Lunchtime specials

On Friday and Saturday lunchtimes, some of the dining tables in the Refectory will be set aside for a series of participant facilitated conversations. Those listed below have agreed to host a family and marriage ministry conversation on a topic of their choice. Seats at their table will be available on a first come first served basis.

Friday

Janette Davidson: A Family Perspective in the Parish.
Janette is a Parish Consultant in the Diocese Of Broken Bay in Sydney Australia.  She has worked in full time ministry for 16 years. For 12 years she worked as a Pastoral Associate in a parish which integrated a ‘family perspective.’ Janette has been involved in Family Ministry training in Sydney and continues to promote the vision of the crucial relationship between households of faith and communities of faith in furthering God’s mission in the world.  

Edna Hunneysett: Families, Spirituality and Mental Health 
Edna is a ‘hands-on’ grandmother of 15 grandchildren and combines this with her writing and speaking, in churches and other venues, raising awareness for support needed for families with a member with a mental illness. She runs a pastoral support group for carers of those with a mental illness and another for those experiencing a mental illness. Edna holds an MA in Personal, Moral and Spiritual Development, the research for which was published in her book 'Carers in the Community: 'Why have you forsaken me?' Edna is also a Eucharistic minister, a Reader and until recently, a catechist.  

Gary & Kay Johnson: Marriage Enrichment and Marriage Preparation ~ Marriage Encounter's contribution
Gary & Kay have been married for 45 years, have six children, (of which the youngest was adopted as a baby) and twelve grandchildren (of which one died in infancy).  They have many years’ experience of involvement in parish activities (having moved home many times), including serving on Parish Advisory Councils, running parish based marriage preparation courses, as well as being Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist. Since 1979 they have had a strong involvement with the Worldwide Marriage Encounter Movement, which provides a weekend enrichment experience for Catholic married couples. Over the years they have had different administrative roles in Marriage Encounter, as well as being presenting team for the Marriage Encounter and Engaged Encounter Weekends.  Since September 2005, they have been the National Executive Team Couple, working as a team with Fr John Cavanagh, OFM Cap, which also involves meeting the leadership teams of other European countries at WWME Council meetings.

Philippa Kohlbecker: Supporting Children Coping with Family Change ~ the Contribution of Rainbows
Philippa is a Registered Director of RAINBOWS, created to provide children, adolescents and adults with an opportunity for healing to take place after a painful loss. This is done through the peer support groups, which provide an opportunity for those grieving to share their feelings in an environment supported by a trained, caring and compassionate adult.

Ruth Reardon: Interchurch Families ~ Domestic Churches Nourished by Two Ecclesial Communions
Ruth Reardon is a President of the Association of Interchurch Families.  With her husband Martin, who died last year, she was a founder-member of the Association in 1968, and its Secretary from then until 2000.  She was involved in the preparation of guidelines for ‘The Joint Pastoral Care of Interchurch Marriages in England, Wales and Scotland’ issued by the British Council of Churches/Roman Catholic Joint Working Group in 1970;  and Secretary of the Working Group that wrote ‘Churches Together in Marriage: Pastoral Care of Interchurch Families’ issued by Churches Together in England in 1994.  As a member of the Roman Catholic Ecumenical Commission for England and Wales in the 60s, 70s and early 80s she stressed the ecumenical potential of interchurch families;   as a member of the Bishops’ Committee for Marriage and Family Life in the 90s she kept the particular pastoral needs of interchurch families before the committee.  She co-authored Sharing Communion: an Appeal to the Churches by Interchurch Families in 1983, and edited the journal Interchurch Families, 1993-2004.

Adrian Thatcher: Living Together ~ Christian Ethics in Family Life 
Dr. Adrian Thatcher is currently part-time Professorial Research Fellow at the University of Exeter . Ordained a Baptist minister, he became an Anglican in 1988. He has published extensively in several areas of Theology – Metaphysics, Philosophy of Religion, Christology, and the Theology of Education. But since 1993 (when he published Liberating Sex – A Christian Sexual Theology) he has concentrated on the Theology of Sexuality and Marriage. His most recent books are The Daily Telegraph Guide to Christian Marriage (Continuum, 2003), Living Together and Christian Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2002), Celebrating Christian Marriage (ed. T&T Clark, 2002) and Marriage after Modernity (Sheffield Academic Press, 1999). His new monograph, Theology and Families, will be published by Blackwell in November 2006.

Saturday

Terry Connor: Building New Families Through Adoption 
Terry Connor is Director of Catholic Children's Society (Arundel & Brighton, Portsmouth and Southwark)

Fleur Dorrell: The Rise in Cohabitation ~ Does it Undermine Marriage or Not?  
Fleur Dorrell is Head of Faith & Policy at the Mothers' Union, which involves enriching MU members in their faith, spirituality and theology and campaigning on social justice and faith issues affecting women and families worldwide. Her previous work included working as lay Roman Catholic Chaplain to the Royal Navy and later to Brighton University, as well as working for Darton, Longman & Todd publishers.  She studied Theology and Religious Studies at Cambridge University.

Richard Hardy: Family Issues ~ Bridging the Gap between Church and Community
Richard Hardy is Church and Community Development Manager for Care for the Family. He is involved in assisting churches to think through how they might serve their communities on the family agenda and supporting church leaders in their personal lives. Over the past 20 years Richard has been involved in Church Leadership, initially as a Youth Leader; then as a Deacon and Student Pastor at Didcot Baptist Church ; and for the past 14 years as Pastor of Tangier Road Baptist Church in Portsmouth . Richard has been a Director of the Association of Christian Counsellors, an Isle of Wight Keswick and Spring Harvest Speaker, and has recently completed a Masters degree with Cliff College in Consultancy in Mission and Ministry. Richard is 45 years old and is married to Rosemary. They have two children.         

Rosemary Keenan: The State Our Children Are In!  
Rosemary is Deputy Director of the Catholic Children's Society (Westminster) and convenor of the Marriage and Family Committee of the National Board of Catholic Women. 

Jeremy & Glenys Moore: Retrouvaille ~ Rediscovering the Spark of Life and Love 
Married for 23 years, Jeremy and Glen Moore have been active in Marriage and Family Life Ministry since 1986.  Initially, working with marriage preparation through Engaged Encounter, they also became involved in marriage enrichment in 1990 and spent 11 years as a presenting team for Worldwide Marriage Encounter, including 3 years (1998 – 2001) as the National Executive Team Couple and members of the European Secretariat.  Since 2002, they have developed and presented a parish based marriage preparation programme, which they offer twice yearly in their home parish. In 2004, they were invited by the Pastoral Affairs Department in Westminster to attend a Retrouvaille weekend in Ireland, with a view to establishing Retrouvaille here in England and Wales and afterwards, felt called to minister to those whose marriages are in difficulty.  Since then, they have been part of a small team involved in developing and offering the Retrouvaille Programme.  Jeremy and Glen are at the Symposium as representatives of the Nottingham Diocese.  

Francis Thompson: “How they love one another!” (Jn 13:35).
Parent of 3 university-age boys and Deanery Representative for Beaconsfield parish in Buckinghamshire, Francis will share his experience of a family project in the Cameroons. Hear how one diocese is re-energising its parishes to give a sense of image, mission and role to its families, organising practical support for the family’s needs at every stage of the lifecycle to ensure their survival, growth and joy.

Clare Watkins: The Ecclesial Vocation of the Christian Household
Clare Watkins is a Catholic theologian, teacher and writer. Her fifteen or so years of teaching theology includes working at Cambridge University, Education for Parish Service, and Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology, as well as pastoral and educational work in dioceses, deaneries and parishes. She has researched, taught and published in the areas of ecclesiology and sacrament, and, more specifically, on marriage, the baptismal vocation and ‘domestic church.’ Her book – Living Baptism. Called out of the Ordinary – (Darton Longman & Todd, 2006) – integrates these pastoral and theological concerns, in a way which aims to help renew lay Christian living ‘in ordinary’. Clare has four children, and lives near Cambridge, with them and her husband, Guy.