ANNUAL REVIEW 2012 St Mary-le-Bow remains an ideal home for JustShare to debate topical issues of economic justice in the City; issues which have continued to resonate throughout 2012 even whilst business as usual appears to have resumed in some quarters. We have continued our efforts to give voice at the heart of the world s financial centre to the Church s distinctive tradition of social and economic justice, through a full programme of debates, lectures and other events. These included: Renewing Faith in the Future, A Lecture by The Revd Dr Jeremy Morris, Dean of King s College Cambridge Commodity Trading: Helping or Harming Developing Economies? A Debate between Anthony Belchambers, CEO if the Futures and Options Association, and Deborah Doane, Director of the World Development Movement. Fairtrade and Christian Attitudes to the Market A Lecture by Paul Chandler, CEO of Traidcraft Business vs NGO: Who does Development Best? A Debate between David Smith of the British Alliance for Business in Africa and Anne Lindsay of CAFOD Keeping Faith in International Development A Lecture by the Revd Rachel Carnegie, Archbishop of Canterbury s Secretary for International Development
The God Species: How the Planet can Survive the Age of Humans A Talk on his book of the same name by Royal Society Prize-Winning author, Mark Lynas Christian/Muslim Relations: Engaging with Economics and Ethics A Debate between Dilowar Khan of the East London Mosque and the Rt Revd Richard Cheetham, Bishop of Kingston The City: Is it Socially Useful? A Debate between Tony Greenham of the New Economics Foundation and Raquel Hughes of The CityUK, with Anne Keim of the IFS chairing, and in partnership with the St Paul s Institute. Audience listens to Raquel Hughes There is no wealth but life: Contrasting Financial, Social and Ecological Wealth A Lecture by Professor Molly Scott Cato of the University of Roehampton Business, Poverty and Belief Systems A Lecture by Paul Szkiler, Chair of Truestone Asset Management How to Change the City A Lecture by James Featherby, Chair of the Church of England Ethical Investment Advisory Group and former partner at Slaughter & May Prosperity Lost? A Christian Perspective on Financial Crises and Responsible Capitalism A Lecture by Dr David McNair of Save the Children A Dickens of a Time: Lessons in Social Transformation from a National Treasure A Lecture by the Rt Revd Adrian Newman, Bishop of Stepney
East meets West: Understanding Different Models of Reconciliation A Debate between the Revd Canon Andrew White of St George s Church, Baghdad, Zainab Homam and Isar Sarajuddin of Afghan Action, with an exclusive sale of carpets handspun by young men and women in Kabul afterwards. Mayoress also attended. Fairtrade We also held several excellent Fairtrade activities; promoting Fairtrade remains one of the easiest ways in which we can encourage positive action in the City, although it is sad that attendance at the City of London s Fairtrade Group has fallen away this year. The Corporation remains strongly supportive however and hosted a wonderful Fairtrade Fair at the Guildhall on 1st May at which a range of Fairtrade suppliers were able to showcase their products to City procurement officers. The Lady On Monday 5th March, we welcomed Divine Chocolate, Hotel Chocolat and Ubuntu Chocolate for a delicious and educational evening of ethical chocolate tasting. Of course, Divine is the only one of these three to be Fairtrade certified but Hotel Chocolat and Ubuntu have close relationships with their growers and all three shared their philosophies and producer stories generously, as well as their products. We learnt how to taste professionally tried a fairly traded 'chocktail' (pictured right) and enjoyed flavours from fennel to lime. In a rather different vein but equally fun, JustShare also helped arrange Fairtrade Smoothie-Making Bikes outside St Paul s Cathedral and joined in the Service of
Celebration at St Paul s when London finally achieved Fairtrade Diocese status, a special occasion after a long-running campaign amongst London churches. For Fairtrade Fortnight 2012, JustShare held a delicious Fairtrade Chocolate-tasting evening in the crypt featuring Hotel Chocolat, Divine and Ubuntu chocolates (and liqueurs!), and a lovely event at which Eversheds hosted an In conversation over afternoon tea with Rosemary Kadzitche and Judith Harry, Fairtrade Peanut growers from Malawi. We held just one JustShare clergy seminar supper in fact, over breakfast in 2012 but it was well attended with an excellent speaker, Stuart Popham QC, Chair of TheCityUK and formerly senior partner of Clifford Chance. His topic was 'The social value of financial services. Personnel Changes After a couple of years of declining attendance, we have been greatly encouraged by some signs of growth in our following this year. This growth is thanks to the appointment of a part-time Marketing and Communications Assistant, Rachel Payling (one day a week, generously funded by the Archdeaconry for 12-months). She began in June 2012 by re-designing the JustShare website and all our e- communications, which now look much more professional and have an aboveindustry-average open rate. Sample of new e-communication using MailChimp Rachel P has also re-vitalised JustShare s previously lacklustre engagement with social media, growing our Twitter followers from single digits to over 200, and raising our Facebook profile too. It is the re-tweet potential which is the real value of Twitter; when our followers re-tweet news or films of our events, they reach literally thousands of people; 17,000+ people on one occasion! This clearly gives JustShare
a much wider impact than head-counting our audiences, although we are delighted that numbers there have improved over the year from the low 20s to mid-30s, consistently, and occasionally higher still, with more than a 100 people watching the film recordings of events online afterwards too. The appointment seemed a clear sign that the Diocese recognises the importance of JustShare s role, as a Church project in the City, in fostering dialogue on ethical economics and encouraging positive change in response. We are very grateful for the Archdeaconry s support and look forward to Rachel s continued success in boosting JutShare s profile, following and impact for the remaining 6-months of her tenure. Funding We are, of course, also extremely grateful for the support of all of our funders in 2012: CAFOD once again made its annual grant to our work, albeit warning this might be the last they could manage, and we welcomed the AllChurches Trust as a new one-off supporter. Our faithful funders the City Deanery Burial Fund, Trust for London and London Churches Group continued their support with the latter even increasing it on condition that we organised a couple of events in the Westminster Deanery in 2013. We received a donation from EIRIS for whom we hosted a conference as well as a series of grants from Arcubus (thanks to donated collections from St Mary-le-Bow). We are delighted by our increasing number of Friends of JustShare regular givers who make monthly donations to us. Our thanks to the Steering Group members for their continued guidance and particularly to Rob Gordon for filming our events. Finally, of course we owe much to St Mary-le-Bow for providing free office space.