UCCF have been in the news. Who are they, and why do I care?
University and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF) are a 95-year-old charity with over 100 staff and a turnover that hovers around the £4 million mark. They also have the biggest gap year programme I've ever heard of.
UCCF supports Christian Unions (CUs) in universities. A CU is a student society of Christians from a variety of backgrounds. CUs vary in size and scale. Some have 300 members, others have 8.
CUs are run by students. But CU leaders seem to have a fair amount of interaction with UCCF. There's training, support, and resources for missions and events. So they are involved, but you might not appreciate how much unless you were on the leadership team of a CU.
I joined a CU at university. It was a gathering for Christians of all denominations. We had weekly services and regular small group meetings. The CU was a big, positive part of my life. I'm aware that the positive experience may have been shaped by my spiritual journey and the fact that I was a straight white man.
That was 20 years ago now, so things will have changed a bit. And how a CU works may vary from one to another.
At CU I barely heard of UCCF. But I now realise that they will have been having a lot of interaction with the leaders of my CU, and will have had an influence on the formal rules that were in place. For example, the leader of my CU was always male.
Remember, the leaders of CUs are students. So each year some will graduate and the leaders will change. In that context I can imagine the support of UCCF may shift into influence, as new leaders look for guidance. For example, did the male-only-leaders thing come from UCCF's influence?
(Update - 7/2/14 - I've heard from some credible sources that some CUs had/have female leaders. Seems like this varied from CU to CU. Maybe this has shifted since my time in the late-90s.)
UCCF have been in the news. There has been an investigation, and while this happened the CEO and one of the directors stood down.
And? Well, it's unclear what has happened. We've had some press stories, and publicity from tweeters like Jonathan Severus and Old Boundaries. UCCF have put out a fairly strange statement. And at the same time half of their trustees have resigned, which hints of problems behind the scenes.
There's a line in the statement that grabbed me:
"The investigation found a small number of instances where the termination of CUSWs’ contracts had been badly handled and conducted in ways that caused them considerable upset and were potentially unlawful."
So I thought I'd take a look. Because our actions reveal our character. Which, ironically, is the kind of thing we heard at CU talks. If one aspect was 'potentially unlawful', according to the lawyer hired by the trustees, then other aspects may also be.
A few more things about UCCF:
- Christian Unions are all over the country. So many of their staff are regionally based, and a fair amount of travel must feature.
- I mentioned their gap-year programme. It's called Relay. It's pretty big: about 70 people each year.
- They run an annual conference for CU leaders called Forum.
- They jointly organise a spring-time festival for Christians called Word Alive. This used to be part of Spring Harvest until the 2000s.
- They're based in Oxford, having relocated from Leicester in the early 2000s.
See also
The puzzling connection between UCCF and The Areopagus Trust
