Friends in Scotland
Bronwen Currie reports on the recent General Meeting for Scotland
Friends gathered for General Meeting for Scotland in St Andrews on 7 March in a rather sombre mood following the recent deaths of a number of well-known and well-loved Friends who had given much service to our Religious Society.
Indeed, the funeral of Christine Davis, clerk of London Yearly Meeting in the early 1990s, had been held only the previous Saturday. So, we abandoned our usual practice of a reading during worship, and instead joined in the silence to remember and pay tribute to these Friends – and, of course, the partners and families left behind.
The morning’s agenda included the first opportunity for many to meet Mairi Campbell-Jack, who was recently appointed as parliamentary engagement officer for Scotland. Mairi’s post is part-funded by Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) and partly by General Meeting for Scotland. Formally, she is part of the BYM parliamentary engagement team, but she is based in Edinburgh in order to focus on Scottish issues and Scottish legislation. Her four current priorities, set by the General Meeting Parliamentary Liaison Function Group, are militarisation in society (with a particular focus on schools), Trident, the forthcoming general election, and social and economic justice.
Our afternoon session was devoted to the many challenges facing today’s children and teenagers and their families and a consideration of how we can best support young people and families in our Meetings. A somewhat dark picture emerged of the potential for bullying via text and social media, and the near-impossibility of protecting children from easily accessed pornography on the internet.
No-one had any solutions to these issues, but we were reminded of the support that can be offered by other adults within our Meetings, and particularly of the value of longer-term residential events where children and young people can enjoy being part of a larger group, where deeper relationships can be built, and where there is time and space to talk and share difficulties.
It is at these events too – the family weekends, link weekends, Northern Young Friends Summer Shindig, Junior Yearly Meeting and Yearly Meeting Gathering – where our young people find the non-judgemental peer support and friendship which can sustain them through adolescence and into adulthood. We were also reminded of the vital need for open communication.
Lastly, we were reminded that our young people are a joy, and that most of them survive these years and grow into intelligent, responsible, creative adults, a number of whom will be the future of our Society.
The picture is not always dark.
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