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Appendix 6Reports from CollegesMansfield College Oxford Ministerial Training Course
1. The past year has been one of great anxiety, but also of much creative thinking, for Mansfield’s Ministerial Training Course, as we have sought to respond in a positive way to the plans being developed by the Training Committee for the future of training in the United Reformed Church.
2 But before I comment on that, let me say something about the life and work of the course during the past year. Student numbers stand at six, the same as last year. David Morgan completed his course and in September was ordained and inducted as minister of Trinity URC, Bromley, half-time, with a half-time chaplaincy to Bromley town centre. At the same time we welcomed Iain McLaren from Thames North Synod to begin his course. In addition to our six United Reformed Church students we have once again had an Erasmus student from Bern, Michael Stähli, as part of the ordinand group, and we expect to have another next year. However, because Richard Howard and Caroline Vodden have been on internship, Iain has his own house, and Jenny Mills joins us part-time on Tuesdays, there have only been three members of the group living regularly in Wessex House, 30 Aston Street, Lesley Moseley, Tim Searle, and Michael Stähli, and only Michael at weekends, which means that much of the community spirit has been lost. Nevertheless, I want to affirm that, small as it is, this is a group full of spirit, imagination, good sense, and warm good will, whom it has been a delight and a privilege to lead as Director and to teach as a tutor. They have worked at a very high level of competence both on the academic side and on placement, and I expect every one of them to serve the Church with distinction in the years ahead.
3. There have been no changes in teaching staff either at Mansfield or at Regent’s Park College, with whom we work closely in the delivery of the course, since last year. At Mansfield, Julian Templeton continues to devote half (at least!) of his working time to Mansfield as Assistant Director alongside his ministry at Highgate, dealing especially with placements and training in worship and preaching; and John Muddiman and Peggy Morgan give generously of their time in their respective fields of New Testament and World Religions and in the day-to-day supervision of the course. I myself continue to introduce ordinands (and many others) to the study of the Old Testament. On the governance side, we are grateful to the Principal of Mansfield College, Dr Diana Walford, for the interest she has taken in the course, and to John Proctor for his conscientious and indefatigable work as Chair of the Ministerial Education and Training Committee (METC).
4. Alongside the course for initial ministerial training we continue to admit students working full-time and part-time for the Oxford M.Th in Applied Theology, which is suitable as an in-service course for ministers and CRCWs at EM3 level. Martin Camroux wrote a distinguished dissertation on church decline in the United Reformed Church and was awarded the degree with flying colours last year. This left us with only one United Reformed Church minister (Gerald Moule) on the course during the past year, out of five on the course in total. However, Oxford also admits research students in theology for the D.Phil on a part-time basis, and it is possible that one or more United Reformed Church ministers may join us in that capacity next year, as well as on the M.Th course.
5. During the year our friends at Regent’s Park and other colleges in the Oxford Partnership in Theological Education and Training have been working to develop a new degree, a Bachelor of Ministry, which will be a purely part-time degree which will be suitable both for ministerial education and for theological education for the people of God in general. There may be a Master of Ministry associated with this, which will be able to draw from a wider catchment than the M.Th. Once the degrees are up and running, it will be possible for students to study for them at Mansfield.
6. Staff of the course, like those at other colleges, are always ready to lead courses and address conferences, summer schools, etc. in their own specialities, and in this way serve the wider church—and their more purely academic research and writing also serves the church in its own way. I myself have led two Synod courses in biblical study for ministers in the past two years, and would welcome further invitations.
7. The future of the course at Mansfield now lies in the hands of Assembly, assuming that the proposals presented to them by the Training Committee, which as I write have not yet been formally revealed, are as outlined to us during the year. We recognise that if numbers of candidates continue at their present level, the United Reformed Church will need to concentrate them more. But there will always be some people who because of geographical constraints would not be able to receive the benefit of a full-time course at either Cambridge or Manchester. We believe we are well-placed to continue to offer such candidates, even in small numbers, high-quality initial education for the ministry, and my experience in this post has persuaded me that we can do this for people from a wider variety of educational backgrounds than is sometimes assumed in our church.
8. However, it will be clear, I hope, from what I have already said, that Mansfield is already offering much more to the United Reformed Church than just a small initial ministerial education course. Even if Assembly does decide to withdraw IME, Mansfield College will not disappear, because it is a College of Oxford University with a wide educational remit; and many of us at the College would wish to enable it to continue to be a valuable, and valued, resource for the United Reformed Church. For this reason, the METC has been working hard for the past 18 months, even going outside its strict brief, to develop viable proposals for a fresh and distinctive piece of work to be done for the Church by my successor as Chaplain to the College, after I retire in a year’s time. As it would need some initial funding from the United Reformed Church Training Committee, and I am writing in March, it is not possible for me to say more about this at this point, but I hope that it will be possible to talk about it at the Assembly itself.
9. At this difficult time for Mansfield, I would value your prayers for us all: our ordinands, our staff, our METC; and not only those involved in ministerial education, but for the whole College, its Principal, Fellows, other staff and students. Please join me in commending them all to the love and care of God in Christ, and to the Spirit who leads us into new ventures for the Kingdom.
NORTHERN COLLEGE
1. ENRICHING OUR ECUMENICAL CONTEXT
1.1 For a number of years Northern College has been a committed member of the Partnership for Theological Education, based at Luther King House in Manchester. We work as an integrated staff team with three other denominational colleges offering United Reformed Church students, alongside Methodists, Baptists, Moravians, Congregationalists and Unitarians, shared teaching programmes that lead to University of Manchester BA and MA degrees in Contextual Theology. The full-time BA course is taught intensively over three days each week for two 10-week semesters to allow participants simultaneous involvement in substantial church and community placements all through the four years of their preparation for ministry. At the moment we have students living and working all across the North West of England, Yorkshire and the East and West Midlands who come into Manchester for their teaching days. The part-time course (requiring attendance at six teaching weekends a year) currently serves ministry students from a similar area, with our furthest student travelling in from Rugby. However, the format of the part-time course would clearly allow attendance by people living in many other parts of the country, as it has previously. The full-time community work strand (requiring six visits a year to Manchester, each for five tightly-packed days of teaching, which are then supported by extensive community work placements close to the student’s home) serves those who are preparing for a Church-Related Community Work ministry. At the moment we have community work students who live and work in the Norwich, London, Oxford, Salisbury and Newcastle areas, as well as Manchester.
1.2 Up until now the Church of England’s Northern Ordination Course has shared our building but taught its own separate course. However, the Anglican ‘Hind’ process has recently led to rapid negotiations between the Dioceses of Liverpool, Manchester and Chester and the free churches represented in the Partnership for Theological Education. At the moment we are seeking to develop the ‘Southern North-West Training Partnership’ with equal numbers of Anglican and free church foundation directors. This emerging Training Partnership is hoping to develop a new ‘Foundation Degree’ in contextual theology (validated in parallel by the Universities of Chester and Manchester and Liverpool Hope University) that would be offered from September 2007. This would be available to Anglican students from the three dioceses and free church students from a much broader catchment area. It would be taught in various centres and various modes (including weeknight, weekend, distance learning and various full-time formats) and increase the variety of what we could offer to all our students, including United Reformed Church students at Northern College. It would also extend and enrich our ecumenical context with its careful balance between three Anglican dioceses and three main free church partner groupings.
2. EXTENDING OUR UNITED REFORMED CHURCH INVOLVEMENT
2.1 Northern College is an independent theological college with Congregational roots and an honourable history of service to the United Reformed Church. Currently, its four full-time teaching staff are all ministers of the United Reformed Church. Whilst working in a richly ecumenical context of shared teaching in a single shared building, we are always seeking to improve our links to and service with the wider United Reformed Church. This last year our staff have shared in ministers’ summer schools in the National Synod of Wales and the North West Synod in England and a variety of one-day learning events and residential conferences for ministers, lay preachers, local leaders, elders and others in North West, Northern, West Midlands, South West, Eastern and Mersey Synods and have accepted invitations to share in other events in East Midlands and Yorkshire Synods before Assembly meets. We have also furthered our ongoing conversations about co-operation with the Windermere Centre, Westminster College and the Scottish College, finding a real desire for creative co-operation in each case.
2.2 At the same time we have been seeking to improve the quality of support we give to United Reformed Church ministers and churches who take our students for in-depth student placements. These placements are a key component of the study experience at Northern at every stage of our programme of education for the ministry of Word and Sacraments and Community Work ministry. We remain very grateful to all those who have supported our work in this way and have adjusted our support systems to try to improve the links between college and placement supervisors. We have also sought to improve the briefings and handbooks we offer those who do this crucial work on our behalf.
2.3 We greatly value our involvement in preparing students for the Church Related Community Work Ministry of the United Reformed Church alongside our students preparing for the Ministry of Word and Sacraments. This year we have recruited more qualified CRCWs to teach some of our community work modules and also begun a programme where we invite a practicing CRCW into the class in each of our community work modules so that something of the actuality of their experience is offered at every stage of our educational programme.
3. ENJOYING WORLD CHURCH LINKS
3.1 We are very grateful to both the Council for World Mission and the Belonging to the World Church programme of the United Reformed Church for their continued support of our policy to maintain good contact with sister denominations in other parts of the world. During this last year four of our students have been able to visit with churches in Zimbabwe, Uganda, Madagascar and India. One of our tutors, the Revd Dr John Parry, also led a party of members of the United Reformed Church and the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan to India to explore the nature of church life as a minority community with members of the Church of North India. We have also received students from American Samoa, Madagascar and Taiwan on our MA programme. We have also been visited by students on placement in Wythenshawe from Tainan Theological College and Seminary where one of our recent PhD students, the Revd Dr Li Hau-Tiong now teaches. Visitors to the College have included the Revd Cindy Strickler, the chaplain of Dunamis in the USA. Opportunities for visits to places of worship of other faiths continue to be taken, providing time for dialogue and increasing mutual understanding.
4. GREETINGS AND FAREWELLS
4.1 This year Liz Shaw left us in July 2005 for ordination into the United Reformed Church pastorate of Eastcote and Northwood Hills, at the same time Gillian Heald left us for a further year of postgraduate Biblical Studies at the University of Sheffield prior to seeking a pastorate and in January 2006 Alison Dalton left us to be commissioned as a Church Related Community Worker called to serve with an ecumenical project in Poole, Dorset. We wish them all well in these new enterprises.
The Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education
1. The Queen’s Foundation, comprising the Queen’s College, The West Midlands Ministerial Training Course and the Research Centre, has enjoyed a buoyant, expansive year. The overall number of those engaging in theological education has increased by around 40%, in part as a result of new partnerships with local churches to share the provision of adult theological education. As a Foundation we are dedicated to excellence in theological education and formation for ministry in partnership with our sponsoring churches – the Church of England, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church. Our ecumenical and theological diversity, together with our setting within the multi-ethnic and multi-faith city of Birmingham, and our relationship with the University of Birmingham, provides a rich and challenging resource for students to explore the distinctiveness of their own tradition and identity, as well as fostering lively dialogue and deep respect for the traditions of others.
2. The Foundation is an active partner in the emerging West Midlands Regional Training Partnership. This partnership is being given expression through a formal Covenant and practitioners are beginning the task of designing new pathways and curricula for a range of educational, ministerial and training needs. The experience of Queen’s in offering flexible pathways in various modes – full and part-time, residential and non-residential, helps us all in the region to be creative and innovative in our thinking and planning.
3. The Selly Oak Centre for Mission Studies, the successor body to the United College of the Ascension, will be inaugurated in September this year as an integral part of the Foundation. Four new members of staff, including one from India and one from Southern Africa, will lead the work of the Centre, and provide mission education and training for mission partners and students sent by world church partners. Many will do a new MA in Mission and Leadership, and we look forward to a vibrant, international, multi-cultural student and staff body which will greatly enhance and enrich every aspect of ministerial education and formation at Queen’s. The Centre is sponsored by the Methodist Church and USPG, but we hope that this resource will be used by other partners as well, including the United Reformed Church. The Foundation is already enriched by a range of student exchanges with the wider world church, including exchanges with the Tamil Nadu Theological Seminary, with churches in Port Elizabeth in South Africa, and with the theological faculty at Leipzig. The presence of the Centre for Mission Studies will enhance and increase the opportunity for encounter and exchange with the world church for all students and candidates.
4. The Research Centre flourishes with over 60 students registered with the University of Birmingham in association with the Foundation, studying for a range of postgraduate degrees from MA to PhD. Staff research and publications continue in the course of the busy life of the Foundation. Mukti Barton has published Rejection, Resistance and Racism: speaking out on racism in the Church; Paula Gooder’s study on The Pentateuch has been reissued; John Hull has published an important response to and critique of Mission Shaped Church; Stephen Burns has published an SCM Study guide on Liturgy, and a Canterbury Study Guide on Living the Thanksgiving: exploring the Eucharist; Anthony Reddie has published Acting in Solidarity: Reflections in Critical Christianity.
5. Visiting presidents and preachers at Foundation services lead our worship, enhance our spirituality and deepen and challenge our faith. Worship lies at the heart of our life, whether that is in the daily prayer that gathers those on the campus, or the patterns of worship that sustains the community of those who learn and train through occasional residence. In an ecumenical context we welcome the opportunity and challenge of drawing deeply on the traditions and best practices of each participating Church, attending to places of convergence and difference which are often not located on denominational lines, and working hard to explore new patterns of worship that serve churches committed to working and worshipping ecumenically.
6. We are very conscious that all the churches which sponsor the Foundation are engaged in searching reviews of their training needs and their relationship to training institutions. We realise that the United Reformed Church has hard decisions to make and that withdrawing full-time ordination training from Queen’s is possible. We would deeply regret such a decision as it would do fundamental damage to the ecumenical nature of the Foundation, and would diminish the richness of ecumenical encounter and reflection, not only for United Reformed Church candidates, but also for Anglicans and Methodists as well. Although the cohort of United Reformed Church candidates is small we do not believe that this is detrimental to their formation or that it prevents their being grounded in their denomination. On the contrary, our experience is that denominational identity is realised and deepened in and through the encounter with others, and we regret the pressures that are moving our churches to concentrate denominational resources and groups as a means of securing and preserving denominational identity. Queen’s wishes to continue to serve the United Reformed Church by training its ordinands; we do not need or want large cohorts to do this well and we hope that Assembly will have a bolder vision than one of withdrawal.
SCOTTISH UNITED REFORMED & CONGREGATIONAL COLLEGE
1.INTEGRATED LEARNING FOR THE WHOLE PEOPLE OF GOD
1.1 We believe that our college has been in the vanguard of developing integrated learning for a wider learning group which has ordinands at the core of that learning community but draws in others to share in and contribute to that learning. Of course, the creation of such wider educational cohorts responds positively to the issue of small ordinand numbers but it would be utterly wrong to base the commitment to integrated learning in an exercise to bolster falling ministerial candidate numbers. The development is rooted in a much deeper conviction and commitment – our belief that a learning church is best created when people learning for different forms of service learn together. This conviction shapes how we bring people together, how we design the curriculum, how we foster learning. It encourages us to take a less traditional view of theological education, its content, approaches and methods.
1.2 General Assembly adopted a policy commitment to the better integration of education for ministry across stages 1, 2 and 3. One aspect of this is improved coherence of the curriculum from initial to continuing education and we are organisationally set up to comply with this, having responsibility for the synod of Scotland for all the stages of ministerial formation.
1.3 We take this a stage further however. It is about encouraging and facilitating the learning together of ordinands and ministers (and indeed also with ‘non-ministerial’ learners). The more ‘typical’ college course is becoming one where ordinands, ministers in EM2 or EM3, lay students and adult education learners learn together, nor separately and therefore learn from one another.
1.4 We believe that there is no contradiction in suggesting that ordinands are both at the heart of this community and yet other learners are not ‘fill-in’ students to make up the numbers, for there is an organic dynamic in which each constituency makes its own vital contribution.
1.5 For those who are interested in numbers: we may only have four ordinands, but around 500-600 people will have attended at least one college course or event this academic year.
2. CURRICULUM
2.1 Ordinand students continue to pursue the relevant academic curriculum in the university at which they are co-matriculated. Two are currently taking the taught MTh in Ministry at Edinburgh, one an MA in Religious Studies and a further a PhD at St Andrews.
2.2. The college’s own programme has focused on ministering with people at different stages of life and faith (integrated with a continuing education component for ministers and others on ministering with older people). We have worked together on issues of life and death, not only in their pastoral and theological context, but through a series of movies. We have explored key periods of church history and also the history of ideas, as well as being stimulated by some literary anniversaries (from Kierkegaard to Mrs Tiggywinkle and a theatre outing to Jane Eyre). There have been an open monthly programme on the Seven Deadly Sins and workshops on IT. The third term will be on community work and on the distinctive history of Scottish Congregationalism.
2.3 This year’s college retreat was on the theme of Looking into the Distance and brought together the wider college community. Students are encouraged also to attend the silence and retreats programme that the college runs in association with the synod which this year has included a St Cecilia’s Day retreat, a programme on Tallis and Tippett, a retreat on pictorial representations of Jesus and studies in the Book of Ruth. We ended last session some 300 miles from Glasgow on Orkney, where we were valedicting one of our students (the journey embraces not just the physical distance but another cultural shift into a Scots/Norse cultural heritage!).
2.4 This year, we continue in this vaguely Nordic direction with a study tour to Denmark where are focus will be on such issues as the life of smaller nations, multiculturalism post-‘the cartoons’, drugs and social exclusion, learning about Lutheranism, alternative forms of church (including the night church at Copenhagen cathedral) and developing learning for the whole person and whole community.
3. PARTNERSHIP
3.1 In this past year, a key conversation has been with the Northern College in Manchester. In the coming academic year, we anticipate making significant appropriate use of one another’s learning resources, both of staff and in other ways. We look forward to learning from one another’s experience and supporting one another in developments. Each institution has its own particular strengths, expertise and emphasis to be pooled better. We are collaborating on thinking how the church might more give expression to its identity as a church in three nations through education for ministry which extends across the nations.
4. ECUMENICAL ENGAGEMENT IN SCOTLAND
4.1 We listen with interest to the discussions in England that are leading towards the establishment of regional training partnerships in that country and wish well those who share in the demanding task of establishing, making work and delivering programmes through these partnerships.
4.2 Scotland of course sits outside those conversations, for it has its own separate ecumenical scene, rooted in its own history and culture, with a significantly different set of partners from south of the border and responding to the distinctive needs of Scottish church life and society.
4.3 The College is actively engaged in the ecumenical work that is being done here in the fields of initial ministerial formation, continuing education and lay adult education. We believe that we bring to those conversations and collaborative opportunities an understanding of and sensitivity towards the particular dynamics of the Scottish ecumenical scene that comes from the local knowledge of a Scottish institution and have credibility for our knowledge of the Scottish context, our close connection to the Scottish churches and for our particular expertise as educationalists.
4.4 In the past year, there have been significant positive developments in the Scottish ecumenical educational scene. Following the SCIFU talks amongst the major denominations, the United Reformed Church, the Scottish Episcopal Church and the Methodist Church in Scotland have continued into new conversations. We are glad these discussions have already identified education and training as one of the key areas for work on extending ecumenical collaboration and we look forward to being able to contribute to and support these developments, including in the key area of initial training.
4.5 The Church of Scotland has recently undertaken a major restructuring of its organisation. We have already had conversations with its senior staff and welcome their commitment to a renewed engagement of the Kirk in ecumenical educational collaboration. In significant respects, we use similar models of initial ministerial education with the Scottish universities as partners. The older universities here, though not standing still, have retained a stronger ‘divinity’ emphasis than perhaps is true in other parts of the United Kingdom.
4.6 We have had for some time a shared library with the Scottish Episcopal Church. For practical reasons, but also in order to create a more cost-effective provision and to introduce a more modern and professional library service, the College and the Episcopal Church’s Theological Institute have combined our resources with those of the existing library of the International Christian College in Glasgow. We believe this to be a positive move in educational support terms, but also as basis for further ecumenical collaboration in both ministerial and lay education. In the ecumenical lay learning group, the partners are active to develop improved collaboration in the identification and utilisation of the expertise and experience within the member churches and to make greater use of one another’s educational programmes.
4.7 We welcome the fresh commitment of staff within the university schools of divinity to work more collaboratively with the theological colleges and this year brings the first fruits of co-sponsored events.
5. RELATING WIDER
5.1 The 2000 unification process, which brought the ‘new’ United Reformed Church into being, affirmed as a core principle the denomination being a “church in three nations”. This was not merely a statement of fact, but a strong declaration of intention – to respect the cultural distinctiveness of the two smaller nations and to commission them to act for the whole church in their own place. It was an affirmation of our multiculturalism, not only in relation to ethnic minorities in the UK but in our regard for the minority nations. 5.2 This model of unity with diversity will always be anxious, we are sure, to celebrate the distinctive lives of Scotland and Wales alongside that of their bigger neighbour and to foster their preservation and nurturing.
5.3 The principle is also however a giving of responsibility to the institutions in the ‘Celtic’ nations. The creation of the Scottish Parliament has been in parallel with and has fostered a renaissance across a whole range of aspects of Scottish life. We are glad for example that the Scottish Storytelling Centre, of which we are members, has entered a new and more extended phase of its work. We seek to play our part in this flourishing on behalf not only of the synod of Scotland but also of the whole United Reformed Church. We believe that it is vital that education within the United Reformed Church, including its formation of ordinands, takes nourishment from this culture and responds to the challenges of this context.
5.4 We welcome those who have come into the synod of Scotland from elsewhere with all the gifts and insights they bring and play our part in their induction to Scottish life. We believe also that it is important that there are those who are raised up and formed within our own national context. This we affirm, even if some of them will go on to minister outwith Scotland, taking our distinctive gifts to the wider church.
6 Being Scottish and serving Scotland and the church in Scotland is at the heart of our life. In being true to that, we serve the whole church. But we want to say that we are more than that too. A college is a college is a college… is just not true!
6.1 We also have particular areas of expertise and interest:
WESTMINSTER COLLEGE
1. The Cambridge Theological Federation
1.1 Westminster College is not a stand-alone institution but a part of a significant ecumenical enterprise. For every minister in our own Church who is grateful for the teaching they received at Westminster College there are now two or three people ministering in other denominations who have an affectionate regard for our staff and whose memories of Cambridge are located in our classrooms and our library. Westminster College is not only the United Reformed Church’s gateway into a rich ecumenical resource; it is a place where our contribution counts and is valued. What is true in Cambridge is true elsewhere. Theological education has become a significant expression of ecumenism in many parts of the country. It is not possible for any one denomination to take strategic decisions about theological education without the impact being felt by others. Those of us who serve the various institutions in Cambridge share a feeling of being at the mercy of denominational forces beyond our control. We also share a conviction that the grace of God will enable us to overcome our ecclesial and doctrinal differences.
1.2 The planned changes in our academic programmes, which we outlined last year, are now being put into effect. Some of this has involved a systematic and occasionally tedious process which enables us to meet the requirements of academic bureaucrats. What has lightened this process is the conviction that we will be offering courses fit for the purpose of preparing people for ministry and mission in tomorrow’s Church. We have managed to do this without reducing the programme to a “one size fits all” approach. Within the Federation we now offer a range of academic courses. There are varieties of learning style and assessment. We can offer a course for those who come into residence in Cambridge, those who come on a part-time basis and those who live at a distance. We have programmes for graduates and for those who come having just secured the basic academic qualifications. Most of our Federation students have experience of another career; a large number are married, with children; by contrast with even ten years ago there are roughly equal numbers of men and women.
1.3 Westminster College is one of the entry points for United Reformed Church students to all this richness. Those who wish to follow our new BA in Christian Theology at Anglia Ruskin University, at graduate or diploma level, may enrol through Westminster or the Eastern Region Ministerial Course, who work closely together in the Federation. The MA in Pastoral Theology is similarly available. Those who wish to follow the Cambridge University course leading to a degree of Bachelor of Theology in Ministry need to live in Cambridge and be linked to the university through Westminster. The new arrangements will make it possible, we believe, for all ministerial candidates to graduate in relevant disciplines. We believe that the Church is right to demand academic qualifications for the ministry of Word and Sacrament; we also believe that gifts and graces which are not subject to academic assessment are essential.
2. The wider United Reformed Church
2.1 The whole college community has been exercised by the uncertainties created by the review of training. Whatever assurances are given, all those who are employed in church institutions, whether they be colleges, synods or the staff of General Assembly, are unsettled by major reviews. Nor is it the United Reformed Church General Assembly alone, which commissions radical reviews of its procedures and institutions only to reject the conclusions of those who have conscientiously devoted their time and imagination to coherent proposals. This happens in all denominations and public bodies. Westminster College finds itself in double jeopardy. Not only is its future as a training institution dependent on review and decision by General Assembly but when Assembly, quite properly, puts a moratorium on General Assembly staff appointments until a review is complete, this makes for further complications.
2.2 It is with these kinds of considerations in mind that the Governors and the principal officers of General Assembly have been reviewing how we manage Westminster College as a charitable body. This is part of a general review of how charitable matters will need to be handled in the future given the changing guidance of the Charity Commission. At present we are considering how to build upon the changes in college management that were made by General Assembly in 1995. Westminster College is a registered charity with an object, modified by the United Reformed Church Act of 1972, to provide ministerial education for the United Reformed Church. Its trustees, the Board of Governors, are appointed by the United Reformed Church. However, the use which the Church makes of this valuable asset is restricted by the objects of the charity. Put bluntly, the assets of the college are for ministerial training and cannot be realised in order to meet shortfalls elsewhere in the Church. We are therefore exploring the possibility of following the logic of the 1995 resolutions and making the Governors solely responsible for running the college, in a way which is analogous to the other colleges recognised by the Church. This would not only bring certain operational gains but give the Governors the responsibility and freedom to consider how best to develop the use of the college and to make alliances with other bodies.
2.3 In spite of these legal considerations we do believe that the Training Committee plans to extend the role of the college are eminently achievable, not least because the Church is the most significant contributor to the current revenue of the college. Westminster continues to be substantially committed to work with lay preachers, TLS, continuing ministerial education, refresher courses, sabbaticals and the DMin programme we are running in collaboration with Princeton Theological Seminary. The popularity of our annual course for lay preachers has led us to plan two for the coming year. Some of the TLS courses to which we contribute take place at the college and we are glad to see some regular visitors who regard us as friends. Our staff and students take parts in the wider life of the Church, serving in a variety of voluntary tasks locally and nationally. Unfortunately, the fall in student numbers and the changing patterns of study make it impossible to provide leadership in worship for all the local churches which make requests to us.
3. The world Church
3.1 Our students continue to participate in programmes which take them beyond the United Kingdom. At the beginning of this academic year one of our students visited India and another Canada on church-related programmes. Staff have been to various parts of Europe and the United States. The Federation resumed our study programme in Israel and hope to go again this summer if the political situation permits. We have received visitors from the United States, New Zealand and Europe. Two of the staff of the Princeton Theological Seminary spent time with us and also met with DMin students in Cambridge. In the summer of 2006 our ministers on this course will again be travelling to New Jersey. The Federation opens up other parts of the world to us as visitors come to our partners in Cambridge. The college has a policy of expecting students to travel to at least one overseas placement during their course, not only to enjoy Christian hospitality but to see how the mission of the Church is practised in other cultures. We regard visits and visitors as an important part of Christian formation for our own ministry.
4. The buildings
4.1 This year saw the completion of a new en-suite facility which will meet disability requirements. We have also upgraded the disabled lavatory provision. The Dining Hall is now equipped with chairs rather than benches. Although sentiment argued for keeping the benches, the needs of our current students and visitors argued for seating which was more flexible in use and accessible. Compliance with the legislation on asbestos in buildings required certain minor works. We have commissioned and completed a major structural survey of the college. This not only assures us there are no major structural problems to address but provides an agenda for planned and costed maintenance over the next few years. We are fortunate in our Management Committee, both in terms of the expertise and imagination which is at the service of the college. We have retained the services of a specialist contractor to oversee and co-ordinate work on the building in order to ensure that it is properly specified and carried through efficiently. With the benefit of this preparatory work we are resuming our plans for further improvements in the facilities offered at the college.
5. The Library
5.1 We reported last year that cataloguing of the United Reformed Church History Society collection has passed the half-way point. It is now nearing completion and we have also commissioned cataloguing of the rare books in the Carrie Room, which have not been included in the on-line catalogue up to this point. Those who are interested in browsing the catalogue on the web can do so through the University of Cambridge Library catalogue, via the section called “Affiliated Institutions”. Generous gifts from friends enabled us to purchase the new Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, a small balance of the cost being met by the college and the United Reformed Church History Society. Oxford University Press have announced a major new publication of the papers of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, to which we will be contributing the text of the Westminster Confession of Faith and other documents. This will add to the requests by scholars to visit our collections. We also anticipate new publications on Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibson, our benefactors, and a re-issue of the college history. The college library remains one of the major resources of the whole Federation and is in much demand on a daily basis. Alongside this we provide a service for local churches researching their own history and for individuals. We make a modest charge to those seeking help with family history, to cover our costs. We are grateful for the continued work of Richard and Jean Potts in sorting and classifying archives of the Presbyterian Church of England. One of our building projects is to secure better storage space for this large collection. We have also received a donation of the papers of Jack Newport from his family.
6. Staffing
6.1 We welcomed Revd Neil Thorogood, as Director of Pastoral Studies this year. He is now living in the Thornton Close house and fully immersed in college and Federation life. Our colleague Revd Dr Peter McEnhill has announced his intention to leave us at the end of the academic year after serving for ten years as Doctrine teacher. Peter has also been our Librarian, Director of the Institute of Reformed Studies and taken responsibility for our computer network. This has been a rich ministry with us and we wish Peter well in the next sphere of service to which he is called.
7. Celebration
7.1 At our Commemoration of Benefactors in 2005 our preacher was Revd Dr Walter Houston of Mansfield College, Oxford, a former member of the Westminster staff, and the lecture was given by Professor John Hull of Birmingham, a former student of Cheshunt College. At a service in Emmanuel Church in November we remembered with thanksgiving the life of Arthur Disney, who was employed by Cheshunt College in the 1950s and who regularly attended Commemoration at Cheshunt and then Westminster throughout his life, taking a great interest in the college and its prosperity.
7.2 We also give thanks for the gifts of our leavers, who were: Richard Bradley, (Hope, Denton and Trinity, Audenshaw), Lucy Brierley, (Woking), Kay Cattell, (Marlpool and Selston), John Cook, (Bexley, Bexleyheath and Welling), Tim Richards, (Mid-Somerset Group), and Alison Termie, (SPACE Norristhorpe and Gomersall). Colin Harley who left in 2004, was ordained and inducted to street chaplaincy in Poole.
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