As you will see from the Chart above, of the 157 people who responded to the Meditatio Questionnaire when it was sent out earlier in the year, 43.3% said that they were involved in some way with non WCCM organisations in their local area. These ranged from giving direct help and support (e.g. Foodbanks etc.) to those set up to provide the chance to be involved with concerns about the environment or serve their local schools in some capacity. These responses clearly showed the many opportunities that already exist for our Group Members to offer information about meditation, issue invitations to WCCM in the UK events, or simply make it known during conversations that they are a member of a local Christian Meditation Group. There are information leaflets, cards, bookmarks and other useful items available from the UK office to make this easier to do. We would be most interested to hear of any suggestions or requests to be able to respond well to this very big opportunity revealed by the Questionnaire.
Everyone who expressed interest in one of the UK Special Interest areas that we have currently in the UK, has now been contacted. A handful of emails have failed to be successfully delivered. If you have not yet been contacted, please email or ring the Office (UK@wccm,org 020 8095 4442), so that the problem can be resolved. The number of direct offers of interest that came in from the Questionnaire are as follows: Contemplative Church (21), Palliative Care (13), Meditation with Children (10), Environment (7), Marginalised /Addiction (13), Prisons (9) and Learning Disabilities (9).
In addition, Roger Layet is in contact with the people who expressed an interest in meditating with people living in sheltered housing, and Liz Watson is continuing to facilitate an online Meditation Group for Young Meditators which takes place on Thursday evenings at 7pm. All the Special Interest Coordinators are now offering advice and support to the people who expressed interest, and several group zoom meetings have been set up in order to take things further with training, and discussions about the most appropriate way to become involved taking into consideration both where people live, and the time that they have available.
There were some very exciting new ideas that were mentioned by the responders to the Questionnaire – more information in the next newsletter!
Diana Ohlson and Julie Roberts.