The Wave

It feels like we've been talking about this all year - the day of The Wave finally arrived. This was the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition demonstration in London just ahead of the Copenhagen Climate Summit.

Preparations at St John's began a few weeks back when the Pathfinders made their splendid banner. Then this Friday sixty cyclists turned up at the cafe - they'd come from Bristol and had stayed the night at St George's, Wash Common in Newbury en route to the Wave. They'd asked for a stopover for toilet and coffee but they got bacon butties for breakfast too courtesy of the Friday cafe.

Today about 25 of us headed down to London by less strenuous means - coach and train. When last I looked the BBC were reporting 20,000 marchers, Sky News said 40,000 but SCCC and Christian Aid said 50,000. Some of us arrived early enough for the service in Westminster Central Hall. The key phrase one of them reported from the service was that God told us to preach good news to all the world - not merely all people, but the cosmos.

By the time our family turned up there was a capacity 3,000 people inside and still an optimistic queue, but we headed downstairs for the Cafod children's activities, bumped into several old friends and the St John's Pathfinders, played climate change games, made banners and got blue hands painted on our faces (plus a good cup of coffee). Making a three-year-old walk the full route seemed a bit optimistic so while most people headed off to Grosvenor Square for the rallying talks and march start, we had a picnic and then visited Westminster Abbey. By the time we came out marchers were passing Parliament. The highlights for the boys were a wonderful blue dragon, meeting Tearfund's Super Badger and the cycle-powered music.

The rest of the congregation did walk the full route. The Pathfinders met our bishop, Stephen Cottrell, on the march (a photo of that should be appearing soon on the church's new website: http://stjohnandstephen.co.uk). There was more a storm of noise than a wave of hands at 3pm and the marching continued long after (we were on the platform at Waterloo when a friend rang to say they'd reached Parliament Square).

Changing our bank

Many months ago I mentioned discussion about banking. The Eco-congregation materials encourage churches to ensure they are investing ethically. Our bank was Nat West, well known for its investment in oil, gas and coal projects as part of the Royal Bank of Scotland group. Since many of the congregation bank with the Co-operative Bank some suggested we should change to this. Others thought it might be worth while supporting People and Planet’s Ditch the Dirty Development campaign – asking RBS-NatWest to change to funding renewable energy and threatening to boycott if they don’t. This latter option seemed more likely to work if other churches were on board so we were awaiting advice from the diocese on this.

However, the credit crunch has forced our hand – as interest charges drop while banking charges remain, it is no longer economically sensible to bank with Nat West. Consequently at the last PCC we chose to move our money into accounts that won’t be funding oil, gas and coal production. Other churches may be interested to know that for our current account we have chosen the Charities Aid Foundation bank because they provide an online banking system which allows charities and churches to sanction transactions with two e-mail accounts, like the two signatures on their cheque books. They also have far fewer bank charges than NatWest.

The Age of Stupid

The Age of Stupid showing went off without a hitch on Thursday. With my usual failure to think numbers I forgot to count the audience but we think it was about fifty which is fantastic. Probably two thirds were congregation members.

I'd picked up lots of cakes at the Early St Peter's Toddler service the day before so they went down very well and I'd also put up a display of a few facts/figures/graphs about climate change and possible responses - I have to admit I didn't expect it to be read as much as it was (I even had to photocopy a piece for one attendee) so I've left it all up there for the week.

On second viewing (as Matt Freer said) it didn't feel so angry and I think I got more out of it. Afterwards I advertised the Eco-veggie fayre which will be held at Reading Town Hall on 19th December and includes a showing of the film. We also encouraged people to join The Wave climate change march on 5th December. Then I encouraged people to talk it over with their neighbours rather than going bleakly out into the night, and they did talk for a long time! All the feedback I got was very positive (albeit with some despair about how to respond). John Madeley said he'd like us to try to get every church in Reading to show it. Next up will be Tilehurst Methodists who are showing it on 9 December.

The Age of Stupid - advertising showing

Showing at
St John and St Stephen's Church,
121-147 Orts Road, Reading, RG1 3JN

Thursday 19th November 7.30 for 8 pm start

Free entry (retiring collection to cover costs)

It's certificate 12A. I'm hoping to be showing it with subtitles on.
Please join us and bring a friend.