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Selwyn College
 
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Selwyn College Consultation Panel Update

Andrew Metcalfe —

The first meeting of the Selwyn Consultation Panel is due to take place on Thursday 28th February.

The panel is made of the following people: The Most Rev’d Sir David Moxon (Chair), Mrs Laraine Sharr, The Very Dr. Rev’d Graham Redding, Dr. Lex McMillan, Rev’d Dr Anne van Gend. Support is being provided by Andrew Metcalfe (Diocesan Registrar) and Nicola Wong (the Bishop's Executive Assistant).

The first meeting will include finalising a terms of reference for the group and working on how the group want to carry out the consultation process. A further 9 meetings have been planned up to the end of November 2019.

Please hold this group and the consultation process in your prayers.

We have asked the Panel to provide some brief biographies to introduce themselves as they begin their work:

Most Rev’d Sir David Moxon (Chair)

Before training to become a priest, in 1970, David Moxon served a one-year term as a youth worker with Volunteer Service Abroad in Fiji, and then worked as a tutor in the Education Department at Massey University during 1974-75. In 1978 he was appointed a deacon curate at Havelock North, and in 1979 he was ordained as a priest in the Diocese of Waiapu and had a variety of posts until 1987 where he was appointed Director of Theological Education by Extension for the Anglican Church in Aotearoa New Zealand and Polynesia, a position he held until 1993. On 13 August 1993, he was consecrated a diocesan bishop in Hamilton, New Zealand. In 2006, he was appointed as the archbishop of the New Zealand dioceses and in 2008, a primate of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and the Pacific.

David Moxon was the Anglican chair of the third phase of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC III) from 2011 until 2018. In this capacity he also served as a Governor on the Board of the Anglican Centre in Rome until 2013, when he became its director, and then resumed the board of governors position from 2017 to 2018.

In retirement Moxon has been made patron of the Faith Community Nurses Association, a Pihopa Awahina (honorary assistant) Bishop of the Maori Bishopric area of Te Manawa o te Wheke, a member of the Proprietor's board of Taranaki Diocesan School for Girls Stratford,a member of the Board of Trustees of St Paul's Collegiate School Hamilton, a Board of Governor's fellow of College House Christchurch and a Waikato area Chaplain in the Order of St John. He rejoined the Ngati Haua Mahi Trust in November 2018.

Mrs Laraine Sharr spent her family and school years in Invercargill, completing an Arts degree at Otago University and teacher training in Christchurch at the Ilam Secondary Teachers Training College. Laraine spent 4 years traveling and working in the UK and Canada with her husband Peter before returning to Christchurch to raise their family. For many years, Laraine worked in the education sector in Christchurch as a secondary school teacher of English and German language and later as a secondary school administrator both in New Zealand and Australia. She has spent a significant portion of that time working within the independent secondary school sector in both countries, at St Andrew’s College in Christchurch and at St Catherine’s School in Melbourne. More recently, Laraine has worked within the tertiary sector as Principal of an independent tertiary residential college at the University of Canterbury – College House. Laraine has also been involved as a member of two Boards of Governors - at University College at the University of Melbourne and more recently, at Christ’s College in Christchurch. She also has a strong interest in practical volunteering; especially supporting young people to give back to their communities in this way.

The Very Dr. Rev’d Graham Redding comes to the panel as current Master of Knox College since 2015; Warden of Selwyn College (1989-91); Principal of the Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership (2007-14); Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand (2008-9); Married (to Jenni) with 3 adult children.

Dr. Lex McMillan is a counselling practitioner and a lecturer in the School of Social Practice at Laidlaw College. He draws together theological and psychological insight into assisting people to develop character and relational resilience. He brings to the panel experience in shaping communities with regard to shared story, and a belief in the role that specifically shaped communities have in forming wellbeing and character.

The Rev'd Dr Anne van Gend comes to the panel with an undergraduate degree in music, and postgraduate in education and theology, including a cross-disciplinary PhD (theology and literature). She was ordained 23 years ago, and has worked as a secondary teacher and priest cross-culturally in Zambia, South Africa and the Northern Territory of Australia prior to returning to New Zealand in 2013. Her main interest in this panel comes from five years of working for Anglican Schools across the Province through the Anglican Schools' Office, where the varied relationships between these disparate bodies and the Church is a matter of ongoing negotiation and theological reflection.