What sort of things, you talk there about strategy, what sort of things do council meetings, what do we discuss, what kind of decisions are they making, what sort of things are they involved in? They're not deciding, for example, what should be on our podcast week by week.

No, they kind of delegate that to us, don't they really? To the staff.

And there are many things that the staff do and can decide upon.

But we are working within a framework set by the council about what the overall direction and strategy and approach of the church society should be.

That, of course, is also controlled by our articles of association.

the sort of constitution of the church society and so the council set a direction and general policy and give advice but they leave the day-to-day running of things to the staff but council could also be involved in all kinds of nitty-gritty things that come up to do with some of our trusts or historic assets and investments every so often.

But much of that is also, again, delegated to a finance committee made up of people from the council, but also some people with expertise in those areas who are asked to serve on the finance committee.

what sort of opportunities are there if somebody becomes a council member uh you mentioned finance committee some um council members will sit on that what other sort of things might we ask a council member to be involved with

I wonder, as you were revisiting this material, what were the things that surprised you or challenged you in that?

Yeah.

John Henry Newman, I think, who's now a saint in the Roman Catholic Church.

So talk about him in the first chapter and in one or two other places too.

And he's instructive because his 19th century pessimism about the Church of England sounds surprisingly contemporary.

So he saw liberalism in his day advancing.

and became convinced that, you know, if liberalism gets a foothold in the Church of England, then that's it.

doesn't absolutely seem to reflect history over the last 2000 years