Chairman's Report for 2003
| The following report was delivered at the Confraternity's AGM on 31st January 2004, and will be published in a forthcoming Bulletin. You may quote reasonable extracts without permission, though we would appreciate an acknowledgement. For more substantial use, please contact the Secretary. |
William Griffiths
It will not have escaped your notice that the Confraternity of St James
was twenty years old on 13 January 2003, and those of you who were present
at last year's AGM will remember that our celebrations included assembling
founder members to cut the anniversary cake. All of us, whether we
were here last year or not, will have been able to rejoice in the
past of the Confraternity by reading the magnificent History written for
us by one of those founders, Patricia Quaife, which came out as the most
recent issue, number 84, of our Bulletin. [Copies are available through
our on-line Bookshop.] As T.S.
Eliot wrote "A people without history is not redeemed from time, for history
is a pattern of timeless moments." We are deeply indebted to Pat for giving
us those timeless moments which make up our history, and from which our
present and our future grow.
At last year's AGM, you will remember (or else you can read about it
in the History) that all four of the Confraternity's Chairmen were
present: Robin Neillands, James Maple, Pat Quaife and Laurie Dennett, and
we were privileged to hear Laurie's talk "Gifts and Reflections" as a distillation
of her experience of the pilgrimage at her last AGM as Chairman.
At the first meeting of the new Committee I was elected to succeed her as Chairman. Howard Nelson, with whom I have for some years been in the very happy position of joint Vice-Chairman, is (happily) continuing to serve in that role and, as you all know, has special responsibilities as Librarian and manager of our website. (The website, by the way, is a remarkable success story. In 1999, the year it started, it had 5,329 people visiting it. In 2003, the number was up to 32,720. This year, we are already getting about 1000 "hits" per week.) Joining Howard as the other Vice-Chairman is Alison Raju, well known to you all as an author of several of the Confraternity's pilgrim guides, not to mention her very successful guides published by Cicerone Press. I once happened to be at Estaing, on the Le Puy route, as an hospitalier, when Alison turned up, making the pilgrimage in order to revise the relevant guide. She is the only pilgrim I have ever seen wearing TWO rucksacs, the main one on her back, and the one with her writing materials at the front. So, think of Alison next time your rucksack seems heavy ! I am immensely grateful to them, and to all the members of the Committee for the support and guidance they have given me personally, and all that they have given to us all.
I would particularly like to thank those who joined the Committee in 2003: Paul Graham (who of course has long been a mainstay of the Rabanal Sub-committee, and continues to be so, and who also now acts as Company Secretary). Chris Jackson has taken over the key role of Membership Secretary, and devised the very important survey of the membership, of which we shall be hearing more shortly. William King has long been one of the enthusiastic band of volunteers in the Office, and is co-ordinating their efforts. The Reverend Ricky Yates has experience in publishing which he is generously sharing with us as head of the Publications Sub-committee. We also have designs on a certain Romanesque church in his beautiful North Oxfordshire parish as a venue for a Confraternity event this year. A new Scottish member of the Committee, Dr Gerry Greene, was co-opted as successor to Fr Willy Slavin and we look forward to this year's Scottish Practical Pilgrim Day as a continuation of the very successful ones that Willy arranged.
Three other continuing members of the Committee need no introduction but do need our continuing thanks. Dr Gosia Brykczynska continues to surpass herself in the quality of the Bulletins that she edits. She has the invaluable technical assistance of James Hatts, now happily back from Madrid. Mary Moseley put on the delightful exhibition of pilgrim material at the Cheltenham Museum to accompany the Constance Storrs Lecture there, and a much larger exhibition is being planned for a future date. Eric Walker issues the Pilgrim Passports (a record number last year, 713) and continues his work to make the Northern Caminos viable alternatives to the Camino Francés.
You will see in your AGM papers that Aileen O'Sullivan is standing down as a Trustee but continuing to be our Irish representative, and we shall still have her valued assistance in liaison with our sister Association in Ireland. We are also very fortunate that Laurie Dennett, on standing down as Chairman, agreed to be our representative as needed in Spain, where of course she spends much of the year in O Cebreiro. We have been glad of her help in our response to the aftermath of the oil tanker disaster in Galicia, and in matters concerning Rabanal. For many pilgrims, the Refugio Gaucelmo in Rabanal IS the Confraternity. One of the things I have most enjoyed this year was getting to know more about everything the Rabanal Sub-Committee and the wardens do to make that Refugio so welcoming. You will be getting a fuller account from Paul Graham, but I would like to thank especially Dr Alison Pinkerton for her work as Co-ordinator of Wardens, which she now hands over to Tony La Roche.
Our Office premises, under the hospitable roof of Christ Church in Blackfriars Road, are the metaphorical heart of the Confraternity, and, if I may continue my medical metaphor, the pacemaker of that heart is Marion Marples. To quote our member Paul Darke, writing in the Bulletin a year ago, "the ever-delightful Marion Marples". I need not repeat the story (which you can now read in our History) of how Marion was recruited by Pat Quaife in the early days of our existence, and succeeded Pat as Secretary in our sixth year. The Confraternity in those days was run from Marion and Leigh's home, and my memories of Committee meetings held there are often bound up with nostalgia for the comfort of their armchairs. We have come a long way since then. Marion has guided our moves into 3 sets of offices. The first was demolished to make way for the pub called "The Mad Hatter", the second was on the site of Chaucer's Tabard Inn (and Marion last year successfully lobbied Southwark Council to put up a plaque) but our present one will, I hope, be home long into the future. Marion has gathered round her a fine team of volunteers. Time prevents me from naming them all, but I know that Marion will join me in thanking particularly Bernard Masson, who is now standing down. Members now know that the Office is open for their personal visits every Thursday, and sometimes on other days. By good fortune, Thursday is the afternoon when I escape from my patients, and many is the time I have turned up at the Office to find Marion, her computer and papers temporarily laid aside, welcoming a member and answering queries about the Camino. We would like to make the resources of our Office even more available to our members, including those who work in the week or live outside London, by instituting a regular opening on the fourth Saturday of each month. The January one was last week, and most enjoyable. You'll find the dates for the next few months (but not March which is taken up by Practical Pilgrim Days) in your blue AGM papers [see our Events page]..
A visitor to the Office during the week might also have the pleasure of meeting Alison Thorp, our Finance and Systems Officer, who is with us today at her second AGM. You will recall that when Timothy Wotherspoon stood down as Treasurer, a successor could not immediately be found, and it was at that critical moment that we were providentially introduced to Alison and engaged her for a two-year contract. Many of you heard her presenting the Financial Report last year and we are about to hear her again. So I shall not say anything at all about the impressive financial and organizational skills that she has brought to the Confraternity. (Good wine, as they say, needs no bush.) I shall only say what a great pleasure it has been working with her, and how impressed I have been with the way she has thrown herself into the activities of serving the pilgrimage which do not form an official part of her job. We are once again at a moment when we are actively looking for a member who can serve as Honorary Treasurer, or perhaps in an auxiliary capacity. The recent survey has brought some interesting offers. In order to ensure a smooth transition, we have started discussions with Alison about possibly extending her contract, which at present is due to end in May.
One of Alison's major activities in the last year was working with Chris Jackson and Howard Nelson on the choice and installation of a new computer system, known as Maximizer, to take the membership database, which hitherto has been devotedly maintained on John Hatfield's own home computer. I am pleased to announce that the transition has been safely accomplished, and that Maximizer is astounding us all with its capabilities. I am told that the computer boffins who came to instal it commented specifically on the good quality of the data as they found it under John's stewardship. This will surprise no-one, but deserves our warm thanks. John continues to look after the Slide Library, about which he will be talking shortly. Another immensely important work that John does is in liaison with our European sister-Associations especially in France, Germany and Scandinavia. The French route that is currently being developed most vigorously is the one from Vézelay, and John (the author of our Guide to that route) intends to make the next edition closely linked with the Guide produced by the Amis de Saint-Jacques de la Voie de Vézelay . I am most grateful to Monique and Jean-Charles Chassin for having invited John and me to attend their AGM and a subsequent meeting about accommodation on the Vézelay route, at the end of February. John has kindly offered to drive me there.
As always, we are immensely grateful to all of our writers of Pilgrim Guides. As you know, David Wesson brought out his last edition of the Camino Francés Guide in 2003, and the 2004 one (now available in the Bookshop) is by William Bisset. As a token of our gratitude we are presenting David Wesson with a magnificent staff carved for him by Peter Fitzgerald. David is not here today but Peter will leave the staff for people to admire. If any of you happen to be going to Teesdale, we will ask you to deliver it to David. Also in the artistic field, I must mention Matthew Boulton, one of our Bursary winners last year. If you have not already seen the display upstairs of some of his photographs of the Camino, do please do so after this meeting.
We often like slightly to misquote the poet Goethe as having said that Europe was created by walking to Santiago. I would like to touch on some of our other international bonds of fellowship which have been strengthened in the past year, while directing your gaze for a full account of last year's activities to the Secretary's Review in your pink AGM papers. The highlight of the year from an international perspective was the pilgrimage from Bury-St-Edmund's to Walsingham, where we celebrated St James's Day. We invited the Association Normande des Amis de Saint-Jacques to join us, led by Jean-Noel and Line Le Toulouzan. This was building on initial contacts which had been made separately by Marion and by myself. The pilgrimage's fate hung in the balance with the tragic death of our member David Charlesworth, its main organizer. Marion stepped into the breach, others rallied round to help, including David's son Seth with the catering, and the walk went ahead. Since then, about a week ago, Marion and Katherine Lack were invited by the Normans to give papers at their colloquium on "St James and Normandy", held in Saint-Lo. The Normans have also generously invited the Confraternity to take part in their pilgrimage for St James's Day this summer. This ambitious project, from 17 to31 July, will see us walk from Salisbury to Winchester and then Portsmouth, cross by ferry to Cherbourg and walk to Mont-Saint-Michel, and will, I trust, further strengthen our links with Normandy.
I myself in the past year have been to three meetings abroad. One, in Moissac, was of hosts on the Le Puy route. Being then quite new to the mysteries of the Internet, I was surprised to find myself recruited as a "webhospitalier" for the site called "Webcompostella" (to which you will find a link on the Confraternity's webpage). This is a website which is currently in French and deals only with the Le Puy route, but it plans to widen its scope and is currently being translated into English. The second meeting was in Santiago in the autumn, and was a meeting convened by the Archicofradia del Apostol Santiago to prepare for the 2004 Jubilee Year. The Archicofradia invited its own members and also the Jacobean Associations, such as our own, which do not have a purely religious nature. I was delighted to bring back to England the first copy of the Pastoral Letter of the Archbishop of Santiago, "Pilgrims through Grace", in its English translation by Laurie Dennett (available in the Bookshop). My third trip was to Paris for a colloquium of the Centre d'Etudes, de Recherche et d'Histoire Compostellanes. The subject, rather sombre, was "Death and the Pilgrim", but it gave me a good opportunity to give them a plug for Katherine Lack's book on the Worcester Pilgrim. The Centre is, of course, the academic branch of the Société Francaise des Amis de Saint Jacques de Compostelle. As you all know from our History, it was Mademoiselle Jeannine Warcollier of the Société who gave the impetus for the foundation of our Confraternity. It was a great joy to see her again, and fitting, in our anniversary year, to renew these bonds.
I have said earlier that for many pilgrims the Refugio Gaucelmo IS the Confraternity. I have just been talking about our important international links. I would like to draw these themes together by directing your attention to the item on your Agenda called "Vision for the Future: a new Refuge". This refers to a small item in Bulletin no 83 last September. Your Committee met, as we do each summer, in Howard and Jinty Nelson's garden, to take a more long-term look than we can ordinarily do at the Camino and the Confraternity. One recurring theme was of overcrowding on the Camino Francés. What can we constructively do about that ? Obviously not to tell pilgrims to avoid it, but perhaps to help improve the infrastructure on some of the alternative routes ? Our History has reminded us how the energies of the Confraternity were galvanized by the project of creating the Refuge at Rabanal, a project originally suggested by one member, Walter Ivens. Is the time right for us to consider a second Refuge ? On the Via de la Plata? The Camino Inglés or Camino del Norte? The Voie de Vézelay ? Or even another part of the Camino Francés ? Useful suggestions have already come in. We now invite you to a meeting for further discussion of the project. This will take place in our Office at ChristChurch on Saturday 14 February. Why St Valentine's Day ? Well, I thought some of you might welcome a little change from routine. "This year, darling, we won't be having a candlelit dinner, we'll be going to discuss a pilgrim refuge." But of course, as you all know, 14 February is also the feast day of the Blessed Angelus a Gualdo, that notable 14th Century hermit who made the pilgrimage from Italy to Santiago barefoot. When he died, the church bells in the neighbouring district rang of themselves. So, if the spirit moves you, come to the meeting. If not, join your prayers to those of St James, St Valentine, and Blessed Angelus, for the success of the meeting.
To end, I would like to look at the question : "What does it mean to say that 2004 is a Jubilee Year ?" I turn to the Pastoral Letter "Pilgrims through Grace" of Archbishop Julián Barrio Barrio. "The festive celebration of this Jubilee, this Year of Grace, should be for everyone a cause of good cheer and hope, as a summons to continual conversion in our lives, as much personal as social. In the night of faith and hope through which we are passing, the pilgrim to Santiago must be the watchman who announces the dawn of life after death"
How are we to be watchmen ? I would like to point to three aspects: Desiring, Giving and Jubilating.
To demonstrate Desire, Archbishop Julián uses the words of Saint Augustine: "Suppose that you want to fill a bag and you know the abundance of what they are going to give you; you will thus hold out the bag, the sack, the wineskin or whatever it is. You see that the bag is not quite big enough, and so you stretch the mouth of the bag wider to make it bigger. So God enlarges desire: with desire, he enlarges the soul and makes it capable of holding its gifts. Such is our life: to exercise ourselves in desire." We are reminded of the words sung by the French pilgrims in La Grande Chanson :
| "Au coeur avions si grand désir
D'aller à Saint Jacques, Avons quitté tous nos plaisirs Pour faire ce voyage." |
Concerning Giving (in which we receive), Archbishop Julián writes words which are very relevant to us as we reflect on the possible second Refugio : "The meaning of hospitality has a special relevance when the pilgrim is received who needs material and spiritual attention on his journey. This involves not only giving him something to eat or drink, but listening to what he says and accepting him just as he is."
Concerning Jubilating, I would like to turn to a different Archbishop, Rowan Williams, and share words from his first book "The Wound of Knowledge", published in 1979, where again he quotes from St Augustine : "What you are experiencing, you cannot put into words. But what cannot be said may still be sung: not only in hymns and psalms but in the wordless "iubilus", the almost formless chant of the labourers in the fields: singing to God properly is singing with jubilation. Now what is this singing with jubilation ? Think of people singing as they go about some hot and exhausting job - at harvest-time, say, or in the vineyard. They start celebrating in their happiness with the words of familiar songs. But they end up turning away from words, as if they were filled with so much happiness that they couldn't put it into words. And off they go into the noise of "jubilation". So when do we jubilate ? When we praise what we cannot speak of."
In this Jubilee Year, may St James enlarge our desire, increase our giving, and move us to jubilation. Iubilate ! Iubilate ! Iubilate Deo !