Report on business from the General Synod at York University Friday 6 July 2007

Synod business began at 4.30pm with the usual welcomes and reports on progress.

Sir Albert Aynsley Green, the Children's Commissioner gave an address to the Synod on some of the issues facing children and in particular those within institutions.

There followed the debate on the report of the business committee and a brief introduction to the Saturday morning study groups.

The evening session was devoted to question time.

There were a number of questions about Civil Partnerships and about Pensions.  It was disclosed that 37 Dioceses include parsonage houses in their annual accounts but it was maintained that these could not be seized as assets in the event of bankruptcy.  Apparenly only 44% of churches have a loo, whilst one in 5 churches are open all hours and another one in five for 10 or more hours a week.

A question was asked about making provision for expatriates in North America along the lines now being done by various African provinces but the Archbishop of York gave no ground on this.

It was also asked whether proposals regarding the Anglican Covenant might be Article 8 business (affecting doctrine and thus requiring 2/3rds majority in each house). This could be the case at some stage, or if the Archbishops designated it as such.

There were several questions regarding Sony and Manchester Cathedrals and suggestions were made that the Church bodies should disinvest from Sony and that churchgoers should be encouraged not to buy Sony products.

Mac users (such as this correspondent) were told that there are no plans to produce Visual Liturgy for a Mac, but that the next version would probably be web based and thus cross platform.