Sustainability high on the agenda
‘It is a beautiful world we live in, but there is something awry with the way we are living in it.’ Sunniva Taylor, sustainability and peace programme manager of Quaker Peace & Social Witness, summed up the feelings of many present at Meeting for Sufferings on Saturday 4 December when she gave a passionate and eloquent paper on living out our statement on climate change in the context of wider aspects of sustainability.

She reminded Friends that the ‘Framework for Action’ highlighted sustainability as an ‘urgent matter for social witness’ and that Quakers were called to be ‘patterns and examples, taking responsibility for our individual and corporate environmental impacts.’

‘Our actions,’ she said, ‘were leading to climate change, the reduction of biodiversity, desertification and deforestation, the loss of topsoil and fuel and water shortages.’

She also explained that the inequalities that are produced between people as a result of these actions were sowing the seeds of future conflicts. We are, she said, all complicit. We face a huge challenge.
Sunniva urged Quakers to set a progressive and radical example, as they had done on so many other social issues in the past.

Prompted by her address, Friends took time in the early afternoon to reflect in ‘home groups’ and reported back. The home groups produced an interesting selection of ideas.

They ranged from practical and imaginative suggestions such as putting solar panels on old Meeting houses to being more creative in exploiting the possibilities of the internet for Quaker Business Meetings. Technology should be embraced, where possible, to help reduce our carbon footprint.

There was unity on one point: Friends had to challenge themselves individually in the way they lived their lives. They also had to develop a strong corporate position, and to develop collaborations with other faith groups who also believed sustainability was an urgent concern.

Friends, it was stressed, had to set an example: We should be patterns. We should inspire and enthuse so that people would look to the future not with despair, but with hope, not with fear, but with confidence.
Other suggestions included considering whether the finances of Britain Yearly Meeting (both corporately and individually) are invested in ways that build sustainability: are all sourcing and purchasing practices ethically and ecologically sound? (For example, does energy for Meeting houses and other Quaker properties come from energy suppliers committed to renewable energy? Do Meetings consider the impact of their food and other purchases on the environment?)

The theme of Yearly Meeting Gathering at Canterbury in 2011 is ‘Sustaining the Spirit: changing the way we live to sustain the world we live in’. It will be an opportunity for Meeting for Sufferings to play a visioning role in encouraging the Yearly Meeting to realise the commitment made to sustainability.

Unequal impact of government cuts
The unequal impact of the government cuts in public expenditure has been a major concern of Quaker Peace & Social Witness Central Committee.

Helen Drewery, general secretary of QPSW, explained that there was an uncertainty about how to proceed on this issue ‘given the breadth of our concerns and the wide range of the cuts’.

Several ideas were discussed and QPSW was encouraged to provide an updated version of the 2004 ‘Social Inclusion Toolkit’ for early 2011 as one way of moving the concern forward.

It was also proposed that Mid-Thames Area Meeting be a ‘clearing house’ for ‘evidence of hardship’ from other Area Meetings. There was general agreement that the subject of the cuts and their impact on the lives of the most vulnerable in society should be a central concern of Friends, both individually and corporately, in 2011.

New Area Meetings
The process of creating two separate Area Meetings from the present North Somerset and Wiltshire Area Meeting was proposed and endorsed in principle at Meeting for Sufferings.

It is proposed that the Local Meetings at the ‘western end’ – Claverham, Clevedon, Sidcot and Weston-Super-Mare – would form one Area Meeting. The ‘eastern end’ Local Meetings of Bath, Bradford-on-Avon, Chippenham, Devizes, Frome and Trowbridge would form the other Area Meeting.