Minutes index >
Minute of the Scottish Churches’ Industrial Mission (SCIM) Council held on Tuesday 17 January 2006 at Scottish Churches House Dunblane.
PRESENT:
Mrs Cate Adams (Team of Chaplains), Rev Jan Adamson (United Reformed Church), Rev Colin Anderson (Church of Scotland), Mr Pat Foley (Roman Catholic Church), Mr Robert Matthew (Angus Industrial Mission), Mr Lewis Rose (SCIM Co-ordinator), Rev Andy Sinclair (Baptist Union of Scotland), Mr Ted Wallace (Methodist Church), Mr John Thomson (Secretary).
APOLOGIES:
Rev Gordon Currie (United Free Church of Scotland), Mr John Hopper (Edinburgh City Mission).
Rev Colin Anderson opened the meeting with prayer. Members then introduced themselves to the Council.
1. CHURCH AND INDUSTRY COMMITTEE MINUTE 26 OCTOBER 2005
It was agreed to accept the minute as a true record of the final meeting of the Church and Industry Committee.
2. CONSTITUTION
It was proposed by Mr Ted Wallace and seconded by the Rev Jan Adamson that the meeting be recognised as the inauguration of the Scottish Churches Industrial Mission Council.
This was agreed unanimously by members.
3. ELECTION OF OFFICE BEARERS
It was agreed to appoint the following office bearers.
Convener – Rev Colin Anderson (for a period of 12 months)
Vice Convener – Mr Ted Wallace
Secretary – Mr John Thomson (ex-officio)
The Convener then led members in a prayer for the Council.
4. DRAFT CONSTITUTION DOCUMENT
Copies of the draft January 2006 Constitution had been circulated prior to the meeting and were in the hands of members.
As part of the consultation process all participating Churches and Christian organisations had been requested previously to indicate their approval of the draft Constitution and to make any comments.
All had given their consent with only the following two making comments.
4.1 Angus Industrial Mission
Angus Industrial Mission had requested that consideration be given to inviting the Evangelical Alliance Scotland to be a representative of the Independent and Pentecostal Churches in Scotland.
It was agreed to write to the Evangelical Alliance, enclosing a copy of the Constitution and a SCIM Information Leaflet, referring to the proposal from Angus Industrial Mission and asking if they might wish to be represented.
4.2 The Roman Catholic Church
The Roman Catholic Church had recommended that
(a) Wherever denominations and church authorities are mentioned, that this be amended to church authorities only, to keep the same wording throughout the document.
(b) The Council shall in consultation with the Co-ordinator determine the nature and extent of the duties of the Co-ordinator (6.4).
(c) One of the meetings of the Council is defined as the Annual General Meeting (7).
Following consideration of these proposals it was agreed to accept number 1 but to decline numbers 2 and 3.
The draft document was then accepted as the Constitution of the Scottish Churches Industrial Mission Council.
4.3 Other representation
It was noted that there remained hopes that the Salvation Army and the Aberdeen Oil Industry Chaplaincy Trust would agree to participate in the Council.
5 PRESENTATION TO THE ABERDEEN OIL INDUSTRY CHAPLAINCY TRUST
It was noted that an invitation had been received from the Trust for a presentation on the work of SCIM to be made at the next meeting of the Trustees on 25 January 2006. It was agreed that Mr Anderson and Mr Rose undertake this valuable opportunity on behalf of the Council.
It was noted that the Rev Andrew Jolly has been appointed as Chaplain to the Oil Industry in succession to the Rev Angus Smith who will be retiring next month.
6. APPOINTMENT OF CO-OPTED MEMBER
It was agreed to appoint as a co-opted member Mr George McSorley of the Unity Enterprise organisation.
7. THE FUNCTIONING OF THE COUNCIL
The Convener invited members to make comments and suggestions on how the Council should meet its objectives.
Following discussion it was agreed that:
7.1 The Council should meet with the Team of Chaplains at least once a
year as part of its requirement to monitor and support them in their work. Council should also receive reports from time to time from individual chaplains.
7.2 The annual team report should be presented to the Council commencing with the 2006 edition at the next meeting.
7.3 In order to assist denominations and organisations to support the
work of SCIM, reports to them should be conveyed by council members, where appointed, and, where not appointed, to their respective offices. Where, for example, financial contributions were considered necessary such appeals should be notified by council members.
Denominations and organisations should be reminded of the facility to appoint alternates to attend Council meetings.
Copies of the SCIM Annual Report would be forwarded to the Assemblies or Annual Meetings of the participating denominations and organisations.
The formation of local support groups was encouraged, especially for the support of voluntary chaplains.
7.4 A budget should be established to illustrate the extent of the costs
of operating the Council and the work of SCIM. The Secretary was instructed to request from the funding bodies details of their financial contributions and permission to make this information available to the Council.
(The Secretary quoted the following statements on funding arrangements from the ACTS Associated Ecumenical Group protocol for the guidance of council members).
(a) Member churches are responsible for meeting the travelling costs of their representatives and advisers. These should be claimed directly from the member church by the representatives and advisers.
(b) ACTS will reclaim the catering costs of representatives and advisers from the member churches they represent. These costs will be reclaimed directly from the member churches, through invoices sent out by ACTS every six months.
7.5 The Council should normally meet at least 4 times per year, in the early evenings, at a variety of venues but most regularly at Scottish Churches House.
8. REPORT FROM TEAM CO-ORDINATOR
Mr Lewis Rose presented his first report to Council (see Appendix).
8.1 SCIM Reception
It was agreed that Council should hold a reception and request the Industrial Mission Trust to meet the costs thereof. It would be a modest event with an anticipated attendance of around 50 people consisting of chaplains and up to three guests representing the companies and organisations which they serve; the members of SCIM Council; representation from the Industrial Mission Trust and a few other persons involved in or supporting the work of SCIM.
An evening in June 2006 was suggested as an appropriate date.
It was noted that the SCIM Co-ordinator would attend to arrangements for the reception.
8.2 It was noted that the SCIM Co-ordinator had accepted an invitation
to host the 2008 Industrial Mission Association Conference in Scotland. Council expressed their support and suggested that the month of June would be an appropriate time for that event.
9. 2006 PRAYER DIARY
It was noted that copies of the 2006 edition were now available.
10. CIRCULATION OF MINUTES AND AGENDAS
It was agreed to give permission to the representative of the Team of Chaplains to provide copies of minutes and agendas to colleagues in the team.
11. DATE OF NEXT MEETING
Tuesday 2 May 2006 at 5.30pm for 6pm. Venue - Scottish Churches House, Dunblane.
The meeting was closed by all members joining together in saying the Lord’s Prayer.
APPENDIX
SCOTTISH CHURCHES INDUSTRIAL MISSION COUNCIL
Co-ordinator’s Report
January 2006
Team
The team met on Monday 5th December at the Skate Park, Dundee where area reports were presented.
The thread that ran through the voices of those who were involved in the retail sector was one of the stress and pressure on the staff in the lead up to Christmas. Shops were very busy and, as has been reported in the media, a number of the stores increased their percentage of takings, with Tesco possibly achieving the largest increase in sales by 6%. So by and large it would appear that the retail sector had a satisfactory Christmas season. We also discussed an item that came out of the Team Leaders’ meeting which was the prophetic voice of industrial mission. During November, the Church of Scotland Media Relations department picked up the indication that ASDA’s parent company, Wal-Mart, perceived that Chaplains could be used in a PR mode.
In relation to the above I was a guest of the Scottish Retail Consortium at their annual Parliamentary Reception held in Jenners Store, Edinburgh.
The theme that came out of that evening was one of how can the sector increase its profitability and a fiscal system which inhibits them in increasing their profits, i.e. the tax regime and employment costs.
Chaplains’ Conference
A very successful chaplains’ conference was hosted by Edinburgh City Council and held within the chambers. The keynote speaker was Pauline Bryant of the Employee Counselling Service, which was a project set up by a former Co-ordinator of SCIM, Rev Donald Ross to assist employees who had an alcohol dependency. Like any good parent SCIM enabled her daughter to move out into the world and become a very successful organisation based in Glasgow where it was set up.
The afternoon was devoted to a panel discussion.
Team Leaders’ Meeting
The annual meeting of team leaders took place at the High Leigh Conference Centre in the south east of England.
Here we discussed a number of issues including how teams are financed, faith & work issues, IM training Course; appointment of Voluntary Chaplains and multi-faith chaplaincy which we all agreed was going to be a big issue. Many organisations were now looking at the concept of diversity which by its very nature of the word embraces all aspects of difference. Most recently, there has been recognition of the wider aspects of distinctions in our society. beyond race alone. However this is not to say an emphasis should not be maintained on race and culture.
Partnership working
I had recently met with Bill Chalmers of Edinburgh City Mission to discuss how both organisations could work in partnership in industrial mission and retain their own theological practices. We agreed that a meeting would be held late January or early February at which we would have other colleagues present and look to draw up a partnership agreement. I would ask you to note that this might require a couple of meetings.
Industrial Mission Association (IMA) Conference 2008
The 2008 IMA conference will be held here in Scotland during 2008 and the possible theme will be “Scotland after Devolution.” A planning group has been set up to look a possible venues etc which all go to making a successful conference.
Lewis Rose
Monday, 16 January 2006