Executive Committee Report
for 1997

Review of the Year

Barbara Hayes the RITES (Religious Investors Taking Ethics Seriously) researcher started work in 1997 producing material for use in discussion groups or for personal study to help people link their Christian faith with their investments whether personally or as Trustees. This initiative is supported by EIRIS (Ethical Investment Research Information Service) and ECCR (Ecumenical Council for Corporate Responsibility) and has been so well received that the sponsors - including CEIG - have agreed to increase the funding to £5,000 next year. If you have not seen her material please write through our Secretary!

Our AGM event was well attended and we had a number of useful workshops on Ethical Investment in the Churches. At that meeting the constitution was broadened to ensure we were fully ecumenical in our scope and your Committee have followed this initiative by forming two sub-groups, one for the Church of England and the other the Roman Catholic Church, which will plan events and activities specifically orientated towards members of those denominations. Our General Synod meeting in July was jointly sponsored with Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation on the Baby Milk monitoring report. In November we welcomed Tony Hardy of the Church Commissioners and Bill Seddon of the Methodist Church to talk about the two churches’ different approaches to Ethical Investment. This meeting attracted many non-Synod members and their contribution was much valued. In July the General Synod debated for the first time the Ethical Investment Working Group’s first and second report for which CEIG published a constructive critique available from the Secretary. We held our first Regional Conference in Bristol and have followed that success in 1998 with ones in Birmingham and Plymouth.

Financially the continued sale of our trustee booklet helped us break-even for the year but despite a welcome increase in Corporate subscriptions individual membership subscriptions were down. Your Committee would ask you to encourage new members to join. The Secretary has a stock of publicity leaflets if you need them. The Committee met three times in the year with attendances of 7, 8 and 11 at each one. Those who served during the year were Paul Brett (Vice-Chair), Bernice Broggio, Brigid Benson, Daryll Candy, Elizabeth Haigh, Alistair Hanton, Gavin Oldham, Patricia Raikes, Tim Royle, Bill Whiffen and myself as Chair.

1998 plans and prospects

We will continue to encourage debate about Ethical Investment in Practice and the way this relates to the Christian faith. Our AGM in London on March 28^th is entitled : ‘Ethical Investment in Practice’ and we will discuss organising shareholder resolutions, screening methods and the development of specific Church ethical investment activities. We trust that the increased funding will enable RITES to become more widely known. 1998 will be CEIG’s 10^th year and your Committee is looking at ways in which we can better co-operate with other ecumenical bodies, in particular, ECCR. Bill Whiffen will be stepping down as our indefatigable Secretary so we shall be looking for a worthy successor.

On behalf of the Executive Committee

Mike Tyrrell

Chair,
10 February 1998

click button to download this document as an Acrobat (.pdf) file - in Windows, right-click and choose 'save target as'.