Contemporary Society and Contemporary Religion
The Christ Church Thinktank has been in existence for over 10 years. It draws on speakers from all the churches in the Lewes area. Â Our speakers provide their services without charge, so our meetings are free and open to all. Whether you go to church or not, join us whenever the topic interests you.
Our meetings are usually held in the church and are also available via Zoom. The format is 45 minutes talk and 45 minutes discussion and our average attendance is about 30. All meetings are from 7.30 pm to 9 pm.
If you would like to attend any of our meetings by Zoom, please email the Church Secretary  for further details.
Meeting on Wednesday 20 March at 7.30 pm
Gwyneth Watkinson and Glenn Ecclestone will be speaking on
"The Beachy Head Chaplaincy Team "
The BHCT is a local charity that provides a qualified and committed team of search and rescue volunteers, who patrol by foot and car, and respond to emergency calls, to locate people at risk. They assume that people in suicidal stress can be awakened to the hope that there are always ways forward to address the problems they face. Gwyneth, a qualified counsellor who has also worked at Lewes Prision, and Glenn will talk about the place of the charity in the local community and what it is like to work on a chaplaincy shift. Since 2004, BHCT has responded to 15,000 incidents.
Meeting on Wednesday 17 April at 7.30 pm
Robert Vance will be speaking on
"Artificial Intelligence in Business. Should we fear or welcome it? "
Rob graduated from Oxford with a degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) in 2005. He then worked at the Institute for Public Policy Research focussing on generational change and regional inequality before spending 12 years at WPP, the world’s largest marketing services company where he led research for governments, brands, and NGOs. Since 2019 he has been Director of Global Research at Uber. The company has been at the forefront of debates on the role of technology and the future of work - criticised for disrupting established employer-employee relationships, but also recognised for lowering barriers to flexible participation in the labour market. Rob will talk about how recent advances in data science have potentially profound distributional impacts (Who might benefit? Who might lose out?). He will also raise issues concerning regulation (Will it lag behind or stifle progress?), accountability (Who is responsible?), and other questions of business ethics.
Meeting on Wednesday 15 May at 7.30 pm
Dr Alan Gunn will be speaking on
"Malaria: a febrile past and an uncertain future "
Alan graduated from Bangor University with a degree in applied zoology and a doctorate on tapeworm biochemistry. After a few years at the University of Reading, he worked for 30 years at Liverpool John Moores University and retired in 2023. Together with his wife Sarah Pitt, he published a successful textbook on Parasitology, now in its second edition, and was the sole author of another on Essential Forensic Biology, now in its third edition. His presentation will introduce parasitology to a non-specialised audience by discussion of malaria, the infectious disease spread by mosquitos. He will show how it has influenced world history from antiquity to the present day, why the disease is so difficult to treat and control, and why it has taken so long to develop a vaccine. He will consider the apparent paradox that humans despair about the extinction of some species but fervently work for the extinction of others. With the drainage of swamps in the warmer parts of Europe and the UK, malaria has been largely eradicated, but some experts argue that, with global warming, the possibility that the disease may return must be taken seriously.