an inter-movement chaplaincy meeting in manchester, to move the discussion on and prepare for a bigger 'launch' meeting in london in march.

after a 4 hour drive up the M6 from birmingham (and a slightly botched rendezvous with prasada at star city mall off the motorway) we arrived late for the meeting at the manchester buddhist centre. it's a place the fwbo can be proud of, the brick work, the original worn and weathered wooden stairs... so many of the original features of the victorian warehouse have been included in an intelligent redesign. (moksapriya's influence, i guess). it's a place i'm pleased to take visitors to the fwbo.

the chaplaincy group is a potentially significant meeting, it brings together some interesting strands of  buddhism in britain today. first of all, it has been prompted by an initiative of the uk government. there's a growing awareness of britain as a multi-faith society, and a real attempt to engage and include faiths other than christianity on a more or less equal basis. second, organisations like this and the network of buddhist organisations have been trying to build communication and trust between buddhist communities for some years now. on that foundation, this is a one of the first attempts of british buddhist groups to practically co-operate, and in the process we're learning about the substantial skills and experience that different buddhist traditions bring to the table.

the group is trying to bring together a number of buddhists communities, to agree a set of 'competencies' (to use the health service language) of a buddhist chaplain, and a way of assessing those competencies that would give the health service a way of knowing that a buddhist chaplain, regardless of tradition or location, had a certain set of skills they could rely on.

this is not without controversy, and some groups, like the nkt, which is very active already in chaplaincy, are understandably cautious about accreditation involving other traditions. the discussion has to be handled with some sensitivity, and any structure will have to be transparent and highly consensual to get wide support.

for this and other reasons, the meeting so far has been a small one, and to be effective, will have to become more inclusive by the time of the march 'launch'. however,even this small meetinng is already bringing together a good mix of traditions and skills. around the table were:

keith munnings: chair of the meeting, a member of samatha trust, working as volunteer chaplain in a birmingham hospital.

roger green; from rigpa, works in a hospice, bereavement support. facilitates one of rigpa's 'spiritual care' trainings, running an 'intorduction to spiritual care'.

dayasara: fwbo. background in nurse education, researching long term care issues for buddhists.

prasada: amida trust and network of buddhist organisations. with a background in psychotherapy, just finished running amida's 4 day chaplaincy training. involved in pastoral care and 'spiritual facilitation'.

kelsang pagpa: nkt, involved in hospital visiting and chaplaincy, a health care co-ordinator with the nkt, who already have nationally about 35 chaplains

taravandana: fwbo. works in nhs strategy, identifying competencies and has been involved in designing training and assesment programmes for greater manchester strategic health authority.

maitrisara: fwbo. co-ordinator of network of engaged buddhists, trained in facilitation and community development. set standards and training criteria for commnity development course.

my involvement is less to to do with the chapaincy side of this than with my interest in structures that enable co-operation between different traditions.

maitrisara and taravandana were attending the meeting for the first time. taravandana brought an enormously helpful insiders view of health service priorities and concerns. maitrisara was not directly involved in the chaplaincy group, but was there becasue she had been invited to facilitate the larger march discussion. i was delighted by the clarity she and taravandana brought to this intricate discussion, and maitrisara's suggestions for the march meeting structure gave a much needed clear structure to this discussion.

the next job is to make sure that the meeting in march has wider attendance, and the meeting itself will have three stages:

to give information to the new groups joining the discussion, to explain why this chaplaincy accreditation structure is needed, and asking for assent.

gathering ideas and suggestions for competencies and a mechanism for accreditation

agreeing a process for describing competencies and a mechanism for accreditation

the discussion about the competencies of the buddhist chaplain can quickly get kind of abstract. taravandana suggested one way of opening the discussion might be to ask people to complete the sentence: 'the last thing i would want someone to do if i was lying on my sick bed is...'