Sylvia’s Thank You Party

It was just a year ago when Sylvia had meningitis and during the time of her illness and recovery we were overwhelmed with cards, letters and phone calls of support from many people both in Sheffield and elsewhere. Sylvia has wanted to do something to say ‘Thank You’, but also to have a celebration for having recovered completely from this very frightening disease. She has chosen Saturday 3rd February for this event and it will take place at Central at 3pm, to which all are invited, though she would like you to let her know if you wish to come. There will definitely be food available (it wouldn’t be a party without it and it wouldn’t be Central without it!!) but there will almost certainly be other things, too, to make the event go with a swing. We hope to see you there.

Sylvia and Bob

(Please sign up on the list so that we know the numbers to expect)

Sylvia and Bob

Buying Christmas Stamps

A woman goes to the post office to buy stamps for her Christmas cards.

She says to the clerk, "May I have 50 Christmas stamps?"

The clerk says,  "What denomination?"

The woman says, "Mercy on us. Has it come to this? Give me 6 Catholic, 12 Presbyterian, 10 Lutheran and 22 Baptists.”

 

City of Sanctuary News

haracter and employer references, and be admitted to full citizenship.

 

Regularization:

o Recognizes the dignity of human beings who have made new lives in Britain;

o Extends and reinforces the rule of law;

o Makes it easier to police undesirable elements in British society;

o Helps to enforce a stricter immigration policy;

o Levels the playing-field for low-paid workers;

o Enables businesses to employ legally the skilled labour it needs;

o Brings irregular migrants out into the light, allowing them to play a full part in society;

o Ensures that tens of thousands of British workers receive the protection of the law

o Shrinks the black economy;

o Frees up billions of pounds in taxes for the Exchequer;

o Enables local authorities to plan better for the needs of its populations;

o Builds a more cohesive British society, at peace with itself;

o Turns outlaws into neighbours, and strangers into citizens - in the best traditions of British pragmatism and humanitarianism.

Campaigners say UK migrant workers should be made citizens

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/news_syndication/article_061119migrant.shtml

Support Strangers into Citizens
Can you and/or your community support the campaign, either through actively participating or through funding?

 

 

Please contact:

Dr Austen Ivereigh

Campaign Co-ordinator

'Strangers into Citizens'

Citizens Organising Foundation

112 Cavell St

London E1  2JA
Tel. 020 7375 1658
Mob. 07905 224860

Email Austen.ivereigh@cof.org.uk

Citizens Organising Foundation

http://www.cof.org.uk/

Church Meeting – January 10th  7pm

The meeting scheduled for January 10th will have at its main item a discussion about the revised Synod structures now that it has been agreed to dispense with District Councils. We hope that members and friends will make a special effort to be at this meeting so that our thoughts and suggestions can be submitted to the Synod Clerk for consideration.

Samaritan’s Purse News

Total UK shoe boxes collected 1,233,400 as of 20.12.06

Boxes from Sheffield went to

Kyrgystan 24th November

Belarus       4th December

Serbia         9th and 13th December

.

Prayer Breakfast

Commencing Monday January 8th at 7.45am, and on Mondays thereafter until further notice, there will be a Prayer Breakfast held in the Norfolk Room the aim of which will be for those who are able to gather together and pray for those who are involved in all the various Christian activities which take place in and around the city centre. These might include those who work for Christian Aid, SCCCC, SCEC, Churches Together in South Yorkshire, the Industrial Mission, the various Chaplains at the universities and other locations, the Wilson Carlyle College, ASSIST, the Archer Project, Ben’s Place, St Wilfred’s etc etc. The breakfast will not be elaborate but will be adequate and we hope that there will be those who feel moved to be part of this activity either regularly or “as and when”. Even if you can’t be there please recognise this as an activity which Central is engaged in and therefore which involves us all.

Bob & Ann

Third Thursday Talk

On 18th January Ron Craigie is coming to talk to us about Human Trafficking, which is modern-day slavery. There are numerous people caught up in this despicable activity and the UK centre for dealing with this has been opened in Sheffield of which Ron is heavily involved. Ron is also chaplain to the Police Headquarters and has considerable experience both as an active police officer and as a chaplain which makes him an ideal speaker to commence our Third Thursday meetings. It starts at 7pm and will take place in the church sanctuary. Please come and support this if you can..

Bob

 

Re-structuring of Synod : churches were reminded that reports on discussions about the re-structuring have to be with Synod by 19th January.

Our own Church Meeting at which the Synod Proposals will be discussed is on Wednesday 10th January.

 

Synod Website

 

This is to be found at www.urcyorkshire.org.uk - each church has its own four pages. Help for those seeking access or assistance in changing their information is available from the District link person, Mr Rod Morrison (01302530109 or rod.morrison@fish.co.uk)

 

District Council meets next on Thursday 22nd March (venue to be notified).

                                                                             GWW

 

***********

 

'Strangers into Citizens' - for the regularization of UK people without status

Like the campaign to abolish the slave trade, which finally succeeded 200 years ago, 'Strangers into Citizens'  is driven by a religious and humanist consciousness of the innate human dignity of all human beings and an indignation at the denial of that dignity.

'Strangers into Citizens' 

 Launched on Thursday 18th November 2006 this will be a year-long campaign aimed at placing the destitution and exploitation of irregular ("illegal") migrants onto the political map by means of a public call for a new government policy that would introduce a one-off  limited regularization for many thousands of people who have made new lives in the UK. These may be asylum overstayers, who for a host of reasons cannot or do not want to return to their countries; but they also include a large number of "economic migrants" who have made new lives in the UK yet are forced to live and work in a state of illegality, deprived of rights and vulnerable to exploitation.

 

P’s & Q’s: a non-alcoholic alternative

 

Two or three years ago when I was studying for my library qualifications, part of the course entailed learning the rudiments of printing. In those far-off days quite a bit of type-setting was still done by hand, letter-by-letter, and the old compositors became adept at reading the mirror image of a page upside down when checking the text (It was rumoured that some could no longer read a normal page.)

 

So they had to watch their p’s and q’s.

 

It has never been discovered why they did not have to watch their b’s and d’s but if you look at it even the right way up, you are faced with a quadruple chance of getting things wrong.

                                                                             Derek Hawksworth

 

P.S. (A warning) Inevitably, pieces of type got broken or damaged and on the floor there was a box into which they were thrown – the ‘hell box’ where all the bad types went.

 

Time Management

 

The author of a church magazine article with this title was challenged to run a Time Management course for stressed clergy.  Such courses are often the bane of workers lives, as they feel they haven’t time to go on them.  But they do make you look at how you spend your time, if you take them seriously. The clergy on this course explored what life is all about, and what our life purpose is.  Most people are not very sure about these things, and then wonder why they are not fulfilled in their use of time.  Once we know what we are here on earth for, we can plan our time accordingly.  So what do we all need to do?

 

Firstly, differentiate between important and urgent.  ‘Things’ which seem urgent at the time often turn out not to be ‘important’, don’t they?  So some of the important things we really should be doing don’t get done?  We have to accept however that ‘urgent things’ do occur, but also accept that if we don’t give time to the ‘important things’, then our lives can feel unfulfilled and out of our control.  As practising Christians we should feel that ‘important things’ are praying, planning, investing in people and spending time with loved

employment legislation). Unable to be law-abiding through no fault of their own, they are condemned to live as outlaws. No stable, decent society can allow such a large number of people to exist beyond the reach of the law, without the law and the common good of that society suffering as a result.

 

'Strangers into Citizens'  is a new campaign driven by a very old concern, which has become pressing in the context of globalization and the unprecedented movement of peoples across the world to which it has given rise.

 

Examples set by other countries

Granting legal status to 'irregular workers' is neither new nor specific to the UK. It has already happened in Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Belgium and the US. Since the 1970s, the EU states have regularized a total of 3.5 million people, mostly between 1995 and 2000. In 1986, the US gave residence permits ("green cards") to 2.7 million people. Spain has had six regularization schemes since 1985, legalizing approximately 1.3 million irregular immigrants. On 14 November 2006 Germany announced legislation that would allow some 190,000 asylum-seekers whose cases have been unresolved for years to legally remain in the country. Netherlands: MPs voted on the 30th December 2006 to grant pardon to 26,000 long term asylum seekers.

 

Our proposal

Regularization schemes need eligibility criteria. Different European countries have applied different criteria at different times. We propose that those who are eligible be admitted to a two-year "sponsored pathway" into full citizenship. This idea of "sponsored regularization" reflects the way in which this idea has flowed upwards from faith and other communities which have befriended irregulars and can vouch for them. 

 

Those who would be eligible would have: five years of continuous residence in Britain; no criminal record; character references from community leaders or businesses; and proficiency in English language.

 

During their two-year "pathway" the migrants would be allowed to work. At the end of that period, they would present positive

 

'Strangers into Citizens'  seeks to persuade government and other parties of the need for regularization, by awakening consciences in UK media and society; lobbying of government and opposition parties; building a coalition from  business, agriculture, and the health sector; the mobilization of religious groups; a "citizen's report" into the reality of irregular migrants; popular assemblies and meetings; as well as through campaign literature, websites, and so on.

 

The campaign will be successful if (a) regularization enters public debate; (b) one or more political parties agrees to it; or if not, (c) politicians find policy alternatives that would meet popular disquiet over the plight of irregular migrants; (d) the question of the human rights of irregular migrants becomes a key moral issue in the national political conversation.

A 'Citizen's Campaign'

'Strangers into Citizens' has arisen from concerned citizens from faith communities who have befriended irregular migrants and are indignant at the precariousness of their condition, as well as irregular migrants involved in or connected with those communities.

All of those who care about this issue ask why it is permissible for a wealthy society which has benefited hugely from the influx of migrants in the past 10-15 years should condemn more than half a million people to insecurity, exploitation and a legal condition in many ways worse than that of prisoners. They question the moral legitimacy of allowing such conditions as part of a strategy of "looking tough" on immigration. They say the dignity of human beings should not be sacrificed for political ends. They say it is wrong to condemn to a precarious state of illegality those who, for very human reasons, have chosen to remain in the UK and make a new life here, and who in many cases have children in schools and make a vital contribution to the nation's economy and society.

The religious communities - churches, mosques and temples - who make up the Citizens Organising Foundation alliance are concerned, too, at the effect on the common good of allowing so many people to live beyond the law. Here are a large number of people in Britain who contribute to the flourishing of the British economy and society but who are neither accountable to the law (through the payment of taxes); nor do they enjoy the protection of the law (through

ones. These matters however are often the first ‘things’ which get shoved to one side and neglected.  So here are the questions to ask yourself.

 

1. 1                     Why are you here on planet earth?
2. 2                     What is your life purpose?
3. 3                     Is there one thing you could do right now in your personal life, that if you did it regularly, would make a huge impact?
4. 4                     Do you need to stop doing some things that hinder you fulfilling your life purpose?  (eg reduce TV gazing and just phone or go to see someone on a regular basis)
5. 5                     Plan ahead in your diary, and book regular quality time with the people you have thought of at Question 3 and do what you have answered in Question 4.

 

God has given everyone 24 hours a day in which to do things, apart from when we have the sleep he has designed our body to need.  He only ever had 24 hours in a day, and look what he achieved in just 3 short years.  He wants to help, inspire and motivate us to do things which are important in our lives, and put into practice wise life Management skills.  So, why not make a start today.  Switch off the telly and the rest of the world, sit down with a cup of tea, take some time to answer these questions properly without being negative, and then put them into practice as soon as he gives you an opportunity.  In fact if you say a little appropriate prayer before settling your mind to the task, you’ve made a brilliant beginning.

 

Adapted from an article by Rev Matthew Porter of St. Chad’s Church Sheffield 8.

 

Thought for the Day?

A man was given the opportunity to see heaven and hell, and to compare the two.  He was taken into a large room where there was a huge pot of delicious stew in the middle.  But everyone was sitting round the pot, thin and starving because they had long spoons and couldn't get the stew from the pot to their mouths.

Then he was taken into another room where there was a huge pot of delicious stew in the middle.  But everyone was well fed and healthy - because, although they also had long spoons, they were feeding one
another.                           Quite a metaphor, isn't it!

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