The Second Regular General Meeting of the Religious Education Council brought together representatives from across more than 60 member organisations at the Oshwal Ekta Centre in Kingsbury, London today. Members were welcomed by Chair of the REC, Professor Trevor Cooling, and CEO Rudolf Eliott Lockhart, given an update of the REC’s current work and a preview of the website for the Commission on Religious Education, which is now live.
Colleagues heard from PB Consulting about the work of the joint RE PR group, and about the importance of political lobbying in raising the profile of RE among parliamentarians. PB Consulting’s work for the RE PR group includes providing a political monitoring service, assisting in the planning for the RE stand at the political party conferences, and setting up meetings between members of the RE PR group and MPs.
In the afternoon session, Fiona Moss from RE Today, Luke Donnellan from the British Humanist Association and Sara Perlmutter and Sandra Teacher from the Board of Deputies of British Jews spoke to the Council about new teaching resources which were available on Christianity, Humanism and Judaism, and the Show-and-Tell session gave all members the opportunity to speak about their organisations’ recent activities.
We were also pleased to be able to see the Oshwal Ekta Centre’s exhibition on the origins of Jainism. The REC is extremely grateful for the hospitality shown to us by the Jain community today.