Methodist Church elects new president and vice president designate

The Rev Alison Tomlin has been elected president designate of the Methodist Conference and Deacon Eunice Attwood the vice president designate for 2010-2011.

The elections were announced at the annual Methodist Conference in Wolverhampton.

Rev Tomlin is currently Chair of the Northampton Methodist District, having previously chaired the Oxford and Leicester District. In September she will become co-superintendent of the Thames Valley Methodist Circuit with her husband Dave. She has served the Church as a minister for 25 years, having originally been ordained in Wolverhampton in 1984.

Alison said: "It is a great privilege to be elected as president designate and I am humbled to be trusted with this role by the Conference. In my year of presidency I will seek to help the Church be more receptive to go where God is inviting us.

"The Church has not always been very good at risk-taking but it’s easier to take risks when we are confident in God’s love and listening for God’s voice."

Central to Alison’s ministry has been the imaginative use of the Bible in prayer. She said: "The Church has designated 2011 as the Year of the Bible and this will be very important and exciting for me in my year of office."

Ms Attwood works as part of a team of lay and ordained ministers in a busy city centre church in Newcastle. She has been instrumental in establishing the Newcastle Street Pastors Project and supports work with asylum seekers, street workers and teenage runaways.

Ms Attwood spent 12 years working as an intensive care unit nurse and brings experience of hospital chaplaincy and 10 years of serving the Church as a member of the Diaconal Order. She is a Methodist local preacher and a part-time diaconal tutor at the Wesley Study Centre in Durham.

She said: "As a member of the Methodist Diaconal Order it’s a real honour to be elected vice president designate. I am passionate about enabling the people of God to reach out to and better engage with their communities. In my year as vice president, I hope to inspire God’s people to reconnect with the servant ministry to which we are all called and celebrate the rich contribution of the Diaconal Order to the life and work of the Church."

Rev Tomlin and Ms Attwood will be inducted as president and vice president as the first items of business at the 2010 Methodist Conference, which will meet in Portsmouth from 24 June to 1 July.