progressed our 75th Anniversary preparations became more and more endangered. Centres were closed, bookings were held over, everyone was cautious. Managing expectations became a constant concern. What more could Zoom do for us, we wondered.
We began to plan the unheard-of : an online day of celebration with keynote speaker, David Wells, to which all were invited and, leading up to it, a combined all age/18+ CPW complete with morning and evening prayers, speakers, discussion groups, feedback and bespoke liturgies. Ambitious, yes, but the membership took this and ran with it. A special mention must go to the chairs of the original ‘weeks’ Sue Williamson and Helen Floyd who allowed the content they had prepared to be shared in this way, to Bill Phillip who organised and co-ordinated Morning and evening prayers for each day of the event, and ,in a lighter vein, to our impromptu compere for the last night concert, Luke Todd, whose headgear kept us guessing to the end. If I were to thank everyone who contributed to the whole event I might as well read out the full CPW membership list.
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, for keeping the spirit of CPW alive and the flame of faith burning brightly.
Perhaps you will indulge me if I make special mention of the core team of Mike Willcox, Liz Dingle, Rebekah Okeeffe and Tim Redmond who held this ‘octopus in a string bag’ together through the most peculiar but wonderful 75th Anniversary summer, and kept me going when I was ready to give up on the whole idea. Their cool heads and tech know-how were nothing less than a God-send.
The energy released by this online celebration produced offers from members wishing to be more involved and we will see this reflected today as we learn about our new group of trustees taking us forward.
The event was less successful for our helpers team who experienced a high work-load for session preparation without the balancing recreational time together. This would require more consideration on the next all age event.
We observed that, ‘not everything is translatable to online activity’, an observation which also prompted extended discussions about our understanding of the Eucharist and what this means when our only way of ‘being together’ is online. How can we understand this? Do we need to re-interpret Jesus’ instructions? Do we need to discover new symbols to help us?
In an offshoot response CPW has been participating, through our chair, in an exploratory conversation between Nicholas Postlethwaite, Tom O’Loughlin and Robert Burnett of Scottish Laity Network. This work is ongoing, but we hope it will bear some tangible fruit in the future in the shape of a shared event.
We assumed then, that by the Autumn we would be ‘back to normal’ but as the months passed, like everyone, we began to wonder what normal was. Our second Autumn lecture was held online with a national and international attendance. Although this had not been our original idea - could this be the way forward? This time there was no need of sponsorship or expensive advertising. Our own networks had developed and over 200 participants registered for a wonderfully stimulating evening raising more questions than it answered and also raising a generous sum for CAFOD’s coronavirus appeal.
Like earlier events, our Autumn live weekend was postponed and when winter returned, so did the virus, but by now we knew how to stay meaningfully connected. Online prayers for Advent were initiated with members volunteering to take sessions, culminating in a Christmas evening of carols and mince pies hosted by the Cook family where we said goodbye to 2020 with enthusiasm!
2021
January saw the trustees once again meeting up by Zoom to consider the year ahead. We were back in lockdown and spirits were low as we had been here before, but there was still work to be done and teams to support and encourage
Our first event was a Candlemas online lecture with Paul Vallely based upon his new book, Philanthropy. Once again this was well-attended and, for some, too short, but we still raised a generous figure for CAFOD’s coronavirus appeal.
March saw the first of our postponed 2020 events go ahead with the pioneering team of Teresa Saunders, Tom Dawkes and Nicholas Postlethwaite. Switching to an online format made the weekend more accessible to a greater number of participants and raised the question of whether all 18+ winter events should be presented in this way? It has also prompted the offer of further follow-up sessions on the scriptures with Teresa.
Daily Morning and Evening prayer were available in Lent, a marathon task enabled by Rebekah O’Keeffe and a small group of extremely faithful poetry buffs and leading to a celebration of the key events of Easter with Gabriela Todd and family, Mary Huckfield and Family, Lizzie Allerton and parents and other CPW members and the Cook family.- and if I’ve missed someone - please forgive me!
Of course we still long to be together in person and nothing can replace this. Throughout this period the trustees ( and the new recruits from the summer events) have continued to meet monthly via zoom. We are trying to negotiate our safe return to live events and for this year are presenting a mix of live and online. This is being updated monthly in the online newsletter in a way which would not have been possible with a printed brochure.
So where are we now?
Like many organisations we are learning to adapt and the evidence shows we have adapted well to date, but this is an ongoing situation and further innovation will be required if, what we hold as precious in CPW, is to survive.
Our ability to adapt has been aided by three key factors:
• Our shared faith in Jesus Christ
• Our curiosity - we are an enquiring people
• Our generosity - CPW members give their time and talents in abundance.
For as long as these factors are present CPW will flourish. I am heartened by the new trustees, Mary, Rob, Gabriela and Luke who are stepping up to take their place in the management of the organisation going forward. I am grateful to those who have walked alongside me over the last 4 years Patricia, Pablo, Lindsay, Mike, Liz, Rebekah, Mike, and Sarah, without whom literally none of the work I have described above would have been possible.
I would particularly like to formally thank two of the trustees who are stepping down today
Mike Campbell is stepping down this year as he has many other calls on his time with family, community and academic commitments. His calm assurance has been a gathering point for our 18+ committee and we wish him well in the years ahead.
Sarah Dixon is also stepping down as she has a wedding to plan following her engagement to Michael Gray at the end of last year. We wish her and Michael every happiness in the years to come and hope to see them at future CPW events.
And in the future…?
I am confident that CPW continues to have a role. I am even more confident of this in the light of recent events. None of us knows what will happen in the Church’s future but the recognition and interest which CPW is currently generating by its faith-filed yet enquiring events leads me to think that there is work for us to do. The Tablet recently recognised the value of our lay-led liturgies. The chair’s inbox receives enquiries from concerned people of faith who seek our thoughts on issues of intercommunion, ecumenism and the environment, amongst other things. We are beginning to tell our story skilfully and truthfully through our improved communications.
I cannot stress enough how important this is. We used to say that personal invitation was the best advertisement. And it it is still effective. But we live in an age of scrolling for information through search engines more than paper brochures at the back of Church. In Lent, if you entered the search ‘Easter Prayers’ in Google the top response was CPW! This doesn’t happen by accident. This happens because Google recognises when a web site is well used, is regularly updated, has authentic return custom and good content. When it ‘sees’ these things it gives preference to searches for related content. This, in turn, makes us better known and brings more people who share our interests to our events.
There are consultants out there who will charge you large sums of money to achieve this result!
We have done this by being ourselves.
We have a voice.
People are listening.
Now, what do you want to say?
~ Anne