You may like to know how our Parliamentary meeting went last week in Westminster. We feel that it went very well. The 35 MPs and peers who attended are now far better briefed and realise how serious the situation is. They are also now aware what the Church of England could do, financially, to pay more parish priests. (Please read the transcripts of our speakers
https://savetheparish.com/save-the-parish-in-parliament/.)
After our speakers, parishioners who were present from around England were invited to share their parish experiences for 2 minutes each. This made it very clear to MPs that there was a geographically widespread pattern of similar experiences. One of the next steps will be MPs holding their own meeting to agree Parliamentary action.
Please note that a few of the MPs whom STP supporters invited to attend our meeting wrote back a standard form reply, stating that it is for the CofE to run its own affairs. This is an incomplete picture. The CofE General Synod is a delegated legislature from Parliament, which has a duty of oversight. Hence the channel of accountability to Parliament by asking Parliamentary Questions (which you can request your MP to ask: please see examples here
https://savetheparish.com/parliamentary-questions-answers/). Hence the existence of the Parliamentary Ecclesiastical Committee (to review legislation put forward by the CofE), some of whose members came to our meeting (
https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/174/ecclesiastical-committee-joint-committee/membership/)
DIARY DATE - YORK, 6TH JULY
Our next meeting for STP supporters (including any local MPs) will be a daytime conference in York (followed by Evensong). This will be held on Thursday 6th July, the day before the next General Synod meeting. The venue this year will be St Lawrence’s Church, Lawrence Street, York YO10 3WP. Please put this date in your diaries. Please also notify it to any friends in Northern parishes who may find it easier to travel to York than London. Please feel free to send me questions or suggested names for speakers or preachers. There will be an Eventbrite link for free ticket bookings nearer the time.
PRE-EMPTIVE AWARENESS OF STP
Meanwhile, you can help us. We find that parishes tend to hear of STP, and register on our mailing list, only once they are told that the diocese intends to merge them. These reorganisation schemes have already by then been planned in detail and, if well advanced, are much harder to defend themselves against. Forewarned is forearmed; it would be better if parishes had read our Parish Pack in advance (
https://savetheparish.com/parish-pack/ ) and their PCC had taken early protective action (for example to ring-fence parish assets and to agree that the parish will refuse to be pressurised into merging PCCs). Please talk to adjacent parishes, others in your deanery or diocese, or your friends around the country, and ask them to register their details now, rather than in extremis.
Personally, I find it very useful to link up with other local parishes and STP supporters in my diocese, especially if they have financial skills (which I lack). Through being on my deanery synod, I have discovered how many parishes locally (about half) are in vacancy. I have also discovered that my diocese has adopted Total Return Accounting (which is good, because it has released more money to pay clergy from its Diocesan Stipends Fund). However, it has not in consequence used the extra money either to pay more parish clergy or to reduce parish share bills. Instead, it has taken the equivalent amount from the parish share and used it to fund diocesan “schemes”. The issue is not merely (as the Diocesan Secretary paints it) a matter of disagreement about spending priorities, but that these diocesan schemes are not transparent to me, as a donor of parish share, and could have been fund-raised for separately. As a former City solicitor, I feel very strongly that the diocese needs to understand that STP is not some sort of ’nasty party’ but that challenge is an essential part of good governance which should be welcomed. I need to keep trying to achieve appropriate accountability. I shall seek to involve my MP if necessary.
We do try not to pepper those who have registered as STP supporters with emails. However, people like me are working; and our time spent on Save The Parish is voluntary. We operate like a parish - which may explain why, occasionally, we may be less than perfect! So, we urgently need all our supporters’ help, please, in raising awareness of our existence to as many other parishes as you possibly can.
Thank you very much indeed for your support and help.
Save The Parish!
Kind regards,
Emma
Emma Thompson
Steering Committee
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