From the diary of our District Network President - Jane Dixon

A very big thank you to Joan Appleby for drumming up all her supporters and filling a coach from Tynedale Circuit with members from Haltwhistle, Haydon Bridge, Fourstones, Acomb, Wall, West End, Trinity, Slaley, Corbridge and Wylam for my Induction Service as District Network President on Thursday 15th November – it was a fantastic encouragement to travel with members of my own Circuit to Brunswick, and I am delighted with the most appropriate gift from Tynedale Circuit Network President Christine Caddy presented to me on the coach: a Hadrian’s Wall Mulberry Silk scarf (emerald and indigo tie dye with gold overprint) which I shall wear on all my travels to remind all I am Tynedale! Thank you Joan Appleby for organising men and ladies from Tynedale to host for the day – serving tea and coffee with homemade scones to around 150 in the hall before and after the service: quite an undertaking. Thank you John Clark for tidying up the layout and to Haltwhistle printing and production team for the orders of service. Thank you to Joan Appleby, District Network President 1999-2001, for bringing members of Haltwhistle Methodist Church Choir to sing ‘It Only Takes A Spark’ during the service: I loved the split between the men’s lines and ladies’ lines, and everyone’s bright smiling sparkling happy faces – it sounded great. Thank you to Stephen Caddy and Marian Olsen for assisting with the distribution of the elements during Communion, and to Christine Caddy for reading a poem during the President’s Project presentation in the afternoon.
My church, West End, has nominated ‘The Josie Grove Leukaemia Fund’ as one of our official charities (the others being NCH, Wateraid and Love Russia) which we support along with Methodist Churches throughout the District this coming year as the current District Network President’s Project. Finally, thank you to Ruth Smith of Wylam who kicked me under the table (and offered verbal incitement) at the District Network Committee Meeting in February 2006 at the same time as Pam Murphy of Consett pointed her finger at me and said ‘You’ and together nominated me for the role of District Network President – it is a privilege to represent the District in this way.
I enjoyed quality time travelling with District Network Secretary Joyce Hindmarch to the Area Three Network Meeting It was good to share in devotions and prayers and to meet up with all the Network Presidents and Secretaries of Cumbria, Darlington and Scotland Districts (Shetland sent greetings, and we sent a letter of thanks to Shetland District for a wonderful ‘Isles of the North Rejoice’ conference in June 2007). Most of our meeting was taken up with the future of Network and a unanimous decision of all eleven present to reject the consultation document on a new charitable status with paid up members in favour of continuing as a movement (membership not required) but without a Network Office in London.
The debate on Network (the Connexional level will cease to exist in August 2008) continued at my house in the evening with the arrival of the Tynedale Circuit Network President, Past President, Vice President, Treasurer and Events Secretary. Christine Caddy compiled a Circuit response from the meeting, convened at less than 48 hours notice as time scales were tight, and we each sent individual replies to the eight questions posed, our own views being strengthened by a sharing of opinions. It was sad to need to be so negative about the proposals of the Women’s Network Connexional Committee, when we are all so positive about Network at grassroots level, but encouraging to find solidarity. Sometimes documents need careful unpicking, and as christians it is hard to express opposition which might hurt or upset the other party and so appear unloving. We say thank you to all the good that has come from employing paid staff in Network Office, but seize the opportunity for change and finding different ways of working.

My first speaking appointment as District Network President was to twenty-two delightful ladies at Haltwhistle Methodist Church Womens Fellowship led by Audrey Oliver who sprang a Promise Box on me. I had noticed this white box with a decorative lid under the lectern – well the lid came off and I was handed tweezers to pluck a yellow scroll from what looked like a honeycomb: I made my selection and read out a verse from Proverbs before rolling it and replacing it in the box. Apparently these promise boxes were very popular in Victorian times and men going to fight in the First World War often gave them as gifts to their wives or sweethearts – they contain 140 rolled up verses of scripture and were of particular help in times of distress and discomfort. Joan Appleby and Sheila Lee had prepared a written response of objection to the formation of a new charitable organisation for Network - all present agreed unanimously and each signed a letter placed in an individual envelope and posted it to Network Office. My second speaking appointment came one week later. Nine brave men and ten times as many ladies from sixteen churches around our Circuit packed the downstairs pews of Trinity for Tynedale Circuit Network Advent Service led by our Circuit Network President Christine Caddy. With the lighting of purple and pink candles on the Advent wreath, Christine took us through the four Sundays of Advent with themes Hope, Peace, Joy and Love each with a reading, prayer and verse of a hymn. Christine cleverly tied in the seven hymns we sang celebrating Christ’s birth with a selection of readings from Scripture (Isaiah and Matthew) and three seasonal tales (Christmas eve fun with Santa loose amongst the presents, if Christ had been born today in a garage in Corbridge visited by bin men and celebrities, and the rantings of the animals in the nativity barn). The collection amounting to £165 is to be donated to the District Network President’s Project ‘The Josie Grove Leukaemia Fund’ and afterwards, over tea /coffee with mince pies / shortbread, silver dragonfly pendants and earrings were purchased with £5 from each sale again going to the fund.

A break in the demands on me as District Network President came with Christmas and New Year, and I thoroughly appreciated the St Mary’s Eve concert at Corbridge Methodist Church from which £324 was donated to ‘The Josie Grove Leukaemia Fund’ (thank you Revd. Stephen Caddy for choosing my President’s Project as your charity that evening). Things have busied up again since mid January. Briefly: I have attended the District Younger Women’s Committee Meeting at Consett (where we planned our Minsteracres Retreat Weekend in February and our Fellowship Walk and Meal in June) and I caught the tail end of Tynedale Circuit Network Committee Meeting at West End (where President Christine Caddy drew up our programme until June 2009). Those were good meetings. I chaired my first District Network Executive Meeting at Brunswick and was delighted that we kept pace hearing reports and planning our Minsteracres Retreat Weekend in March and District Day at Brunswick in May – also I had passed proposals to make District Network Committee Meetings open to all (but still requiring two reps from each Circuit) and slightly more devotional .

I have enjoyed speaking appointments at Houghton-Le-Spring Women’s Fellowship, Haltwhistle Wednesday Club (Audrey Oliver has crocheted, tasselled, starched, pressed and mounted me sixty dragonfly bookmarks in various colours which I am selling at £2 each for my President’s Project, Barbara Galilee has made me dragonfly greetings cards, and I have some dragonfly jewellery), St John’s Whitley Bay Women’s Circle (who donated their collection of £109 to my President’s Project) and Pilgrims Court Jesmond (Methodist Home). I have collected hundreds of puzzles (wooden, string, Rubik cubes with 3,4,5 and 12 sides) from a lady in Fenham and delivered them to Jacqui Grove to go in to 24 Arts and Crafts Boxes to be delivered to each of the Children’s Cancer Specialist Hospitals before Easter.

Today, deadline day for Living Waters articles, I will be enjoying Tynedale Circuit Network Day with Anne Collinson at Bellingham, minus knitting needles!
Before the end of May: I have another fifteen speaking appointments booked at Allendale, Stocksfield, Morpeth, Denton Burn, Annfield Plain, Gosforth, West Moor, Crawcrook, Blyth, Low Fell, Gosforth, Birtley, Washington, Cramlington and Ryhope. I say a big thank you to my Mam who arranges her holidays and bowls around my engagements so she can accompany me .

I will be speaking at the District Younger Women’s Minsteracres Weekend Retreat with Myrtle Poxon this weekend, and be on Presidential Duty at the District Network Minsteracres Weekend Retreat with Revd. Jeff Thomas in March, before attending a relaxing weekend Conference at the Hayes Conference Centre Swanwick Derbyshire with the Connexional Network Team in April and then a Connexional Day at Elm Ridge Methodist Church in Darlington in May.

I have another District Network Executive Meeting at Brunswick to chair and two District Network Meetings at Brunswick to lead, as well as the privilege of leading Closing Devotions at Newcastle District Spring Synod at Blyth in April and speaking at the District Network Birthday Celebrations at Brunswick in May. I will be sitting in at another District Younger Women’s Committee Meeting in Whickham and an Area Network Meeting in Carlisle .

I am learning to live a week at a time (looking at the whole seems a mammoth task on top of a demanding five-days-a-week job and a full social life, and of course time for family). I consider it a great privilege to serve our District in this way and thank everyone for the support and encouragement they are giving me as I travel around.

The latest news on the future of Network following the December consultation can be stated as ‘The Women’s Network Connexional Committee recognised that there is no widespread support at this time for Women’s Network becoming an Independent Charitable Organisation’ and this will be reported to Methodist Council this month of February. This is exactly the result we desired – Network will continue as now at church, Circuit, District and Area level, and all money raised from Easter Offering and other donations will go directly to the Fund for International Mission (known previously as World Church Fund).