Exec Away Day
The MCN Exec: Joe Moffatt, Hilary Barber, Al Hutson, Ian Penny, Tom Mumford, Mark Wood, Dan Tyndall
Mark Wood writes:
The MCN’s Executive Committee met, on 4th March, to progress the organisation’s registration with the Charity Commission.
It was agreed to apply for recognition as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation: a structure which enables us to give voting rights to all members, not just our Trustees.
We began by affirming our core aims of offering support, advocacy and training to Major Parish Churches within the network. To help us deliver these objectives, we plan to recruit a part time coordinator - to facilitate communications within the network and facilitate its growth-both numerically and in the level of support we can offer.
We recognised that we already benefit from the support and shared experience of member churches - now including the smaller “Market Town Churches”. These churches generally face the challenge of maintaining a building of exceptional architectural importance but with few, if any, employees - to help with the joyous tasks of interpreting the eccentricities of the DAC, or navigating the labyrinthine application processes of the various funding bodies. Whether our church is largish, large, or colossal, however, membership of the Network offers a both a degree of solidarity with others in similar situation – and a stronger sense of where those other church are, especially at regional level.
We affirmed our aspiration to make the residential conference an annual event, rather than a bi-annual one – with the assumption that not all members would wish to, or be able to attend, in any given year.
Advocacy is likely to take a variety of forms, and be shaped by the prevailing needs of member churches. As a national network, and in our regions, we recognise opportunities to speak on behalf or member churches - to raise awareness on the particular challenges and responsibilities of Major Parish Churches across wider church structures; and of the particular contributions they do, or could, make to the local community and economy of our own particular contexts.
Training needs to be relevant and effective - and we explored ways in which we might develop this. Initially we plan to develop more structured opportunities for self-led learning, with virtual “round table meetings” regularly held throughout the year to enable members of any region to participate. Discussion topics would be invited and agreed in advance, so that members would then be able to see whether a particular meeting is likely to benefit them.
A survey of members will follow so that we will be able to see if there are issues affecting a number of us, and what expertise we may need to draw on in producing a suite of more formal training opportunities. And as part of that process, we plan to explore the possibility of establishing links with external partners who can help us deliver this.
For Major Parish Churches of all shapes and sizes - we want our regional hubs, and larger gatherings, to provide a safe space where we are free to vent our frustrations, as well as share ideas, with other clergy and office holders of similar churches – with confidence that those conversations are also ‘in confidence’.
We were capably guided though our comprehensive decision-making processes, by Isabel Merrifield of ISME Management Consultancy. And, at the end of the day, we had agreed a final draft of the Constitution (our governance document); and also a 5 – year financial plan – both of which will now be made as presentable and visually pleasing(!) as possible, and submitted to the Charity Commission for approval.
The final version of both documents will also be circulated to members of the network.