A fund set up in response to the disaster that took place on 11 September last year at the Gleision drift mine at Cilybebyll, near Swansea ( News, 23 September 2011), has now been wound up. Almost £1.1 million has been distributed to dependants of the four miners.

Dr Rowan Williams has been invited to address a future meeting of the GB, "when he has left Canter-bury and is able to speak his mind in the way we have always valued", the chairman of the Standing Committee, Judge Philip Price, said.

An attempt to remove the upper age limit for membership of various bodies and posts, including those of churchwardens, was rejected by the GB. Moving a private member's motion, Dr David Causton (St Davids) said: "An older person may be wiser than when they were younger."

Lord Rowe-Beddoe, who is shortly to retire as chairman of the Representative Body after reaching the mandatory retirement age, said that the mandatory age "flies in the face of all equality legislation, and wouldn't stand a chance if it was challenged". He favoured fixed-term appointments, he said. "If a CEO is in post for less than five years, they were the wrong person. If they are in post for more than ten years, then they were definitely the wrong person."

The motion was lost, with 57 against, 39 for, and 23 abstentions.