A meeting was held on Tuesday 22 July 1997 at which the Chairman was able to present a concern. The Society already has a high academic standing, with fine conferences, seminars and lectures, and our remarkable academic journal Reformation. Our appeal, however, is also to the ploughboy. We met to discuss how best to present William Tyndale and the Society at the grassroots level.
David Green spoke of his experience in the Cotswolds of founding a local group. Priscilla Frost strongly urged that we should be developing such groups all over the country. The Society should initiate and hold a slide library, and even lecture-notes, for local lectures; David Ireson is pursuing that on our behalf, and the making of a CD ROM on Tyndale and the English Bible. We would put to the Trustees (since agreed by them) the possibility of reducing membership subscriptions by £5 as a one-off introductory offer at local meetings. For school-children and young people. we noticed Mary Clow's excellent pack on Tyndale (details on page 72 of this Journal). Hilary Day offered to write a children's life of Tyndale to be published by the Society; she will also advise about the preparation of a press pack about Tyndale and the Society. She suggested that at our Oxford conferences time should be given for non-academic contributors to present papers, with one or more non-specialist afternoons. A call for such papers will go out to members and others. Eunice Burton pointed out that many churches are already arranging Millennium celebrations, and we should not lose time in connecting with these. She also asked if the Journal could carry, in each issue, extracts from Tyndale's writing, and a 'text for the day'.
It was agreed that this 'Ploughboy Group' should not meet at any fixed times like a committee, but work and communicate as needed. Your prayers are asked for the success of the Society's 'Ploughboy' endeavours.
David Daniell