The BIG Promise: World Record Launch
8th Feb 2013. For immediate release.
At last night’s launch event for Marriage Week 2013, the organisers revealed that a world record attempt will be a central part of next year’s celebrations. The BIG Promise will see an unprecedented number of couples at registered wedding venues and churches across the UK simultaneously re-affirming their marriage vows.
Commenting on the news, Richard Kane, founder of Marriage Week, said:
“Marriage Week is always finding new ways to encourage couples in their marriages. The BIG Promise will allow the whole nation to stand up and celebrate the value of marriage both to the couples taking part, and to society as a whole.”
“Having hundreds of thousands of couples across the UK saying together ‘We will!’ will be fantastic”, said Dave Percival, the BIG Promise project coordinator.
“The occasion will be both serious and huge fun – a bit like marriage really!”
Speakers at the Marriage Week 2013 launch event in the Houses of Parliament outlined the importance of marriage to society as a whole.
Harry Benson, Communications Director at the Marriage Foundation, said:
“After ten years of marriage, there’s the same chance a couple who marry in 2013 will keep the vow ‘death do us part’ as there was forty years ago.”
He then went on to highlight new research on divorce rates confounding the common assumption that the divorce rate for all couples is higher than it was in the 1960s.
Half of all divorces currently take place during the first decade of marriage. There is hope for newlyweds, however, in that the divorce rate during the first ten years of marriage has fallen in recent years from a peak in 1993, a trend Mr Benson predicted will continue.
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To arrange interviews or for further information contact Ruth Bessant on tel: 020 7227 4731 or 07581 153693 or email:ruth.bessant@care.org.uk
Editors Notes:
1. Marriage Week UK runs from 7-14 February 2013. Last year 1.5 million people attended a Marriage Week event worldwide.
2. Marriage Week UK is a part of the registered charity, The Future Way Trust, which is also spearheading the development of Marriage Week in other nations.
3. Marriage Week is supported by the following organizations: 2-in-2-1, CARE, Care for the Family, the Church of England, CWR, Futureway Trust, the Evangelical Alliance, Family Life, Family Time, Marriage Care, The Marriage Course, The Mothers’ Union, New Wine and Time for Marriage. Founded in 1997, Marriage Week UK is part of Marriage Week International. There are currently expressions of Marriage Week in 15 countries.
4. The Marriage Week UK website: http://marriage-week.org.uk/
Launch of Marriage Week 2013.
For immediate release; 12.21. Wednesday February 6th, 2013.
In 2012 1.5 million people attended a Marriage Week event worldwide!
Marriage Week 2013 will be launched on 7 February with a special announcement about its world record-breaking plans for 2014. The event will be held in the Macmillan Room, Portcullis House, Westminster at 6.00pm where there will be high-profile speakers: Baroness Ruth Deech, Harry Benson, Communications Director for the Marriage Foundation, and Richard Kane, Director of Marriage Week UK.
Couples across the UK will have cause to celebrate during this annual focus on marriage from 7-14 February. Hundreds of local events run by churches and community groups will be taking place throughout Marriage Week encouraging couples to nurture their relationships.
Marriage Week is supported by a group of charities and individuals who believe that healthy marriages bring benefits for all of society and should be encouraged and supported wherever possible.
Founder and director of Marriage Week, Richard Kane, explains why recognizing the importance of marriage is so important:
“Marriage is an intoxicating mix of excitement and commitment”.
“Marriage chimes with generations before us who have mustered the same courage, to make the same promise, in the same way and in so doing bless each other, any children and the wider community”
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To arrange interviews with Richard Kane or for further information contact Ruth Bessant on tel: 020 7227 4731 or 07581 153693 or email: ruth.bessant@care.org.uk
Editors Notes:
1. Marriage Week UK is a part of the registered charity, The Future Way Trust, which is also spearheading the development of Marriage Week in other nations. It began in 1996 in and has attracted the support and attention of political, religious and media figures, such as David Cameron, Tony & Cherie Blair, Archbishop Rowan Williams, Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Les Dennis, Amanda Holden, Steve Chalke OBE and many others.
2. Marriage Week is supported by the following organizations: 2-in-2-1, CARE, Care for the Family, the Church of England, CWR, Futureway Trust, the Evangelical Alliance, Family Life, Family Time, Marriage Care, The Marriage Course, The Mothers’ Union, New Wine and Time for Marriage. Founded in 1997, Marriage Week UK is part of Marriage Week International. There are currently expressions of Marriage Week in 15 countries.
3. The Marriage Week UK website: http://marriage-week.org.uk/
PRESS RELEASE
8th February 2012
For immediate release
Let’s not sleep-walk into a Perfect Storm!
“The conditions are steadily heading for a Perfect Storm around marriage, and family life,” warned Professor Scott Stanley1 speaking at the launch of Marriage Week on Monday. In particular he warned of the permanent damage done to young children by multiple transitions in family structure in early years.
“A newborn child forms an emotional attachment to the key adults in its life – it leans to love, trust and feel secure in their presence” he said. “Then suddenly one (usually the father) disappears, and the child feels abandoned and deeply fearful. Then, just as suddenly, another male appears – and to start with is a threat and source of fear. Then slowly, the child learns to trust and feel secure again – only for the cycle to be repeated. We know that every cycle washes the babies brain with cortisol (the brain chemical associated with fear and abandonment) and permanently alters brain development and structure leaving the child less able to form loving adult relationships, and more prone to anger and violence.”
Speaking at the 6th National Relationships Education Conference2 Prof Stanley will outline the crucial role that the way we form relationships, and the steps along the way, play in determining the likely stability of the relationships. “In abandoning the clearly defined process that used to lead through courtship and marriage we have left the next generation without a map in dangerous territory!” he says. “Couples today slide through stages of becoming a couple or family without making clear decisions and end up locked into relationships that one, or both don’t value. Once the pressures get too great (like after the birth of a child) they simply cannot cope!”
The conference will look at ways not only to form strong healthy relationships, but also at the ways we can help couples avoid risky and damaging relationships riven with pain and violence. Speakers from Respect3 will address issues around Domestic Violence, whilst the Fatherhood Institute4 will talk about their latest work helping fathers at critical times like the arrival of children.
“And we’re not just talking about a comfy middle class agenda”, says Dave Percival, conference organiser. “We will be hearing from the LIFE project5 who are reaching some of the toughest families in Britain, and Time for Families6 will be sharing the evidence of their work with prisoners and their partners, and the impact on re-offending.”
“Relationship education is about sharing skills and strategies that can build healthy and long lasting adult relationships. It’s a neglected area at present”, he says. “We have a skilled and motivated voluntary sector in this area which can do a lot more given the right opportunities. We hope that this conference will open eyes to the latest thinking so as to help society address the challenges of the Perfect Storm that Scott Stanley has highlighted.”
The conference will be chaired by Sir Paul Coleridge who has recently announced intent to launch the Marriage Foundation7 later this spring.
The conference has attracted international attention. Not only are their European and US delegates, but Ukrainian news TV will be filming interviews before the event as part of their coverage of Marriage Week there. “The challenges of the changes to the ways we form families are of importance to almost every western country”, added Dave. “It is stunning to have some of the world’s leading authorities here to share with us the very best thinking available.”
ENDS
Notes for Editors
For further press contact, or to arrange interviews with speakers, please contact Dave Percival,. Tel: 07802 660524; email: dave@2-in-2-1.co.uk
1 For more background on Professor Scott Stanley see https://portfolio.du.edu/pc/port?portfolio=sstanley. See also his blog http://www.slidingvsdeciding.blogspot.com/
2 The Conference is on Thursday 9th Feb at One Wimpole Street and is organised by 2-in-2-1 and Relationships Foundation (see http://www.relationshipsfoundation.org/Web/OnlineStore/Product.aspx?ID=148 )
3 See http://www.respect.uk.net/ for background and contacts 4 See http://www.fatherhoodinstitute.org/ for background and contacts 5 See http://www.participle.net/projects/view/3/102/ for background and contacts 6 See http://www.timeforfamilies.org.uk/ for background and info 7 See http://www.marriagefoundation.org.uk/Web/ for background and info
1 February 2012
Marriage Week launches with positive message: family breakdown doesn’t have to be the norm
All around the country churches and community groups are encouraging married couples to use Marriage Week, 7-14 February, to focus on actively nurturing their relationships.
Hundreds of local organisers will put on events to encourage healthy marriages in their area. In past years, events have taken the form of Valentine’s suppers, the renewal of marriage vows in local churches, and pub quizzes.
Founder and director of Marriage Week, Richard Kane says that: “Too many couples just drift apart and marriages, which could be fantastic, tragically come to an end. It doesn’t have to be this way.
“Marriage Week is about saying let’s wake up and be intentional about our marriages, just as we were intentional about making the decision to marry in the first place.”
The organisations behind Marriage Week UK, are reporting that the rise of the unmarried family1 correlates with the increase in family breakdown and will highlight the need for stable families throughout the week-long series of events.
Speaking on behalf of the coalition, Nola Leach, chief executive officer of CARE, says: “More than two thirds of Britain’s families are headed by a married couple and statistics2 show that these 12 million couples are more likely to stay together because of, not in spite of, being married.
“At the basis of marriage should be a decision to commit to each other and to the marriage – it is so much more than two signatures on a legal document.”
On 9 February Professor Scott Stanley, one of the world’s leading experts on relationships between couples, will speak at the sixth National Relationships Education Conference as part of Marriage Week. He has studied the way relationships form and develop for more than 25 years and will highlight how commitment can make a difference when couples – especially men – make a decision that a relationship is for life.
Professor Stanley says: “People often slide into cohabiting rather than making a firm decision about what exactly they are doing. But if couples think about what they are doing and where they are going together, their decision making can build a stronger, more lasting commitment.”
To launch Marriage Week 2012, Sir Paul Coleridge, Rabbi Mirvis and Professor Scott Stanley will speak at an event in the Houses of Parliament on 6 February.
Founded in 1997, Marriage Week UK is part of Marriage Week International. There are currently expressions of Marriage Week in 15 countries.
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Media enquiries: Andrew Green
For list of events: www.marriage-week.org.uk/
NOTES TO EDITORS:
1. The number of opposite sex cohabiting couple families increased significantly, from 2.1 million in 2001 to 2.9 million in 2011. The number of dependent children living in opposite sex cohabiting couple families increased significantly, from 1.3 million to 1.8 million over the same period.
Source: Office for National Statistic. http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/
2. One in three cohabiting couples separate before their child’s fifth birthday – four times the rate of married parents.
Source: Married and Unmarried Family Breakdown by the Bristol Community Family Trust
http://www.bcft.co.uk/2010%
Marriage Week
Marriage Week UK is a part of the registered charity, The Future Way Trust, which is also spearheading the development of Marriage Week in other nations. It began in 1996 in and has attracted the support and attention of political, religious and media figures, such as David Cameron, Tony & Cherie Blair, Archbishop Rowan Williams, Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Les Dennis, Amanda Holden, Steve Chalke OBE and many others.
Marriage Week is supported by the following organizations: 2-in-2-1, CARE, Care for the Family, the Church of England, CWR, Futureway Trust, the Evangelical Alliance, Family Life, Family Time, Marriage Care, The Marriage Course, The Mothers’ Union, New Wine and Time for Marriage.
Spokespeople
Marriage Week Director
Richard Kane
07702426500
Marriage Week Chair
Nola Leach
02072 274 713
CARE
Dr Daniel Boucher, Director of Parliamentary Affairs
07768 165 543
Care for the Family
Katharine Hill, Director
077966 314 496
Church of England
National media enquiries: 020 7898 1326
Out of hours queries: 07774800212
General email enquries: cofe.comms@churchofengland.org
Main contact (fielding enquiries) – Steve Jenkins, Head of Media Relations: 020 7898 1457 (direct line),steve.jenkins@churchofengland.
Evangelical Alliance
Dave Landrum, Director of Advocacy
0207 207 2105 or 07734 194 445
Marriage Care
Terry Prendergast 020 7371 1341 ext. 204
Bridie Collins 020 7371 1341 ext. 203
Mother’s Union
Reg Bailey, Director
Fleur Dorrell, Head of Faith and Policy
020 7227 9734
07973 667027
New Wine
Mark Melluish, Regional Director and Conference Host
020 8799 3778
Time for Marriage
Andy Banes, Executive Director
0207 193 5615
andy.banes@timeformarriage.
Relationship Central / The Marriage Course
Mark Elsdon-Dew, Communications Director
0845 644 7544
2-in-2-1
Dave Percival
07802, 6605242
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