A lively gathering

Judith Sayer reports on a Meeting of Friends in Yorkshire

Quakers in Yorkshire enjoyed a lively gathering at Christchurch on The Grove and Ilkley Meeting House on 16 July. About sixty Friends attended the event. After welcoming Friends with tea and coffee we assembled in the worship space in Christchurch for Meeting for Worship during which the clerk read from Quaker faith & practice.

stees (Barbara Windle) and Glenthorne (Roy Love). Barbara presented the accounts in a reader-friendly format, after which she spoke of the difficulty the trustees had had in finding two Friends willing to serve as coordinators of safeguarding. This is a crucial matter since without this service there can be no children’s work. Happily, this problem is almost resolved. Finally, we heard that the trustees welcomed requests for financial help for adult study, not now exclusively at Woodbrooke.

Roy reported that Glenthorne had had a successful year. It has had to restructure its pension scheme, for which it has had an interest free loan from Quakers in Yorkshire, funded by the Lynton Taylor Bequest. His written report outlines not only the resources and assets but also the Special Interest Programme and the work enabled by the bursary fund, such as the ‘Welcome Project’ for asylum seekers.

We then moved to the main focus of the gathering – the presentation by four members of Young Friends General Meeting: Rici Marshall, Toni Carmichael Harris, Ellie Fuller and Joseph Fuller. Each young Friend first introduced themselves, saying how much it meant to each of them to attend and be a part of Young Friends General Meeting, spending a weekend together up to three times a year.

Each Young Friend then spoke of the two current concerns that they had been involved with since 2014: Mental Health and Wellbeing and the campaign to oppose the renewal of Trident nuclear weapons. They spoke of how much they had learned within these two concerns and of what they had done and were doing.

The Young Friends then went on to introduce a group exercise, during which we defined best practice in Meeting for Worship for Business. Each group took the persona of someone who would attend a Meeting for Worship for Business and outlined what that person, or persons, should be responsible for. This was a lively and informative exercise that exposed some of our sloppy observances of right ordering in a light-hearted manner.

Henceforth, we hope we will do better! After this session we had five minutes to play one round of ‘the adverb game’ – a brief kind of verbal charade. This was a fun ending of their presentation, which had been interesting, enjoyable and much appreciated.

The meeting, which had been clearly and ably conducted by the two co-clerks, closed with a brief time of silence. A short sandwich lunch followed before the afternoon activities, which were held outside in glorious sunshine. Some Friends enjoyed a history walk round the town guided by a member of the civic society, some were led on a more energetic walk on Ilkley Moor, some walked by the river and some visited Farfield Meeting House, which is one of the oldest in England.

The children had a splendid day swimming and also making beautiful mobiles that were hung in the Meeting house. We finished with an excellent tea enjoyed by all. A good day.

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