Bright a new day dawned, unless you’d drawn the blackout curtains, in which case you were rudely awakened by the squawk of the phone alarm, and the realisation of how little time you had to shower, make coffee, and render yourself into a presentable human being if you wanted to make it to morning worship. That might just have been me though. Clutching my Edwards reusable coffee cup, I joined Rev. Lynda Kane – a recipient of the Rev. Herbert Barnes Memorial Award, I’ll have you know – and Rev. Stephen Rain-Adair for a moving Communion Service, featuring Lauren Daigle’s song, “You Say”:

Having braved the bunfight over breakfast (featuring some actual buns, I appreciate a breakfast muffin), we filed into Plenary II for Sian Murray’s lovely opening worship about the power of community. Appropriately enough, since next up, visiting minister Rev. Norbert Nagy was invited to read a letter of greeting from the Hungarian Unitarian Church in Transylvania. Once more, I was reminded of the ‘Leading into the Future’ Unitarian event in Prague and the importance of not forgetting that we are part of an international movement.

Time for the Annual Report and Accounts! Rev. Jo James introduced this, then set the stage by looking back at the start of Liz Slade’s tenure as our Chief Officer, praising her and the EC (Executive Committee)’s hard work over the past five years, reminding us of those dark times at the start of 2020, and moving to the modern time, as people seek refuge from an increasingly difficult and challenging world in spiritual spaces. The creative work of change and transformation is needed now! Liz Slade spoke about how the EC is working with Unitarian congregations across the UK, and the importance of love, and Honorary Treasurer John Bates discussed the accounts, including the performance of investments – apparently one slide was meant to refer to “poorly-performing funds”, not “poorly funds”, but let’s face it, both could be true.

Discussions over this clarified the point that the Nightingale Centre is now a separate charity, and the General Assembly is no longer the ‘parent charity’. For more views on this, please see the excellent GA Zette Welcome Edition produced by David Warhurst, email if you’d like a copy: louise.reeve@newcastleunitarians.org.uk.

Another question was about the impact of ethical restrictions on our portfolio’s performance. The GA has an  investment mandate to not invest in alcohol, tobacco, arms, pornography, and so on. John Bates pointed out that all fund managers produce a sustainable and / or ethical ‘product’ for investment but it is difficult to do! This can affect investment performance, anyone holding stocks in weapons manufacture has made a fortune recently, but would we truly want this money? It is a  choice we have made. Motions 10-12 passed, and we were on to the emergency motion – and the emergency emergency motion!

As the GA had received an ‘emergency emergency motion’, Angela Maher ran through the procedures for this as there are limits on how many motions we can debate at the Annual Meetings. The two emergency motions proposed were the one that went out in advance about responding to the Trump administration in the US, and one proposed during the meetings as a response to the recent police raid on a group meeting at Westminster Quaker Meeting House, and defending the right to peaceful protest. As the Annual Meetings can consider only one emergency motion, we needed to vote on which would be the one emergency motion we were going to have put before us (simple majority needed), then vote on whether to debate it (two-thirds majority needed).

Prior to this, there was one point raised about the wording of the emergency motion relating to the right to peaceful protest, and whether it should contain more of a call to action in order to be considered. Angela replied that the Steering Committee had considered it and determined that it did meet the requirements. Another question was whether we could make an exception to our procedures to vote to debate both emergency motions. Angela replied that the Steering Committee had considered this, but we have to follow the constitution. To debate both motions now would meet we would first have to change the constitutions, which can’t be done as an emergency motion. The votes went as follows:

Vote 1 – which motion to debate?

• Emergency Motion 1, responding to the Trump administration = 71 votes in favour

• Emergency Motion 2, about the right to peaceful protest = 56 votes in favour.

We then voted on whether to debate the ‘winning’ emergency motion.

Vote 2 – to debate it?

There were 106 votes in favour, 6 against. Rev. Andi Phillips introduced the motion, reminding us that whilst we may be feeling bombarded, and we have no direct way to influence US politics, we need to be aware of the impact of US politics on our lives and people around the world, and that we should act where we can. Comments included a reminder to contact the devolved administrations in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales as well as England, and that the Ministerial Fellowship supports the motion. The motion was carried by a majority vote.

Finally, we heard from Karl Newton at the National Churches Trust, who spoke about what they can do to support us – including both “ways which are free, and ways in which we give you money!” Only one grant in 2024 went to a Unitarian building, and they would like to change this by encouraging us to apply for support.

After an intense session, we took a short break before gathering for Plenary III.