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We invited everyone to a Parish Conference and were delighted when 95 applied for tickets. More would have come but could not for personal reasons. For general convenience and to show we meant business we chose a Saturday morning beginning with breakfast at 8.30am. Freshly baked croissants with butter and homemade preserves were served with orange juice and coffee and for the hungrier members Francis Clayton’s battery of toasters turned out seemingly endless supplies of hot buttered toast, The quality of food was agreed to be exceptional, serving had to be, and was, incredibly fast and the Conference began on time.
David Hart gave the first ‘keynote’ talk on the theme ‘Responding to God’ based on the Emmaus encounter. What were we to do having experienced this encounter? Jonathan Burke followed with his thoughts on Responding to Need and then we were into discussion groups. The groups were, Music, Mission, Worship, Education, LPA, Youth, Social and Plant. Parish Staff and St Saviour’s.
It is easy to make the mistake of deciding what to do without first examining what we ought to be doing. So, first we had to determine the purpose of our group and later to decide what needed doing to accomplish our agreed aims. Nourished with coffee and luxury biscuits and after two lively sessions the groups eventually completed their tasks. We ended the Conference with formal worship at which Group Leaders one by one brought up and laid upon the temporary altar their clipboards recording the conclusions of their groups.
With the talking over we move into the action phase of our Conference. Each group’s recommendations have been summarised and passed back to group members for approval or amendment. After October 30th the Action Plans will go to the PCC (our elected representatives) for checking and setting of priorities.
Thank you to all those who worked so hard in preparing the Conference and thank you for the ideas put forward by those who attended. It is now up to us all to put those good ideas into practice.
David Davidson
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