Present : Eva, Stephen, Sian, Sarah, Susanne
Membership
Sarah has stood down – she is thanked for all she has done. Discussed the need for new members and how we achieve that. Advertising in the bulletin would be one way, maybe individual approaches. It was felt that part of the worry is people’s concern at committing to too much. Eva wondered if it’s worth explaining it is three or four meetings a year and helping organise occasional other events. We are keen to attract representation across all ages in the church.
Food Bank
Food bank needs a push but we need other drivers to help with that. Susanne and Tim aren’t going to be available for a while, and Eva and Stephen will be away at the start of Lent so can’t assist with transport then. Stephen will do a note for the bulletin. There is also a CAFOD walk against hunger in Lent so these link quite nicely. Sarah offered to put a list of the essential items on the front of the bin, also to keep an eye on the FB page and send update requests to Jayne to put in the bulletin. Stephen will start off with a reminder generally for a couple of weeks that the bin is “up and running”.
CAFOD
Stephen said CAFOD have several campaigns at the moment, most linked to climate change, but two he noticed were this walk for hunger. You register yourself and walk 5k a day for 40 days and get sponsorship. The other campaign he noticed was to support a bill in Parliament which will penalise companies for their actions overseas, for example those which exploit workers in unfair circumstances or dump toxic waste. The action here is to email your MP. £4300 raised in the Christmas campaign for a health centre (and a bonus couple of goats!) so we can’t do the same thing in Lent. We might want to start earlier next time to avoid running in to the New Year. Eva wondered if this was somewhat unique as there wasn’t a panto or dance club this year; we may not achieve the same next year.
Lenten reflections
Susanne agreed that it was something she and Tim could look at this even though Tim wasn’t planning on doing this again. It would just go into the e-Bulletin which means we might be able to put links in.
Future events
It is hard to plan ahead when not knowing what the future holds in meeting together. We could maybe look at Hopefully that might be possible by the summer. Next meeting : 18 May.