Equality, Diversity & Inclusion
The East Anglia District has an Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Committee, which includes the District EDI Officer, Mrs Susan Eldridge, and the EDI Champion, Rev Jonny Bell. The Committee is chaired by Rev David Ely.
For any District EDI issues or queries, please contact Susan Eldridge on or contact the District Office on 01603 625765.
The EDI Committee are passionate to promote and support the Methodist Church's vision that we are an inclusive, justice-seeking church.
Mandatory EDI Training
The following groups of people are now required to undertake mandatory EDI training (as agreed by Conference)
- All ministers (including Superintendents and District Chairs)
- Local Preachers and Worship Leaders
- Connexional Committee members
- Connexional Team members
- Circuit and District Safeguarding Officers
- Circuit stewards and church stewards
- Lay workers: a) Lay Pastoral Workers b) Children, Youth and Family Workers c) Pioneers
A link to the online training can be found here:-
This training is to help us to live out our commitment to being a church which is inclusive and justice-seeking. We are now committeed to life-long learning about the richness of human diversity and to learning from one another. Thanks for your help in putting this in to practice.
The Methodist Church has published additional materials for those who are running EDI training sessions as a group. The information is here: Mandatory EDI Training (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion) (methodist.org.uk), and the resources are here: Training Resources (methodist.org.uk).
In addition the Central Norfolk Circuit (Rev Anne Richardson and Rev Jonny Bell) have developed their own in person resources which they are happy to share: here is the link to these resources.
Stuart Watkin who covers EDI matters for the Learning Network has prepared a document which sets out the pros and cons of using the various training methods. Here is a link to the document which it should be possible to open as a pdf file in your browser. A link to the same document in Microsoft Word format is here.
Other resources
Below is the link to the webpages for the Justice, Dignity and Solidarity Strategy which include the resources that have been made available for people across the Connexion.
We are grateful to those who have given their time to contribute to these resources.
The Inclusive Methodist Church
The resources include links to information about some of the Solidarity Circles, making buildings and communications accessible and much more.
We are holding, jointly with the Beds, Essex and Herts (BEH) District, a series of Zoom EDI awareness sessions. The first one was Rev Andrew Brazier, BEH EDI Officer, in conversation with members of the Norwich Deaf Church. The recording can be found on the Deaf Community page of this website.
Below is a link to a very interesting and challenging webinar!
Dismantling Whiteness Conference - Hosted by the Oxford Centre for Religion and Culture on the 17 April 2021.
This conference was a historic first, in being the first occasion that Whiteness as a phenomenon was explored theologically in the UK. The video shows the two keynote lectures and the following panel conversation.
Jarel Robinson Brown's lecture, entitled 'Religion, Race and Sexuality, is available through this link:
There is material on the Connexional website to celebrate Black History Month, an important month of the year.
Below is also a link to the anti-bullying webinars:
Bullying Webinars (methodist.org.uk)
The 3rd one was particularly about EDI issues and bullying.