Beaulieu Abbey Church Parochial Church Council Meeting, Monday, April 8, 2024
Report of the Deanery Synod Spring Meeting, March 2024
There has been only one meeting of the Lyndhurst Deanery Synod recently. It took place at St Luke’s , Church Lane, Sway, Lymington on March 12th, and was mainly of interest for the presentation given by Clive Beard and Sam Scott from St Luke’s, Hedge End on the topic of Eco Church – Stewarding God’s Creation
As this is a topic which will exercise the minds of Fabric Committees throughout the Diocese, it will become increasingly relevant for members of the PCC, to be aware of the various options available to ‘reduce our carbon footprints’!
As I was abroad at the time of the meeting, I have to wait until the minutes become available before passing further information to PCC members. I apologise for the delay.
At the last deanery meeting on Monday 24th November we were introduced to the next phase of engaging with the diocesan strategic priorities the 4SPs .
The next stage is to ask each parish to produce their plan of how they will engage with the 4SPs and particularly how they will play their part with these 4SPs.This is called a Parish Mission Action Plan,
The heart of this process is triple listening. The heart of this process is listening to God, listening to the community and listening to the Church community.
As we go through the process of Triple listening we need to ask, what is our vocation at this time and in this place? What is already fruitful and growing? What part is God calling us to play in the future?
Once we have triple Listened each parish will be asked to produce a plan. By triple listening to God, wider community and church community to see what is growing, and the opportunities there are for further Kingdom work.
The PCC will arrange a Triple Listening Event to see what God might be calling to do.
Then the plans you have made will need to be shaped and worked on.
each parish is encouraged to prepare for this process by praying together during Advent. Resources are available please contact your Warden or Deanery Synod member.
Extracts from email sent by Revd Anthony Smith (Diocesan Head of Resource Development)
To all Deanery Finance Committee Chairs, Lay Chairs, Area Deans and Assistant Area Deans
Thank you once again for your assistance and input in connection with the new parishshare system. We have had a very good response from the deaneries and parishes to our request for data and are now able to move ahead and run the model.
We will be shortly sending out to deanery officers:
A table of the calculations for each parish in the deanery.
A summary table showing the movements by deanery.
A draft form to be used by any parishes claiming special consideration.
A full explanation of what needs to be done over the next couple of months.
We hope that deaneries will again take the initiative with the next stage of the process which is to inform parishes of the outcome and to negotiate any requested changes within the deanery always ensuring, as far as possible, that the deanery total is maintained. It is our expectation that you will want to meet fairly promptly with your parishes either individually or collectively.
You may be interested to know that we have already had responses from some parishes indicating that even should their target share decrease they wish to maintain payments at the current level. It would be good to encourage such generosity in every deanery. At the other end of the scale, applications for special consideration, should there be any, can be made only after full consideration and endorsement by the deanery.
The timetable to which we are working is shown below:
September 1 Confirmatory tables and explanatory notes sent to parishes
September 15 Parishes to notify deaneries of their intention to apply for special consideration
September 29 Cases for special consideration to be received by the diocesan office
October 10 Results of special considerations to be received by deaneries
October 17 Returns from deaneries of final 2015 Share allocations to be received at the diocesan office
The Gospel speaks of welcome for all. Being faithful to this compels us to take with the utmost seriousness the challenge of preventing abuse from happening and responding well where it has.
For information, guidance & resources, please visit www.churchofengland.org/safeguarding. Further information is displayed on the notice boards in the Church porch.