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Synod Resolutions
Resolution 1 Occupational Health Service
General Assembly agrees to
explore the setting up of an Occupational Health Service for the benefit
and support of all serving ministers, Church Related Community Workers and
others paid from central funds.
South Western Synod
Proposer: Dr R Huntk
1.1 Being aware that other
professions have enjoyed the benefits of an Occupational Health Service
for many years but that such a service is not available within the United
Reformed Church, the South Western Synod perceives a need for such a
service for the support of ministers, CRCWs and others paid from central
funds.
1.2 An Occupational Health
Service would be preventative rather than therapeutic and might be
responsible for:
i) examining candidates for
ministry and Church Related Community Work and ordinands and CRCWs at the
conclusion of their training;
ii) offering medical
examinations, advice and support during periods of illness and to
ministers moving between pastorates and at retirement;
iii) advising and
assisting, when required, if a post is causing or contributing to health
problems;
iv) researching the causes and prevention of those illnesses prevalent, particularly among ministers.
Resolution 2
Proposed Ecumencial Bishop (East Cardiff)
General Assembly endorses
the positive response from the National Synod of Wales to the request from
Enfys (the Commission of Covenanted Churches) addressed to member Churches
to approve in principle the proposals entitled ‘Towards the Making of an
Ecumenical Bishop’. The Synod in Wales passed such proposals without
dissent on 16 October 1999 with the following areas of concern being
noted:
a) The post must be, in
principle, open to any ordained minister of Word and Sacrament in any of
the four constituent denominations;
b) In the liturgy for the
making of the Bishop there should be no expression that might suggest any
sort of re-ordination of the individual concerned;
c) Clear expression should
be given to the newness of what is being proposed. The Bishop, whilst
being in continuity of community with our different traditions, should be
recognised as a new departure that may, and, we hope will, develop in ways
that we have not yet foreseen;
d) Further detailed work
must be undertaken regarding the relationship of the Bishop to the
structures of authority and oversight within each church and between the
Covenant Partners to ensure that the Bishop can be in practice the focus
of unity and mission that the proposals envisage; and,
e) No appointment should be
agreed until the financial arrangements are known and accepted by all the
member churches.
Synod of Wales
Proposer: Revd Stuart Jackson
1.1 This proposal is a direct
response to an area of mission opportunity in Cardiff East,
one of the few socially mixed and populous areas in the whole of Wales.
The area in question is considered by Church Leaders as being more than
ready for a strategic approach. Enfys (the Commission of Covenanted
Churches) is convinced that now is the time to propose and experience in a
well defined area a change of relationship that will allow the
denominations to set apart and share in the work of an Ecumenical Bishop
who would give leadership in prayer, planning and joint action for the
Mission of the Church.
1.2 At the first General
Assembly of the United Reformed Church, the Province of Wales was
encouraged to support the then proposals for the formation of the
Commission of Covenanted Churches. Since its inception 25 years
ago, the Commission (The Church in Wales, The Presbyterian Church of
Wales, The Methodist Church, The United Reformed Church plus several local
Baptist Churches) has produced widely acclaimed ecumenical material on
Baptism and Membership in a Uniting Church, on Ministry in such a Church
as well as a fine order for the Celebration of the Eucharist. The
proposals for a Bishop have grown out from that work.
1.3 Synod asks for Assembly
approval of what has thus far, by grace, been accomplished and seeks its
blessing for future plans.
Resolution 3 Drugs
and charity workers
General Assembly
a) seeks to support those
who work in hostels, shelters and drop-in centres, noting with sadness the
increased use of drugs among the homeless, which creates difficulties for
them, those seeking to help them and the whole community;
b) is concerned at the
conviction and dismayed at the sentence of Ruth Wyner and John Brock, and
most concerned that this judgement might undermine work with homeless
people and those with drugs problems; and
c) urges Church and
Society, in consultation with ecumenical partners and appropriate secular
agencies, to make representations to the government to secure a
clarification or change of the law to minimise the risk of prosecution for
those working in similar situations.
Eastern Synod
Proposer: Revd Dr David Thompson
1. Wintercomfort is a
Cambridge-based charity which runs one of the two day centres for the
homeless in East Anglia. It also provides a five-day-a-week doctor’s
surgery (most GPs won’t treat people without a home address), a job
training and confidence building course, help with rent and deposits on
accommodation, and assistance with emergency winter shelters.
Wintercomfort gives people who would otherwise spend their time begging on
the streets a place to sit down, sort out their lives, and link in with a
range of other essential services. This was run as an ‘open-door’
drop-in centre, where anyone, whatever their background, reputation or
state of mental health, could turn up and find a cheap meal, washing
facilities, free clothing and support and advice. Between 60 and 150
people visit the centre daily, and Wintercomfort helps around 100 people a
year move off the streets into hostels or private accommodation.
2. In recent years the
workers at Wintercomfort have seen a steady increase in the level of drug
abuse among the homeless, and nationally between 50% and 70% of homeless
people are thought to be drug users. This means that people working in day
centres are usually working with people who have drug problems. Many drug
users become involved in small-scale drug dealing, as a way to fund their
own drug habits, so that there is rarely a sharp distinction between users
and suppliers.
3. In January 1997 Ruth
Wyner, Wintercomfort’s Director, wrote to the police asking them to take
a more active role in the battle against drugs at the centre. She also
began a policy of banning people from its premises for actual or suspected
drug dealing, and 162 bans were made during the next 15 months. As the
actual quantities of drugs involved are often small - no more than the
size of a sweetcorn kernel - illicit dealing was hard to detect,
especially as the centre has only three full-time and two part-time staff
to supervise up to 150 people. It is also hard to enforce bans from a
drop-in centre with an open-door policy, especially if those bans are for
suspected dealing, and served on people at the edge of the law, some of
whom are likely to make violent reprisals against staff. The names of
people banned were not passed to police, partly because most of the bans
were based on nothing more than suspicion, and partly because of the
ethical duty to preserve client confidentiality.
4. In the spring of 1998
Ruth Wyner spoke out publicly about the extent of the drug problem, saying
that it was now more serious than the alcohol problem amongst those using
the centre; her comments were reported in the local press.
5. At the same time, the
police were carrying out an undercover investigation, which lasted for
five months, involving two under-cover officers and a surveillance camera
on the roof of a nearby building trained on a spot outside the building
which could not be seen from inside the centre. At the end of this
operation, eight drug-dealers were arrested for trading heroin, and Ruth
Wyner (the Director) and John Brock (the Day Manager) were arrested under
Section 8 of the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act because they were running the
premises: they were charged with “knowingly permitting or suffering the
supply of a Class A drug’’ (heroin). They were convicted and sentenced
to terms of five and four years in prison respectively.
6. Section 8 had been introduced to deal with
people who ran pubs or clubs as drug-dealing dens, and had been profiting
by the dealing activities of others. The prosecution of Ruth Wyner and
John Brock is the first time that the law has been used against people who
gain nothing from drug dealing, and instead are seeking to help drug
users. It is being viewed as a test case, and leaves many who work with
drug users vulnerable: the governor of Park Prison, Bridgend, wrote in The
Independent (17.12.99) that “If these people are guilty then prison
governors should be brought to book because, technically, with the level
of drug-taking there demonstrably is in prison, we are failing too.’’
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