Britain Yearly Meeting 2018: BYM trustees
Ian Kirk-Smith writes about the report given by BYM trustees
The mutually supportive nature of relationships between bodies representing Friends throughout British Quakerism was one of the themes in the report of Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) trustees.
Ingrid Greenhow, clerk of BYM trustees, spoke to the report on Monday morning and highlighted the enormous range and variety of activities engaged in on behalf of British Quakers by centrally managed staff. She encouraged Friends to read about them in the new monthly news sheet Quake! that is now available on the Quakers in Britain website.
Last year at Yearly Meeting, in Minute 34, Friends were asked to ‘examine our own diversity’ and Ingrid Greenhow outlined some of the ways in which staff at Friends House were responding to the challenge of creating greater inclusivity. Initiatives include the work done on Sanctuary Everywhere and the treatment of asylum seekers. So far, she said, some sixty-six Meetings have become Sanctuary Meetings. An inclusion and diversity project coordinator has also been appointed.
Ingrid Greenhow spoke about some new developments at Friends House. She talked of ex-offenders being given work placements and about the ‘suspended soup’ scheme in the café. She explained that Friends did well on diversity in terms of regions and sex but less well in other areas. Other organisations, composed of mainly middle class and older people, such as the National Trust, faced similar challenges.
She highlighted a major problem facing British Friends - the age imbalance of those who are responsible, as volunteers, for running British Quakerism. Of some 400 places on committees only around fifteen people were less than thirty-five years of age.
She said: ‘We must change the way we do things and be more flexible. How, for example, can a Key Stage Three mathematics teacher take four Fridays off in a year to attend committee meetings?’ BYM trustees, she said, had made a start by appointing several trustees under the age of twenty-five.
‘It is only by involving younger Friends,’ she explained, ‘that we will move away from the “over sixties” and this will involve change.’
She asked: ‘How many will stand aside to make way for younger Friends?’
Peter Ullathorne, treasurer of BYM trustees, then spoke about the state of the finances. He said they were healthy and referred to the increase in the value of properties, such as Friends House, which was given a recent valuation of £19 million.
He pointed out that this does not represent ‘money you can spend’.
More than £9 million had been spent last year. Contributions by Friends were steady at just over £2 million. He said that £3.3 million was received in legacies. Half a million pounds had been allocated to ‘legacy projects’.
The Hospitality Company, he said, had enjoyed its most successful year so far and contributed almost a million pounds. Trustees were currently working on a review of the investments.
Both Ingrid Greenhow and Peter Ullathorne are finishing their period of service on BYM trustees. Ingrid Greenhow described her experience as clerk of trustees as ‘exhilarating, scary, rewarding and a real privilege.’ Peter Ullathorne said his service as treasurer had been ‘a great joy’ and ‘a lot of fun’.
A Friend, responding to the report and the speakers, was concerned that too much money was being spent on ‘internally focused things’. Another Friend urged BYM trustees to look at membership for Young Friends and do something about it. Many Young Friends were not able to attend a Local Meeting regularly.
Friends also talked of the need for ‘equal generosity’ in giving and being considerate for those who were not well off; ‘the need to express thanks more often’; the great benefit the newly refurbished Friends House is to non-Quakers; ‘the importance of strategic planning’; and the need to talk about ‘Quaker communities’, particularly in relation to young people, rather than Quaker Meetings.
