| Description | Typescript minutes, 17 February 1941-1 July 1947, concerning CMS work in the UK and overseas including reports from the Foreign and Home Secretaries, the Editorial and Finance Departments with much relating to anniversaries and Area Secretaries including references to youth work, home organisation, films, the Mission Share Plan 1941, conferences, CMS Membership, the Three Year Plan, integration of the Medical Mission Auxiliary with the General Fund 1942, the Thanksgiving appeal and Third Jubilee 1945, Rural Life work 1946, news of the impact of war overseas, Church Union in India etc. There are also notes concerning the role and membership of the Joint Council, distribution lists and copies of two outgoing letters inviting attendance at meetings loosely inserted and pasted in at the front of the volume 1944-1947. The minutes February 1941-July 1942 are signed.
The Joint Council (originally appointed under the title 'the Joint Home and Foreign Council') began as a means by which information could be passed on to Headquarters staff travelling around the country [so that they were well informed when meeting supporters etc]. It was made up of representatives from all the departments at Headquarters and served as a forum for sharing information on 'big issues' and matters of policy with members free to raise questions in an informal environment. At the meeting of 18 November 1942, it was proposed that the Council focus more on information to do with plans for the future rather than retrospective reporting. Further to the Report of the CMS Commission 1945, emphasis was placed on the Council being a 'transmitting' as well as a 'receiving body' such that information on how the country was responding to the CMS was shared with Headquarters staff as well as vice versa. |