The Newcastle upon Tyne Unitarians AGM took place on Sunday 25^th April at 12.30, chaired by Louise Reeve and attended by 10 members and friends. We opened our AGM with a reading of a prayer by Rev. Margaret Kirk and singing hymn no. 62, “Here We Have Gathered”.

Chair’s Opening Remarks

Louise Reeve welcomed everyone to the meeting, her third as the Chairperson at Newcastle upon Tyne Unitarians. Despite the difficulties of maintaining a spiritual community, we have risen to the challenge to continue to provide a weekly service and social times! The speed with which everyone has adapted to moving online has been impressive, and it has had the side benefit that we have had some services led by worship leaders who would not have been able to physically travel to do this, and also that members and friends with health issues and / or who live some distance away can join us from their homes. We are aware, however, that some of our members are not able to join us online – see below for our plans for the future!

Thanks and Remembrances

She expressed thanks to everyone who has worked hard to sustain our congregation over the past twelve very challenging months, with especial thanks to David Venus for managing our finances, and Diana Bebby for being our Pulpit Secretary, Calendar Editor and creator of the Uplift newsletter. Thanks also to the NUA (Northern Unitarian Association) for their financial support in paying for our Zoom licence, covering additional printing costs related to lockdown, and funding for our new banner on the car park gates. Thanks also to our former Chairperson Maurice Large, whose work (until his recent illness) to support the sale of our building has been very valuable.

We remember those we have lost in the past 12 months, including Fiona Tait and David Arthur, and also those members of our congregation who are unwell at present.

National Unitarian AGM – what will we be taking action on in future? April 2021

Louise Reeve (Newcastle upon Tyne Unitarians’ voting delegate) and ben MacLeod (NUA voting delegate) reported back on the national Unitarian AGM that took place on Saturday 24th April. Four motions were approved, on climate change divestment, support for the Red Cross Interfaith fund, support for the Unitarian Youth Movement, and a commitment to developing a Code of Ethics to apply to Unitarian leaders.

Plans for meeting in person – and by Zoom? from June 20^th 2021

Looking ahead, we will move back into our building for worship in person on Sundays in June 2021. We are aware that many members of the congregation have appreciated the opportunity to take part online, and will look at the viability of having ‘hybrid’ services using Zoom or a similar service to livestream services taking place in person.

Heritage Open Days and Virtual Tour – September 2021

We will be open for Heritage Open Days over 17th-19th September 2021 (being organised by Ben MacLeod). We are also looking at creating a virtual video tour of the building, based upon Maurice Large’s self-guided tour leaflet.

Selling our building and where we will meet in future – October 2021

We hope that the sale of the building to Tyneside Group Limited will be completed around October-November 2021, and we are currently planning for services in these months to be online via Zoom. The Management Committee will soon meet Robbie Kalbraier at Tyneside Group Limited to discuss our possibly continuing to worship in the building after it has been refurbished there. We also have identified a couple of possible new places to meet in future if it turns out that this is not going to be an option.

Minutes, Management Committee and Social Activities Reports

The minutes of the meeting held 26 April 2020, having been circulated to members with the Notice of Meeting. Louise Reeve presented the Annual Report of the management committee for 2020-2021, summarising what has happened in the last 12 months, and Diana Bebby provided a short update on the Reading Group.

Treasurer’s Report, Accounts and Ethical Investing

David Venus presented the Annual Accounts and his Treasurer’s Report. He observing that 2020 was another year in which our capital funds reduced as a direct result of our prolonged occupation of the present building and related expenses, but that upcoming sale of the building should resolve most of these issues. We have invested a further £50,000 with M&G Charifund, although the pandemic has meant that returns are not as high as we might have expected.

One question was asked about the ethical status of M&G Charifund, in the light of the national AGM on Saturday 24th having passed a resolution to “divest General Assembly funds from companies whose total turnover is more than 10% derived from the extraction and/or supply of fossil fuels, including thermal coal, natural gas and oil”. Charifund does have some investments (8.8%) in oil and gas companies. David Venus replied that we had taken professional advice on investing, including in relation to ethical issues, and the advice had been that Charifund was a good choice. However, we agreed that this is an ever-changing field, and we will seek out advice on how to ethically invest the proceeds of the building sale in due course. 

Pulpit Supply and NUA Reports

Diana Bebby presented the Pulpit Supply report describing how we have moved from online services to meeting in person during summer 2020 when we were able to do this, to our online services. Ben MacLeod, current President of the NUA, presented the NUA report. Newcastle upon Tyne will continue to seek an ordinary representative for the NUA. Both reports were approved.  

Election of Officers and Management Committee Members, NUA Representatives, and Safeguarding Officers

Management Committee: The nominations for Officers and Members of the Management Committee were as follows: For Treasurer, David Venus; for Secretary, Louise Reeve, for members of the Management Committee: Diana Bebby, Ben Macleod, Brian Robson. These appointments were approved by general assent of all members present.

NUA representatives: Brian Robson has indicated his willingness to be appointed as one of our NUA representatives. Ben MacLeod has become the current NUA President, meaning that we have a vacancy for an ordinary representative on the NUA committee, and we will seek to fill this vacancy as soon as possible.

Safeguarding Officers: Brian Robson has been appointed as our Safeguarding Officer, and Ben MacLeod as our Deputy Safeguarding Officer.

How’s it going, what’s next, and developing our services

Before the AGM, Louise Reeve circulated a short form asking for feedback on how things have gone over the past year; what has gone well, and what could be done better or differently. Alongside this, Diana Bebby, as Pulpit Secretary, has been developing ideas on how our services could be improved and how to make them more ‘active’. We discussed these as follows:

Making services more ‘active’ and expressing our values and identity

Following feedback that some people our services can be too ‘passive’, Diana Bebby, Pulpit Secretary, has developed ideas for “a little bit of action and a regular connection with our values… [by having a] very short item to go in before every service begins to connect us with our values and act on them a little.” She has produced a list of ideas for more active involvement, such as guided meditations and suggestions for supporting different charities, and a draft values statement that can be read out at the start of each service by a member of the congregation.

There was general support for these ideas, with some debate over the wording of the values statement, and a concern that it should not, even inadvertently, become a ‘creed’ or ‘dogma’, or be too self-congratulatory. We agreed it is a challenge to capture what makes us unique, but that our community is marked by a shared commitment to spiritual exploration and open-mindedness, and we wish to express this. We also discussed what needs might newcomers to our community have and what impression of us they might receive.

Hybrid services and accessibility

One issue raised was that some people only attend worship in person, others can only attend virtual worship, and we need to meet the needs of both groups. We agreed to test the feasibility of livestreaming services when we return to meeting in person. This led a discussion about a) if we run ‘hybrid’ services with some people attending virtually and some doing so in person, making sure everyone is involved, and b) if it is not possible to do this, how we can continue to involve those who prefer to join in online? Perhaps there could be a once-monthly Zoom service?

More Unitarian Christian influence in services

Following feedback that some people would like more worship which ‘addresses the Divine’ and explores both the Christian origins and contemporary Christian expressions of Unitarianism, we discussed the possibility of contacting contemporary UK Unitarian Christian thinkers and asking them to support us with this.

Publicity and Outreach, and Social Action

One suggestion was to use both the proceeds of the sale of the building, and the extra time we will have from no longer having to manage this, to develop better advertising & outreach, do more social action, and be more active in our local community. All agreed that this was something we wanted to see. Ben MacLeod suggested that we could create the post of Publicity and Outreach Officer (or a similar title), with one person taking one responsibility for outreach, and that he would be willing to try to develop this role.

We discussed what sorts of causes and action we might want to take – marching and being present at events such as Northern Pride and racial equality protests were mentioned. We considered whether we should more actively promote ourselves as a safe spiritual space for LGBTQI+ people, including doing work as a congregation to educate ourselves about this, and also to acknowledge that people within the congregation hold differing views on different topics, and that all must be given the chance to be heard.

We also agreed that we would continue to push the national Unitarian movement to make money available for local congregational publicity, and look at options for national advertising, and also consider getting in professional help to assist with our work. We could revisit the publicity research done by the Marketwise agency in 2014 to inform this.

Closing the meeting

David and Hazel Warhurst passed on greetings from Stockton Unitarians to the Newcastle upon Tyne congregation. Louise Reeve read a benediction from UUA author Samuel A. Trumbore, ‘Let Us ‘Go Forth in Simplicity’, and the meeting closed at 2.15pm.