Well, everyone who missed the Mothers' Union General Meeting in Portsmouth missed an inspiring day. In fact two days - as the previous day saw two services in Portsmouth Cathedral - the Cathedral of the Sea - with many links to the Royal Navy. We had tickets for the 3pm service at which our Worldwide President, Sheran Harper, read the first lesson and Nikki Sweatman, our Provincial President led the prayers.
The Diocese of Portsmouth has published a lovely account of the service and their facebook page includes lots of photos, featuring some of our members!
The General Meeting was held in Portsmouth Guildhall. After the opening worship Sheran Harper took to the stage and gave a great summary of her first nine months in post. She described visiting a prison in Wales and meeting the MU members who make the prison visits bearable for the young families visiting their fathers, and how MULOA is revitalising members across the globe.
We heard about three inspiring programmes - little bags of love given to parents on their child's first day at school, an outreach programme providing breakfasts, school uniform and holiday lunches to school children and an MU branch that was set up inside a women's prison.
During lunch we visited the Marketplace - a separate hall with lots to see - information about the membership database, modern day slavery, projects at home and overseas and of course an MUe pop up shop with wonderful bargains!
After lunch Bev Julien, CEO, talked about how the new Communities of Interest will allow trustees and members to work in a more flexible way than the old Units did. She also spoke about more amazing work done by MU around the world, including a savings and credit scheme in Tanzania which has over 4000 members. They save small amounts each week but then can borrow for big projects, and some of the funds are used to support vulnerable people in their communities. She also explained that Mary Sumner House will require a major renovation, and ways need to be found to finance this.
The Central Chaplain, Rt Revd Dr Emma Ineson, and Revd Barry Hill from Leicester Diocese both spoke; Barry exhorted members 'don't settle for too small a vision of what you can do'.
Fundraising was discussed by Adam Sach, and he told us that last year's raffle raised £69,000 for MU funds, so another one is planned for this Christmas! As well as the usual quarterly appeals he is hoping to launch an MU National Day of Action in the autumn of 2020.
Finally we learnt that the theme for 2020 will be 'building hope and confidence', and next year's meeting will be held in Belfast.
Full transcripts of some of the presentations and copies of handouts from the Marketplace are available on the main MU website.