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Notes on full meeting of PCAN
Tuesday 18th February
St Matthews Mission, Acregate Lane, PR1 5QQ
Present Greg Smith, Andy Prosser, Deborah Stuart, Rev. Sue Griffiths, Chris Higham, Rev. Ness Starkey, Terry Mattinson, Anita, Georgeina Joyce, Dave Brown,
Apologies.. Peter Nunn, Andrew Gardner, Peter Hamborg
Key Points on our agenda
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Prayer – Reflection
Greg used a passage from CUF's "Just Love" lent course to kick of a time of reflection around the tension / complementarity between judgement and mercy.... We aired frustrations about how the poorest and most vulnerable are being hit by current welfare, employment and housing policies and the hopes of Christian ministries which offer respect and care to people on a human level when so often they are treated inhumanely and have their voice unheard or silenced.
We discussed how best to offer protest, advocacy alongside the weakest members of society, took some encouragement that Church leaders such as Vincent Nicholls were speaking out. We thought about how we could raise a public outcry in Preston and looked at ideas of a Flashmob in the flag market, captured on video, involving media and video distribution etc... maybe for the late Spring Summer.... but it would need some organising......
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Follow up to the Faith in Community Day in November....
50 people had attended the Town Hall event in Inter Faith week in November and it had been well appreciated and the report is online at
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/89023969/report%20on%20preston%20community%20consultation%20Nov%202013%20%281%29.pdf
The planning group had met to review the day and actions were being taken forward by the Homeless Forum, the social forum the local food banks etc.. Sometime this year the Council would be rolling out the credit union facility in Preston... and it had been suggested this would be a good opportunity to put on a Faith and Finance event...
Community Engagement section was running with the task of co-ordianting job club networks across the city.. and the church linked job clubs were involved in this.
We may be getting better at sharing information flows.. but the reality is that this all needs to be build on personal networks....and undergirded with prayer....but we still struggle with getting all Christians and busy church leaders on board...What's needed to bring people together for prayer and vision for our city?
We talked about the need for a full time Christian Community Action networker/organiser just for Preston...to service existing networks, build more relationships, help people secure funding, prayer support , link with the secular world.... Can we bring together a bid for funding for someone to do this role full time? (Greg to investigate with Together Lancashire Board)
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Food Banks and food poverty...working together on improving logistics and the supply chain.
There are now 26 food banks across Lancashire .. or research suggests around 30,000 parcels were given out in 2013. This is huge need and a tremendous church and community response.. There are likely to be devlopments in wholesale sourcing of free food from manufacturers and suppliers... but the distribution / logistics are far from easy. County Council is researching this and may find some money to support it.. Yet we all really are praying that food banks can be closed down and more just welfare support can be put in place.
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Imapact of welfare reform, bedroom tax, benefit sanctions the coming of universal credit, online claiming.. and how we can help through money advice, supporting credit unions, IT access and training.
Fears around on all this.. Apparently Job Centre + are now removing phone call facilities from their offices... suggesting people bring in their ipads and use wifi to connect to employers. This is what they say.... Tell thm if you don't like it...
I am writing to inform you that from w/c17th March 2014, Preston Jobcentre will be removing customer telephones in the Jobcentre Welcome Area.
The level of support offered to our most vulnerable customers will not change.
As we begin to modernise our Jobcentre services, removal of the phones (and at a later date the self-service Job Points) will help us accommodate our new digital services and improve the environment to meet the needs of our customers.
Our aim is to provide an easy to access service to support self-managed job search activities such as making job and benefit applications online, checking of email accounts and updating CV's, all linking into Universal Jobmatch.
In the future will be offering free WiFi access which means our customers will be able to access the internet using their own devices.
If you would like to find out more about the changes at Preston Jobcentre please contact Audra O'Haire, Customer Service Manager on 01772 403398 or by emailing:
audra.ohaire@dwp.gsi.gov.uk
Yours faithfully
On behalf of Steve Johnson
District Manager for Cumbria & Lancashire
Bedroom tax is beginning to bite.....and there are not enough small properties for people to downsize into.
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Mustard seed grant programme..
Together Lancashire is the gateway to small grants... Andy and Terry shared about their propose d project to mingle youth from Fulwood and youth from St matthews to work together on a video project on poverty issues.
Sue and Georgina spake of developments around the listneing centre project based around Central Methodist but for the whole city and involving people from a wide range of churches in getting training in listening skills.
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Sharing of other activities, events and issues
Chris shared a number of things in which Longton Community Church were involved.
a) launch of a CAP (Christians Against Poverty) outreach coffee session at Bethel Church in St Matthews ward.. (CAPucchino anyone? :-) )
b) Seasons... a Friday worship service and free meal aimed mainly at older people in the deepdale area.. at Catherine Beckett Centre
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a day sponsored by Cinammon Netowrk which they will run to encourage Churches to take up starte funding for Franchised projects such as CAP, food banks etc..
Greg introduced and we talked about
The Challenge … Youth citizens service programme
Eden Network Associate Churches Programme
The estates network meeting on March 19th with Bishop Laurie Green and others
New clergy Appointed... Curate coming to St Matthews and St James (Kamran Bhatti)..... Pete Hamborg to be vicar of Emmanuel and St Christopher Lea..... We welcomed these announcements and pledge prayer and practical support..
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LUNCH... we had a nice lunch together.. courtesy of Lidls!
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