Update 12 July 2016
It was confirmed at General Assembly on 8 July 2016 that the Revd Nicola Furley-Smith would continue her tenure as Moderator of Southern Synod until 1 March 2023.
Nicola Furley-Smith began her ministry as Southern Synod Moderator in March 2011, and is now in the sixth year of her initial seven-year term of service. In recent months there has been a wide consultation around the Synod, co-ordinated by a Review Panel under the leadership of the Synod Clerk. The aim has been to gauge opinion on Nicola’s service, and to consider whether she might be invited to serve a second term in this ministry.
The Synod Review Panel compiled a careful written reflection, and met today with a Review Group responsible to the URC General Assembly. After this conversation, the Review Group met with the Moderator, and as a result of all that it heard, will now bring forward to General Assembly a recommendation that Nicola be invited to serve for five further years beyond the initial seven, thus extending her tenure to February 2023. It will be for General Assembly, meeting in Southport in July, to decide whether to adopt this recommendation as a decision of the Church.
Both the Synod Review Panel and the Assembly Review Group were impressed with what we heard about Nicola’s wise and thoughtful leadership, her pastoral skills and good judgement, her patient and purposeful management of change, and the trust and respect in which she is so widely held. The recommendation to continue her tenure has been made with confidence and conviction.
Helen Stenson, National Synod of Wales (Convenor of the Review Group),
23rd June 2016
