Confidential memo leaked

Look-out Peak, facing north

The Anglican Province of the Antarctic

The only Anglican Church which circles the world

From the Office of the Primate

~ Confidential - for internal use only - not for publication ~

The Anglican Province of the Antarctic strongly supports the proposal to have eight representatives of the Primates Meeting on the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion.

• This will give Primates their proper weight in the councils of the Communion (almost half the votes).
• As voting for Primates' representation is by region this will mean each primatial member is chosen by 4 or 5 people (if equally distributed). If we can persuade Australia into the south-east Asia group then it should be a simple matter to ensure Antarctic membership on the SCAC.
• Any group of trustees requires the strength and resilience given by the appropriate skill-set of its membership. It is therefore appropriate and important for the governance of the Communion to ensure that the sagacity, stability, experience, piety, learning and vision of the Primates should predominate. It will also help to have the ability to deliver provincial assent to decisions. As the proverb says, the leaders of the most important ships should be able to see from the highest icebergs.

membership of the SCAC will also enable the Province of the Antarctic to play its proper role in the leadership of the Communion. Once on the SCAC (and assuming membership rises to 19) it will only be necessary to convince 9 other people to back our campaign to declare the Church of England incompatible with the Communion.

(I'm assuming a simple majority is all that is required. If, as seems possible, what is really required is to persuade Kenneth Kearon, then our task may be more difficult.)

Notes:

1) To date it would seem as though the SCAC may act as though the Covenant is already in place and, on the other hand, could act in ways which ignored the Covenant once it was in place. As realpolitik is much more important that formal agreements the Province of the Antarctic should be as close as possible to the actual locations of power.

2) It is unfortunate that the Primates have already lost two-fifths of their representation on the SCAC. We are not a group of people inclined to walk off the stage for trivial reasons. However eight primatial members will enable us to absorb such resignations more easily giving the body greater organizational resilience.

3) The suggestion, in some quarters, that this will give me a summer and winter holiday in the north, travel costs paid, is cynical and strongly deprecated.

4) Similarly, the view that this is a second best solution, compensation for those who lost the battle for the Primates' Meeting to govern the working of the Covenant , is a canard that should be squashed immediately.

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A personal note: I apologise for the lack of memos recently caused by the prevailing weather and consequent white-outs. It is not easy to see when future breaks in the weather will occur but, after all, it is mid-winter.