Meeting Report
This was an ALMA Reps meeting with a full agenda and considerable buzz. Bishop Michael opened and closed the meeting in prayer, there were four sections to the evening – with many questions and exchanges along the way.
Nicky Thomson from All Saints Fulham spoke about their link with St Augustine’s Viana, Luanda. We saw pictures of the visit to St Augustine’s in 2005 (do look at the excellent visit report), heard about the return visit to Fulham in 2006 and plans for another visit to Angola in 2007. All Saints also has a church school connected with the school in Viana and a teacher from the school was one of the visitors to Angola. In the 2007 visit another teacher from the school will be in the group going to Angola. Nicky’s ‘slide show’ with music was splendid and we will see if we can put it on the web site in its entirety.
Richard Bartlett, ALMA Twinning Officer, introduced a new Chaplaincy scheme to help sustain links and enable people with links in the same dioceses to be in contact with one another. We spent some time in groups: those linked with Angola; Lebombo; Niassa met each other and the two Chaplains for each Diocese. The ALMA Reps with no link parishes met to look at how to be agents for ALMA in their churches. We looked at notice boards, intercessions and the possibilities of being ‘project parishes’ – supporting particular projects.
Margaret Davies from Kenton spoke of a visit to Mozambique when she and her husband John spent some time visiting ALMA parishes among other things. She showed very clear photos of people and places we are connected with including Father Juliao Mutemba at St Barnabus Bagamoyo, Jose Cuna the administrator of street boys project at St Stephen and St Lawrence Maputo. They visited in addition the church of the Good Samaritan in Zimpeto, and St Monica’s Mahlazine (desperately seeking a twin). In Niassa they went to Nacala where they met Father Damiao Jacquessone and his wife Rebecca of Todos os Santos. As well as the church they saw the newly completed school which ALMA’s Children has helped fund and the improvised nursery for deprived children run under a tree by Rebecca. This urgently needs proper accommodation and could perhaps be an ALMA project for parishes without a twin. Margaret and John have made their photos available and we will work out the best way of using them on the web site so those who missed the meeting can also enjoy them.
Peter Southwood, ALMA Link Officer, gave an update on the flood appeal – money is gradually coming in and currently stands at about £3000 and rising. Sheenagh shared several notices and points of interest and concluded the meeting with the distribution of the flood information from Bishop Michael and laminated ALMA Posters for long term display. There are two types of poster: general posters which state that ‘ALMA is the Diocese of London’s link with Angola and Mozambique’ and personalised posters for twin parishes which include an extra line – ‘This parish is twinned with the parish of …’.