Yesterday evening, Cardiff University Christian Union had its AGM, and voted in the new committee:
Co-president: Ben Read
Co-president: Joy Shannon
Evangelism Secretary: Rebecca Conway
Prayer Secretary: Carol Fieldhouse
Treasurer: Dan Cruse
Small Groups Co-ordinator: Oliver Rowe
World Mission Secretary: Samuel Orr
Internationals Secretary: Gillian Lazonby
Secretary: Gemma Leadley
Would you excuse me a moment while I enthuse about this team? I don’t know half the people on the new committee half as well as they deserve, but I can assure you that those I do know reasonably well are really great choices. My housemate Ben is a great guy – thoughtful and intelligent, and a canny choice for President. I know the passion, enthusiasm and good nature of the others. Or in the case of Joy, her scariness, but she’s scary because she seems good at organising people, so that’s ok! ;-) I’m really looking forward to seeing what this lot will do, and working with them as a member of the CU publicity team and just as a general member of CU. I hope and pray they’ll do a great job serving the CU over the coming year.
On a slightly less cheerful note: to be honest, I’ve been feeling a bit annoyed about some things about CU recently. Some things that I’d hoped that would be done better than before haven’t been and stuff. I’ll probably talk a bit more about CUs and what I think they should be doing at some point soon, but I don’t want to be down on things just at the moment. The CU does a great job in many ways, and it’s because I care about the people in it and what it aims to do that I sometimes get frustrated when I see ways I think it could be better. And it’s not just CU, either – just get me started on the state of the church! One of the problems with being quite idealistic is that life can get me quite down sometimes. Anyway, I’ll save those thoughts for a better time.
Last week, I dropped a few cryptic hints about the new committee before it was announced by giving a blog entry with parts of it blanked out. Some people took up the challenge of coming up with amusing possible words to go in the blanks, such as Bev and the Cosmestonites. Anyway, the time has come for all to be revealed!
I’ve found out that Ben Read is going to be on the CU committee in the role of Co-President, and since Ben is my housemate this means that I can take a role like that of Grima Wormtongue to King Theoden. So I’ll be whispering my schemes to the President, and when Ben Carswell comes to speak to him, I’ll be there saying “A wise question, my lord” when Ben Read asks “Why should I listen to you, UCCF storm-crow?”
Since I’m not on committee, this means I’ll be able to suggest ideas without having to do any of the hard work of deciding which are worthwhile or actually implementing them. Unfortunately, it means I’ll sometimes have a mob of Committeeites in my living room for various meetings. Ah well, every silver lining has its cloud.
(And just in case the tongue-in-cheek tone doesn’t communicate over the Internet, I’ll spell it out: the above is a joke!)