APPENDIX 23
Memorandum submitted by The Revd Canon
Colin Fletcher
Thank you very much for your letter of 18 April 2000
regarding the Culture, Media and Sport Committee's latest inquiry
into Millennium issues.
As I said in my letter to the Committee dated
6 September 1999 those of us who have worked as members of the
"Lambeth Group" were delighted with the way in which
the conversations and discussions of the last four years bore
so much fruit in the Millennium Celebrations.
As far as the Dome is concerned its members
felt very satisfied by the contents of the Faith Zone, the Shared
Prayer Space, the Muslim Prayer Room and the Chaplaincy provision—all
of which represented a triumph for interfaith co-operation that
has rarely been achieved nationally, or internationally. In all
of this the work of the staff of NMEC and its two Chief Executives,
has been outstanding and, in recognition of that, I wrote on behalf
of the Group to Ms Jennie Page to thank her and to her successor
following his appointment.
But, as I said in my previous letter, the Dome
has only formed a part of the work of the Lambeth Group and, in
many ways, the events organised at the New Year, and throughout
this year, have had a greater significance both as far as the
churches and the other faith communities are concerned. In particular
the Millennium Moment on New Year's Eve, the Millennium Church
Services, and the Shared Act of Reflection and Commitment in the
House of Lords on 3 January 2000 were all widely appreciated and
the co-operation on these between the churches and other faith
communities and the staff of the Department was quite outstanding.
Looking ahead to the future the members of the
Group are now contributing their reflections to a paper being
prepared by the Millennium Unit of DCMS which will, we hope, provide
some useful long term guidelines for whichever Department is responsible
for organising similar events in the future.
May 2000
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