Updated Saturday evening
This press release comes from the Church of England:
Lambeth Conference: funding
The Lambeth Conference Funding Review Group has published its report. The review was commissioned last August by the Board of Governors of the Church Commissioners, and the Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England following an approach from the Lambeth Conference Company* for financial help.
The Review Group, chaired by John Ormerod, a former partner of accountancy firm Deloitte, makes a number of recommendations to be acted on by the Lambeth Conference Company and the Anglican Communion Office.
The Board of Governors of the Church Commissioners and the Archbishops’ Council each agreed, last August, to make available to the Lambeth Conference Company up to £600,000 as required to enable the Company to honour its commitments while fundraising efforts continued. Both bodies regarded these amounts as interest free loan facilities. Of the £388,000 actually borrowed by the Company, £124,000 has now been repaid, leaving £132,000 owing to each organisation as fundraising continues.
By the end of 2008, the review reports, the projected deficit had reduced from an estimate of over £1 million in August 2008 to £288,000, in part as a result of further fundraising efforts and in part due to actual costs proving lower than had been cautiously projected earlier in the year. The total cost of the event was £5.2million, as against the budget of £6.1million.
*The Lambeth Conference Company is the body given responsibility for managing the finances and administration of the Lambeth Conference 2008.
The main report is available as a .doc file.
Update Now also available as a PDF file.
Appendices are available as a PDF file.
From the Notes to editors:
The review group’s members were: (chair) John Ormerod, a former partner of accountancy firm Deloitte; the Rt Revd Tim Stevens, Bishop of Leicester and member of the Archbishops’ Council; Dr Christina Baxter, principal of St John’s theological college, Nottingham and also an Archbishops’ Council member; and Timothy Walker, Third Church Estates Commissioner. The group had staff support from two people provided via the office of the Church Commissioners.
There has already been generous support from the Church of England for the Lambeth Conference. Parishes and dioceses have made donations towards the costs of overseas bishops attending and the Church Commissioners have met the fees of the English bishops and their wives attending the Lambeth Conference, the costs of some of the conference organising staff, and some of the hospitality offered by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Was the £5.2million worth it?
I wonder if the debt was chopped up, given a rating, sold on as derivatives, insured against in other bonds that failed in a chaotic system (not an insurance bell curve) – did the debt ever become ‘toxic’ or is that a process of becoming?
Interesting reading in Appendix F. Giving from US dioceses fell off a cliff. The story is Rowan didn’t make an appeal for political reasons.
One Question aboput this shortfall:
Did any of those Bishops who chose not to attend the Conference ever get billed for their expected participation at Lambeth? Perhaps those who refused Lambeth, but who attended the Jerusalem counter-conference, ought to be asked to share the burden! {Perhaps, though, those Provinces – like Nigeria – that have excised any reference to their fellowship with the See of Canterbury in their revised Constitutions, may not feel the need to contribute). Maybe these dissidents should be intentionally dis-invited from the next Lambeth Conference. This could save us from the same financial debacle next time.
How could a conference -even one of this size cost so much ?
Can this £5.2million be correct ? And if correct, can it be right ?
Much better spent in saving lives.
Surely
>>>Giving from US dioceses fell off a cliff.
Maybe people are getting tired of paying to be abused and slandered.
Good.
“Giving from US dioceses fell off a cliff.”
Now I wonder whether the fact that a certain canonically chosen, confirmed and consecrated bishop in the US was excluded from the conference had anything to do with it. Just musing.
how could it cost soooo much?
think of this
650 bishops and their spouses. some of whom could not possibly afford their own tickets and even less expenses while in the UK.
plus
staff
guests
journalists
the stewards program
the chaplaincy team
the anglican communion staff, office stuff and space
now think about
travel documentation and arrangements
plane tickets, train tickets, bus tickets
plus
food
lodging
transportation
security
IT -internet radio telephone fax you name it
documentation
insurance
translation
all of the above for both the pre-conference program AND the conference proper.
Its freakin’ expensive there you know…
Thanks Leonel.
So now, can it be right ?
“So now, can it be right ?” Clergy and laity from all over the Anglican Church come together to talk about their differences, their agreements, to ask God’s guidance, to argue, to disagree, to fight, to get nasty, to be humans working out their salvation in fear and trembling like we are all supposed to do, and to seek to guide the Anglican Church. How is that bad? I think it’s wonderful, and well worth the money. Can it be wrong for people from all over the world actually getting to interact and be ordinary humans, not faceless enemies to… Read more »