To note any substitute members present at the meeting and welcome any new members.
Minutes:
The Chairman welcomed Councillor Eagling, Mrs Sutton and Mrs Fanning to the meeting.
The clerk then asked leave of the Chairman to address members on the matter of membership. Members were informed that over the summer, the Chairman (and Mr Hugill) had been busy “recruiting” and, as a result, applications for membership had been received from Revd. Dorothee Büürma – the minister overseeing the four Havering United Reformed churches in Havering. The United Reformed Church had been represented until 2012 and it was a positive sign that the church leaders considered membership of SACRE significant enough to nominate their senior minister. She had, unfortunately, not been able to attend this evening’s meeting as it clashed with a number of other commitments already in her diary.
In addition to this, Daniel Hugill had nominated two teaching colleagues – Mrs Barbara Usher (NASUWT) and Mrs Kirsty Fanning (ATL). Mrs Usher’s candidacy had been approved by the local branch of NASUWT, but there was some difficulty in obtaining a response from ATL – though Mrs Fanning stated that she was enthusiastic about joining and would try to clear her candidacy with head office.
On the other side of the equation, the clerk informed members that along with his apologies for not attending, Revd. Adrian McConnaughie had also stepped down from SACRE. He added that he had approached the Diocese and asked if it were possible for two new members for Group B (Church of England) to be found.
SACRE was then informed that the clerk had received a request from a Mr Luthaneal Adams to be considered for membership of SACRE. Mr Adams said that he was the District Manager for the Pagan Federation and that he was a published author who had written books about Paganism for young people. The clerk stated that he had checked with NASACRE’s Membership secretary and had been informed that the internal membership of SACREs was their own affair – providing they stayed within the remit of the legislation and their constitution/terms of reference.
He quoted from Havering’s Terms of Reference. Paragraph 5 (Membership of SACRE) stated that: … SACRE will consider the admission of representatives of new religions, faiths or belief systems currently represented by reference to the relative size of that community within the borough and which, in the opinion of the local authority reflect the principle traditions in the area.” Members were then informed that at the 2011 Census, the borough’s population was given as 237,232 (1% therefore equalling about 2,400 and 0.1% being 240 persons).
The break-down (which had a total of 55 distinct groups ranging from the World Religions to minority belief systems) had 65.5% of that number professing to be Christian (all denominations), 2% were Muslim, 1.2% were Hindu. 0.8% Sikh, 0.5% Jewish and 0.3% were Buddhist. Each group was represented on Havering’s SACRE. There were, however, some discrepancies which emerged when the figures were looked at in greater depth. For example: The Chair was of the Baha’I faith and the Vice Chair was a Humanist. In the expanded analysis, neither group registered (though the figures were rounded to one decimal place and clearly there must have been some returns received in order for the group to be recorded at all, but it was interesting to note that in those “other religions, faiths and belief systems, Paganism accounted for 0.1%, Spiritualists also accounted for 0.1% but Jedi Knight accounted for 0.3%.
By reference to the Census figures therefore, SACRE ought to have a Pagan, a Spiritualist and at least one Jedi Knight and the Baha’I and Humanist members be removed from the list.
Clearly this was unlikely to happen, but members were asked to consider whether an invitation ought to be extended to Mr Adams. The clerk suggested that an item concerning membership should be added to the agenda for the next meeting and Mr Adams invited to attend. SACRE agreed to this proposal with a number of members observing that they knew other SACRE’s had Pagan representatives and that this was an old, Earth belief system with strong ecological and ethical roots. The Chairman read from an Interfaith magazine about the inclusion of Paganism within the Interfaith movement and said that this ought to be considered seriously by SACRE at its spring meeting.