Hi, 

I'm Andrew Willson and I am the UK and Ireland representative on the board of CEUC. Meeting with other chaplains in Higher Education across Europe has been very inspiring. It has also generated shared projects between Chaplains from different nations.

So, I am especially keen to promote the conferences and practical co-operation between colleagues in Europe.

Here is a little about my situation. I work in London, at Imperial College's Chaplaincy Multi-Faith Centre, along with a team of Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Sikh chaplains, volunteers and visiting faith advisors. We serve the science, engineering, medicine and business communities of Imperial, the artists and designers at the Royal College of Art and the musicians at the Royal College of Music.

There is the multi-faith provision - helping students and staff  to practice their faith or religion while  in the university. So, the student faith groups use the Chaplaincy Multi-Faith Centre for worship, discussions, social events and meditation.

There is also an important interfaith dimension - promoting good relations and deeper understanding between people of different faiths. Sharing the same space - the multi-faith centre - helps this. But we also work with the students to help with small dialogue meetings, and interfaith speaker events. 

The multi-faith provision and the interfaith relationships can create new opportunities. For example, the student society for Shia Muslims started a campaign to raise awareness of poverty in the UK. They also worked with a wide range of students to raise money for Muslim, Christian and secular charities who work together running Food Banks for people on very low incomes.

These Muslim students  joined with students from the Catholic society to help take the collection during our College Carol Service at Christmas. You can read more about the service here.

A partnership arising directly from meeting chaplains at CEUC was the  'Night of Engineering Philosophy' which we did at Imperial with colleagues from MOTIV at the Technical University of Delft, Netherlands. 

It's been great to work in partnership with chaplains from CEUC.

Join the network, the conversation, and the partnerships!

Andrew Willson,
UK and Ireland representative on the board of CEUC

While Sweden, and many of us, are slowly heading towards Christmas, the board and the Swedish host committee were already preparing for springtime: the next CEUC conference in Sigtuna, Sweden: "Into a future unknown".

An interesting and promising program was presented to us, and we were shown around in Sigtuna folkhögskola, a friendly and creative place to meet. 

We're looking forward to meet you in June to share experience, and best practices; to explore the challenges other colleagues meet, and to be inspired. Join us into a future unknown!

Besides the conference, we had some other items on our agenda. One of them is that we'll try to make more interaction among colleagues possible on our Facebook site. Feel free to add anything worth sharing. 

More news will follow later.

Greetings from 

Esther
Chair of CEUC

The global conference is behind us. It's time to look ahead for the 2013 conference in Sweden.

Chaplains Entertainment present:

Each conference, whether it's a global one or a European one, kind of surprises me. Although the dates are known well ahead, I always have the feeling it's just there, at once...
This time it's the same, I can hardly believe my colleague Arie and I will be flying in a few days.
I have the feeling that we're in the middle of the year: activities, appointments, meeting students... At the same time we're preparing for the new year: making a program, flyers, preparations for the new website.
And in the meantime: getting ready for Yale. Last year, at the conference in Debrecen, I was elected to be your new chair. That means more than just packing my suitcase to go to New Haven.
To mention a few things: agenda's for board meeting and the General Assembly have to be made. I have to gather all the needed documents, and the annual report has to be written. I'm arranging a skype meeting with the board members who cannot be present to make sure all regions in the board will be able to be heard. The launch of the new website requires a more intensive contact than usual with Lise, our webmaster.
You probably understand I'm constantly checking my to do lists. I'll be happy to fly within a few days: leaving behind all those lists, and being on my way to inspiration.
I'm looking forward to meeting you all. I'm ready for new ideas and stories, for sharing experiences, for hearing about your joys and worries in chaplaincy, and for catching up. See you soon!
And to the ones who won't join this year: Hope to see you in Sweden next year, the first contacts with the host committee were really good appetizers!
Make sure you'll check this blog regularly in the coming days as we intend to share some of the things happening at Yale. Keep in touch!

Preparations include shopping Danish licorice and marzipan chocolates for The Global Market. And napkins with flags, of course.

As seen from the Copenhagen desk of the webmaster.