DERWENT DEANERY PARTNERSHIP
Minutes of meeting held in St Helen’s Skipwith on 10 June 2024 at 7.30pm.
Present: Revd Jackie Doyle-Brett (Area Dean and Chair), Revd Nick Garside, Revd Kath McBride, Revd Darius Traves, Claire Bale, Mr Paul Botting (Lay Chair), Mrs Margaret Eldridge, Mr John Ellwood, Mrs Alison Gilmour (secretary), Mrs Anne Gray, Mrs Judith Hewitt, Mr Phil McBride, Mrs Anne Saunders, Mrs Caroline Wandless. Julian Gray (treasurer, Osbaldwick w Murton) also attended.
Revd Jackie introduced Revd Darius Traves (curate at Osbaldwick w. Murton), and gave notices of future dates across the Deanery parishes.
1 Revd Jackie invited us to pray in stillness and quiet for our own benefices and for the Deanery. We shared our aspirations and thanks.
2 Apologies for absence: Apologies for absence were received from Canon Linda Ali, Tracy Carr, Annie Hodgson, Susan Sellars, Joan Verrier
3 Minutes of the previous meeting: Minutes of the meeting of 29 January 2024 were proposed as correct by Judith Hewitt, seconded by Margaret Eldridge and accepted unanimously. There were no matters arising.
4 Living Christ’s Story; review of updated Deanery Plan: Page 1 has been amended and updated to reflect the current position and include our ALMs. Page 11 has details of progress with our action points (establishment of monthly on-line evening prayer, a Deanery Prayer calendar, making prayer the focus of our annual Deanery Quiet Days, more joint PCC meetings,
Stewardship month planned for September with pulpit swaps on 4 successive Sundays – with the same message throughout from every pulpit). We intend to make the Diocese and Deanery visible as part of the body of Christ throughout the Deanery and emphasise that our Plan is grounded in
prayer. It was agreed to remove the reference on page 5 to “Snappy”, Revd Darius asked us to look at accessibility (which O&M are learning about through working with Darius). Revd Jackie said it is not a choice to be compliant – we must survey our premises and find out what we can do while
acknowledging what is not possible at the moment. Revd Jackie felt encouraged by people moving towards all vocations, including those following the formal ALM, LLM and ordination pathways from within our Deanery.
5 Treasurer’s report: Judith, Deanery Treasurer, reported that she had received £437 in donations towards a leaving gift for Bishop John and Sue (mostly presented to them as garden
centre vouchers with cash and flowers making up the balance). We requested, in January, a donation of £25 per parish to Deanery funds (to be used for Deanery expenses, e.g. expenses and/or gift to speakers) and only 12 of the 17 parish units have responded positively, i.e. £300, giving us a cash balance of £424.97.
6 Financial report from DFA: Our Deanery Financial Adviser, Phil McBride, had circulated papers before the meeting and he updated us on our current position. Overall our Deanery members have paid more than our expenditure in support of our deanery clergy. Our generosity assists deficits from others across the Diocese and supports safeguarding. The average giving to
the Diocese per deanery was 97% and we achieved 106%. Our pledge this year is greater than we need to support our current clergy, but when an appointment House for Duty priest is appointed to replace Revd Maxine we will be below by £5k. So far in 2024 we have paid over one-third of
our pledge to the Diocese after one-third of the year. The next hurdle will be 2025 (our pledge for 2024 is less than that for 2023). Several parishes have not completed the Diocesan Energy footprint tool – it must be completed to let the Diocese look at grants to parishes. 7 Reports: Reports from our DLT and both synods had been circulated. Revd Jackie spoke of the General Synod motion regarding Bullying by Lay Officers (page 3 of 6) to consider whether a Code of Conduct was necessary. The motion was carried. Questions were raised around whether safeguarding/a code of conduct would create barriers to volunteering, whether a course
could be in-person or online (different barriers there according to personal preference). We concluded that we need to communicate, look after each other, behave with consideration towards each other. Revd Jackie commended us each to take the Good News and prayer back to the parishes, remembering monthly Zoom Evening Prayer and our Prayer Calendar. She thanked our secretary, Alison, for her work.
Revd Jackie closed the meeting with the Grace.
The meeting closed at 9.05pm.