What is in Kelvin's Head?

At Number 10

25/07/2012

There was something a little bit surreal about the party I went to last night.

It was as though one was having a dream in which loads of great people were gathered in a beautiful garden. You started to recognise people from past struggles. Then all of a sudden someone stood on a small stage and gave a speech that would not have been at all out of place at a gay pride rally. But then you realise that the person rallying the troops for Equal Marriage is not one of the usual suspects, not a drag queen, not one of your regular gay activists but is actually the Prime Minister.

I can honestly say that I was absolutely thrilled to have been invited to the PM’s reception to celebrate the LGBT Community. It was the most beautiful hot evening and the reception was outside in the Rose Garden at the back of Number 10. That meant going up to the famous front door (which opens for you from within) and then through the house, past some nice paintings, down the famous staircase with the portraits that presumably leads up to the formal rooms and then out through the back. There was wine and posh nibbles and people milling around on the lawn.

The interesting thing was that at first one recognised just a few people. Then gradually you realised that you knew more people there than had first seemed apparent. For we were, without doubt the gay twitterati. Quite a lot of us had engaged with one another either personally or through campaigns that we had run online and it was a delight to meet people in person whom one had known or known about for years.

I don’t know who had drawn up the guest list but they had certainly done their homework with the church. There were lots of dog-collars in evidence and lots for those of us there in that capacity to talk about. However it wasn’t all church shop talk. I also met people behind the online Equal Marriage campaign that has been running in England, the folk behind the out4marriage videos (who really seem know what they are up to), someone who does Schools Out and LGBT History month campaigning and of course some politicians and civil servants.

I was very pleased to meet Lynne Featherstone who will be piloting the marriage legislation. She is clearly determined that this will happen within the life of the parliament. Her determination over this shone through but she also had time to be generous in praising people from other parties who are passionate too.

And yes, I did get to meet the Prime Minister. It was a great chance to hear what he had to say. I was hugely impressed with his determination to see legislation enacted that will allow gay couples to wed. He was speaking more positively than I expected about religious same-sex weddings being made possible in England. He was also speaking very positively about his own experience of church and spoke very warmly about his vicar, Fr Gillean Craig. With some pride I was able to say that Fr Gillean had been my vicar when I lived in the East End.

I took the chance to challenge David Cameron on the often repeated notion that we must allow churches to opt out denomination by denomination. My position is that this isn’t equality and it is equality we are after. It was good to get the chance to say to the PM that what was needed was legislation on the same basis as straight wedding law allowing all religious celebrants to marry anyone legally entitled to do so or not and leave the question of whether they marry certain categories of couples up to the discipline of the faith groups involved.

I felt listened to and was 100% convinced that the political climate and culture in this country in relation to sexuality has changed utterly from what it was not so very long ago.

Most interesting was hearing the Prime Minister say that he had something to say to the churches. He said that the Conservative Party had got it wrong on LGBT issues for many years and was now changing and getting it right. Furthermore there were now people who wanted to vote Tory who are LGBT folk and their friends. Previously they simply found themselves unable to vote Tory. Very gently, he said, very gently, he has somethingÂ to say to the churches – if you want people to engage with the message you have and come back to the church, you can make that happen by learning a lesson from the Tory party on changing attitudes to gay people.

Then it was more socialising, more networking and trying to comprehend how far we have come and how much has changed.

And the real social contact I was proudest of making? That would have to be the chance to make friends with Larry on the way out.

David Cameron, LGBT rights, Number 10

7 responses to “Twitter and the Church”

Justin

18/06/2009

First, congratulations Kelvin on your appointment as I&C Board convenor, and thanks to you and all who contributed to the SEC’s Synod Twitter coverage, which worked really well.

Some thoughts:

Next year, as was suggested by some of the Synod ‘Twitterarti’ we should have a proper Synod 2009 Twitter account, like that set up by the Church of Scotland for their Assembly. And it needs to be integrated into the Synod pages on the Provincial website from the outset.

It would also be good to integrate the #pisky Twitter stream into the Provincial site on a permanent basis, or to set up an SEC account for that purpose. I would also suggest making the site’s SEC blogroll more prominent. And the SEC Flickr streams.

I understand the concerns some have about the impossibility of monitoring what’s said on Twitter and the blogosphere, and its undeniable that sometimes people will say insensitive and daft things that will offend and hurt.

But that is part of the very nature of online communication. The days when organisations could manage their channels of communication through press releases and a limited number of printed publications are gone. The web has democratised communications media, offering a low cost platform for all members of an organisation: the concept of gatekeepers at the top approving and filtering information is redundant.

Like all organisations the SEC needs to embrace and engage with things like Twitter, blogs and other social networking tools, or people will simply bypass the ‘official’ channels and jump straight to where the real conversation is happening, like your blog.

It’s not just Twitter we need to embrace, but the existing web platforms we’ve already got in place. I’ve been honoured to be asked to develop a number of websites for the SEC over the past couple of years, including the Provincial site and a few diocesan sites.

Some good use has been made of these – Kennedy in particular has been doing some great stuff on the Glasgow site over the past few weeks. But my perception is that the web still plays a very muted second fiddle to print as a means of communication within our church.

At Provincial level I don’t see why all the good news material should be kept for inspires magazine. I think it should go straight onto the website as soon as it becomes available. If it’s kept in inspires nobody outside the church can see what’s going on. I don’t think subscription rates to the magazine would be affected at all if inspires material also appeared online: most commercial magazines have found that putting selected material online serves to promote rather than threaten their presence on the newstands. There are now more printed magazines than ever, and they all have websites.

I think we should allow the boards and committees to post their material direct to the SEC News section. That would, I think, encourage far more of them to contribute their material to the website.

The same applies at diocesan level: nearly all the good news is kept back for the diocesan magazines, and almost none of it makes its way to the website (again, I know Kennedy is doing his best for the Glasgow site).

News and events functionality, RSS feeds, photo galleries: they are all there on the diocesan websites waiting to be used. I have to be frank and say that communicating our diocesan news through rather poorly designed newsletters (where the Comic-Sans wars are still taking place) received only by insiders, makes us look very old-fashioned and insular.

I realise that sounds rather harsh, and that people are volunteering their time to put together the magazines. But I don’t see why we are spending so much time and money doing it that way when the web is there waiting to be used. I love the church and want it to grow, not continue to decline. The web is our friend, offering so many exciting possibilities, and its importance as a means of communication will not be grasped unless we keep banging on about it!

My tuppenceworth. Very interested to hear what others think. Congrats again and best wishes in the new post.

Reply
gaielle

19/06/2009

Congrats and Best Wishes indeed, Kelvin. A most demanding role and requirement.

Encouraged by Justin, I shall add a penny-ha’pennies-worth.

Communication in the world of today is a serious and complex undertaking, isn’t it, not least because there are so many across-generation and accessibilty issues involved, leaving the ‘non-tech’ community disenfranchised if the ‘old fashioned’ hard copy approach is neglected – or perceived to be neglected. Hard copy will continue to be an essential medium for a while yet – and rightly so.

But equally important, and especially for reaching, including and empowering the youngest generations in the SEC, is the recognition and inclusion of new and newest technologies. Perhaps the teenagers in our midst have some useful insights to offer us for Developing Mission Outreach. The Good News was given to us to share – with everyone.

Good – effective – communication is a great thing when you encounter it. Rare Creature tho it be. Fully – and clearly intended to BE – fully inclusive, and therefore encompassing and using ALL practical and available methods of communication.

Problems in achieving Good Communication so often seem to be due to omission, oversight and a lack of appreciation of The Need To Try.

So, for instance, I Receive Information From Other, I process this internally with every intention that my Final Response will then be shared comprehensively – but I first neglected to Assure The Other that I had Actually Understood What They Were Saying. In consequence the Information I have Taken On Board may be incomplete or flawed – hence I have (inadvertently no doubt) neglected that very important step of Ensuring My Understanding Of Information Matched what Was Being Said…….

“What Is Said”, what is “Intended To Be Heard”, “What Is Heard” and “What Is Understood” are frequently 4 different things. However, effective/”good” communication requires a thorough appreciation of such likely mis-match, and also requires enormous strategic endeavour (until the skill becomes second nature) to outwit the intervention of MisUnderstanding.

As with anything in life, a little digging, hoeing, watering, general nurture and attention will reap a fine result. It takes time, and it takes effort. Such, however, are well worth investment.

But you will know these things. There is no need for me to be teaching you to suck eggs. I was just mulling out loud.

All Very Best Wishes for balancing the new hat. (I assume the new post includes a hat ?)

Reply
gaielle

19/06/2009

PS. If there is currently no hat, maybe we could invent one…………..

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Kennedy

22/06/2009

Perhaps one of our issues is that in the absence of any centrally provided forums for discussion – eg. we don’t normally have a letters page in Inspires – then the blogs and other social media just step in and provide the forum for the sort of discussion that people obviously seek.

If staff at GSO aren’t involved then the discussion is the poorer for that.

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jaye richards

23/06/2009

Just a little point, and I’m curious as to your thoughts on this, but how would you feel about someone tweeting during , say, one of your sermons or during a particularly uplifting piece of music ? is there a time and a place for this kind of communication, and might this include a religious service

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Kelvin

23/06/2009

I’d be bothered if someone was disturbing others with their tweeting. However, I was chastened a couple of years ago when I became a little distracted by someone near the front apparently unable to sit still and seeming to send lots of text messages.

It turned out however that he had the whole bible on his mobile phone and was simply looking up the passages as they were being talked about.

So, I’m not bothered about discreet twittering, I don’t think, though someone might well choose not to twitter in order to be able to concentrate more on what was going on. Part of a spiritual life in most traditions is about learning not to be distracted sometimes, and choosing not to be distracted during worship would be an admirable path to try to follow.

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jaye richards

24/06/2009

I have to admit to being disturbed sometimes during conference presentations by those around me twittering, although I do it myself so perhaps I shouldn’t complain ! I do think there’s a time and a place though, and for me, anyway, a sacred service is not the place to tweet from.

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