About >

Church and Society Network

Convener: Revd. Alison Simpson, Scottish Episcopal Church
Vice-Convener: Vacant
Network Officer: Tom Moyes

The Network normally meets three times a year. At each meeting information is exchanged on work being done within our society by the Churches and by bodies in association and associated ecumenical groups. Topics which regularly feature on agendas include housing; poverty; the environment; criminal justice; science and technology; chaplaincy in hospitals and in industry; parliamentary affairs in both Westminster and Holyrood; education; asylum and racial justice; and domestic abuse.

Although most meetings last for only a morning the Network sometimes chooses to hold an afternoon session to receive information on and to discuss a topic of current interest. In 2007 the Network heard from Doris Peschke, General Secretary of the Churches’ Commission for Migrants in Europe, of the issues surrounding the work of the Commission and of the progress being made in its work.

During 2007 the Network shared in the work of the Task Group which organised the Scottish Churches’ activities to mark the Bi-centenary of the passing of the Act which abolished the Slave Trade; worked with the Scottish Churches’ Parliamentary Office to produce material to be used at “hustings” meetings before the elections to the Scottish Parliament; and organised a seminar at Scottish Churches’ House to discuss the implications for the Scottish economy of the ideas put forward in CTBI’s publication “Prosperity with a Purpose”.