Our local partner churches scooped a series of awards last night as London Citizens celebrated another amazing year of action.  Capt Nick Coke of Stepney Salvation Army was East London’s Leader of the Year, and St Paul’s Shadwell was London Citizens’ Congregation of the Year.  Josephine Mukanjira won the presigious Founders’ Award for her work on developing the community organising team at St Martin’s Church, Plaistow. 

Two of the Contextual Theology Centre’s Fellows – Dr Luke Bretherton of King’s College London and Dr Maurice Glasman of London Metropolitan University – were jointly recognised as London Citizens’ Political Strategists of the Year for their work on the anti-usury campaign.  Both will be speaking at this Saturday’s Study Day on Christian responses to the Credit Crunch.

Congratulations to one and all!

Over the next few weeks we’ll have blog posts from a number of this year’s Jellicoe Interns.  Ian Vijay Bhullar begins the series.  As he explains, it’s not always easy to give a quick answer to the question ‘what do you do as a Jellicoe intern?’…

As a Jellicoe Community intern, I aim to engage the members of the St. Mary’s church, Cable Street, in community organising; I volunteer at events (like the 2000-strong London Citizens assembly at the Barbican); and I have chosen to conduct political research and attract supporters for the Sanctuary Pledge campaign with London Citizens’ Citizens for Sanctuary team.

But what does community organising actually aim to do? This was the question that really puzzled me during my earliest weeks here. What I’ve learned is that it actually can’t be defined by what it seeks to achieve: community organising is a process-of bringing people together so that they can actually develop the power necessary to achieving a wide variety of ends, most of which will only be fully conceived once we’re all together and able to discuss our interests. But in being a process without intrinsic ends, it’s by no means empty. Most importantly, it’s about empowering people, by bringing them and their broad networks and communities to campaign together, to deal with the challenges they face on a daily basis. Secondly, and very significantly in a city as diverse as London, it helps to bring people who otherwise wouldn’t meet into situations where they proudly cooperate for shared goods. In doing these two things, the process of community organising helps members to make massive leaps in campaigns like those for a living wage, affordable housing, financial literacy and city safe-havens.

I’ll be keeping you updated with my work as a Jellicoe Community intern, as it progresses.

Maurice Glasman, the moving spirit in ‘blue Labour’ and a key leader in London Citizens, will be speaking at Monday’s Jellicoe Seminar on Community Organising, on the impact of organising on UK politics.  Lecture Room A, Magdalen College, 2 to 4pm.

A lot of ink has been spilt on the subject of the credit crunch.  Last night, 2000 Londoners showed that actions speak louder than words.  The London Citizens assembly, on ‘Taking responsibility in the economic crisis’ won commitments from politicians and business leaders.

Boris Johnson reaffirmed his backing for a London Living Wage – now paid to all the Greater London Authority staff and contractors – and an earned amnesty for undocumented migrants.

Executives at Barclays, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Linklaters and KPMG, some of whom were initially deeply reluctant to pay a Living Wage , were recognised as Living Wage Employers.  They said the wage made business sense, as well as moral sense.  Ironically, only the Corporation of London is pleading poverty and refusing to pay £7.60 rate – though, after powerful testimony from an employee on a lower rate of pay, Cllr Mark Boleat promised this was under review.

Treasury spokesmen for the Tories, Labour and LibDems all promised to work with London Citizens on their five-point plan, which makes a controversial call for a cap on interest rates drawing on Scriptural teaching against ‘usury’.  Already the Conservatives have agreed to a cap on storecard rates, and they will work with London Citizens to identify other financial products where regulation could apply.

Jellicoe Community members have been at the heart of this assembly, and will be blogging on their work, and their impressions of last night’s event, in the days ahead.

Students from our partner universities – Oxford, East London and Notre Dame – will be joining the floor team for Wednesday’s historic London Citizens assembly.  Boris Johnson, Vince Cable and Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell will all be there.  Let us know if you want to join the team.

The following Monday (30th) at 2pm, London Citizens’ Maurice Glasman will be speaking at the Jellicoe Seminar at Magdalen College on Red Tories, Blue Labour: The impact of Citizen Organising on British politics.  All students and staff are welcome.

Mayor of London Boris Johnson has made City Hall the 200th London Citizens CitySafe haven.  Members of the Jellicoe Community spent the summer signing up havens in Shadwell, Plaistow and Hackney.  The Times has an excellent article on the campaign, and the City Hall sign up was covered on the BBC.

Read Angus’ Guardian blog on next week’s London Citizens assembly – which is keeping him, and rest of the Jellicoe Community, pretty busy at the moment!

The 2009/10 Jellicoe community has five members – Theo and Megan from the University of Notre Dame and Ian from Keble College, Oxford are part of the residential community, working in Shadwell, while Rebecca (Balliol College, Oxford) and Amma (University of East London) work in Hackney and Newham.  They are all under the oversight of Contextual Theology Centre director Angus Ritchie – and seek to engage CTC’s partner congregations in broad-based action for social change.
You are warmly invited to join them, and their partner churches, in worship and celebration at the Royal Foundation of St Katharine on 1st December at 7.30pm. Let us know if you plan to attend.