'...I have been puzzled and dismayed.' Photo: MHJ / iStock.com.
‘I have seen our traditional decision-making process being slowly eroded.’
Recent developments in Yearly Meeting are raising questions about how we make decisions, says Rex Ambler. Are we forgetting our distinctive Quaker approach?
Some recent developments in Yearly Meeting are making me wonder whether we are changing our model of decision-making. Has our old, distinctly Quaker way proved to be too cumbersome or slow? Are we failing to keep up with the modern world? Do we need to streamline our ways of working?
These questions have arisen from two developments in the last couple of years that other Friends may be aware of – and perhaps thought twice about.
One is the realisation that Yearly Meeting in session, – which is, as we say, the final authority in the Religious Society of Friends (Quaker faith & practice 6.12) – may now be too large and unwieldly to make the decisions that are laid upon it. We had a discussion of this matter in my own Area Meeting some years ago, and we agreed that, during the Yearly Meeting (YM) sessions we had just attended, Friends generally did not follow the discipline of collective discernment. They gave voice to their own personal concerns and did not even respond to what had been said previously. So there was no sense of a process, no sense of being guided to a common understanding. I wrote a memorandum for our discussion and this is part of what I said.
‘In the 1980s, when I first attended YM, there was a discernable process at work. A speaker would express a concern or understanding of a situation that concerned us as Friends, and then we as a Meeting would address that concern. We would explore different angles to it, developing an understanding together until eventually we came to discern the answer to our question, the insight on which we could all unite. The clerk would then try to formulate that insight in a minute, which, once tested, we all embraced. Over the years since then – I have attended every YM but one – I have seen that process being slowly eroded, and I have been puzzled and dismayed by it. What has been happening?’
I do not know the full anwer to that question, but I am aware that, for one thing, we Friends have become more focussed on ourselves as individuals, as have others in society. We are forgetting, or failing to teach, our distinctive way of making a decision. There are perhaps also too many of us at YM for this old practice to work, and many of us who come are not schooled in our Local Meetings on how it is supposed to work.
The other development is the decision of Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) trustees, in conjunction with Woodbrooke, to change the structure of BYM work in support of Local Meetings. They seem to have decided to take workers out of Friends House and plant them in the regions. This has been surprising in a number of ways, and we need to understand well what is going on.
The Friend reported that a decision had been made by these two bodies of trustees, and that they themselves had issued a statement to this effect (28 June). They had undertaken research to find out what Friends felt about the Vibrancy in Meetings project and whether they wanted something like this to be rolled out across the country. According to an independent consultancy, Friends said they did want something like that, so these two trustee groups had decided to provide it. Meeting for Sufferings was informed of this decision some weeks later and asked what they felt, but not what they would do or decide. Again, the Friend reported the occasion: ‘Caroline Nursey, clerk to BYM trustees… said: “We were conscious we were taking big decisions that had a big effect on people’s lives,” but felt “steered” by the positive responses from Friends and the benefits reported in the independent evaluation report into the Vibrancy Pilot Programme in February… It is critical we know from you that this is what the church needs…”’ (12 July). Our own Area Meeting representative confirmed that this was how the matter was pursued. Certainly, the question of how we as a Yearly Meeting support Local Meetings has not been brought for our consideration in Yearly Meeting – or though Quaker Life, which is normally responsible for this kind of work (see Quaker faith & practice 8.08).
So, there is clearly a new pattern of decision-making at work. But what kind of pattern is this? There was a very helpful article in the Friend (2 August) in which the editor interviewed the new clerk of BYM trustees. I’d like to focus on this because it brings us some of the clarity we need. I will refer to them as ‘our editor’ and ‘our clerk’, since they were speaking in those roles and not in a personal capacity.
The editor asked the new clerk how she was finding this job with Quakers when her background was in running secular charities. Her reply indicated that she did not find a significant difference in the environment of work. The recording clerk was recognisably the CEO, and the people around him were ‘a strong management group.’ And that, she felt, is as it should be.
How then, asked our editor, does her Quaker faith play into her life’s concerns? Her reply suggested that there was some tension between the two – secular and faith-led – ways of working: ‘I suppose it’s always difficult to say what comes first: the faith then the witness, or the concern that faith reinforces. But I certainly think my Quakerism sustains me in that work.’ The process of decision-making is particularly important: ‘There was a difficult minute to put together… Then I remember one of the old hands saying, “trust the process” and it’s absolutely true. If one can put aside the ego and just go with the process, I find it comes… I think it’s magical… well, spiritual!’
So the tension seems to be that in one process we allow something other than our conscious egos to take the lead, and in the other more secular process we take things into our own hands and make appropriate decisions, which we then carry out. How do these work together?
Our clerk was tentative on this, but she suggested that the management in BYM respond to what Friends genererally say they want. On the new structuring of BYM, for example, with new workers in the field, the plan is not yet worked out: ‘Where exactly anyone will work, or what their brief will be, that’s all to be worked through by management and trustees – but also by Friends in their Local and Area Meetings. We’re very keen to hear ideas of how it could be done… We’re going to make it possible for the Society to grow, be stronger, and witness to the wider world.’
This is clearly the management model in control. Management consults the membership to discover what needs are being felt, then takes responsibility to meet those needs. This pattern can be seen at work in the AGM of almost any secular organisation, certainly any secular charity.
Our editor asked more about the restructuring and how it might affect Quaker ways of working. He quoted someone who referred to the plan to send staff members out into the regions as itself a new model, but more like ‘a clergy model’. Our trustee clerk thought not. And she was right, insofar as the clergy are ‘ordained by God’ for their work, so carry some divine authority in their exercise of it. These new regional workers will not be bishops accountable to God, or even an archbishop in London, but to secular management.
These explorations were somewhat provisional, and nothing has yet been set in stone. So this is a time for reflection and clarification – and, more specifically, for discernment in the old Quaker sense. Are we adopting a new way of working and a new way of making decisions? Is this what we want to do or ought to do? Let’s clarify the distinction between the two, to begin with.
Firstly, the old Quaker model depends on tapping ‘that of God in everyone’, and is described well in Quaker faith & practice chapter three. It is a process of discernment in which we all come to understand the truth of the situation we are concerned about and sense how we are being called to respond to it. We then minute that understanding and resolve, and we commit ourselves to it.
Secondly, the new management model seems to be a practice of secular decision-making, based on research into what people want or need – either in the group itself or in the wider world – and carried out by the small group appointed to interpret these needs and decide how to meet them.
One factor that plays into this rivalry of models is that the Charity Commission has demanded that we nominate a relatively small group of people to represent the Society and take responsibility for its actions in law. We decided some years ago to comply with this requirement so that we could continue to be regarded in law as a charity. It was understood at the time that this would affect our way of working in some way – we set up a group called BYM trustees in response – but we insisted that from our point of view authority would still rest finally with Yearly Meeting in session (Quaker faith & practice 6.12). In between sessions Meeting for Sufferings would have this authority, and only accept ‘advice’ from BYM trustees (Quaker faith & practice 7.02). If trustees were to undertake ‘some signifcant long-term project… they should consult with Meeting for Sufferings and have regard for its guidance’ (Quaker faith & practice 7.03). ‘Gathered Meetings, both of the trustees and of other bodies, provide the religious discernment that guides our actions in the world… Trustees recognise and listen carefully to the discernment of Yearly Meeting, Meeting for Sufferings and other committees and ensure that it is followed, within legal and financial constraints’ (Quaker faith & practice 8.17).
But perhaps this juggling with rival models is proving too difficult, cumbersome or ineffective. Or is it that we are finding the secular model much more suitable to the Society of Friends we have now become?
Comments
I have met the same problem: Our AM has appointed a small group to examine the functions of Friends appointed to various posts as we have found difficulty in filling the posts. They scattered and met with each LM then wrote a report. LM have since done this and in some cases have submitted comments to assist the AM in it’s decision making. We meet next month.
Those Friends who are not able to attend have been the most articulate.
What of discernment? I have directed several Friends to QF&P 3.2. What is an approach to God if you have no experience of God?
I don’t believe in an old man in the clouds, but I sense a real presence in my life which I am happy to call God. I am happy for Friends to avoid God-talk but I will happily challenge them if they challenge me.That’s the least I can do!
By john0708 on 29th August 2019 - 21:00
We all live in difficult times, but no more difficult than early Friends. The change has been in our sense of democracy as a right of everyone. That can’t be bad! Happily I still trust in The Spirit to take us forward to Truth.
By john0708 on 29th August 2019 - 21:04
I recognise truth in this concern. It needs to be articulated through LM and AM and come to Sufferings.
By doreen.osborne@outlook.com on 30th August 2019 - 10:54
Doreen Osborne speaks my mind . Rex Ambler’s very articulate and clear article is deeply significant ,and important .It raises a central issue ,which needs much thought and discernment ,as he rightly writes . It needs to come to Sufferings ,and to Yearly Meeting .
By Neil M on 2nd September 2019 - 14:31
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