An outline of Scotland Photo: Via Wikimedia Commons
‘In the end human rights are about people being treated and feeling like people who matter.’ (Qf&p)
General Meeting for Scotland was held on Zoom, says Katrina McCrea, one of eighty participants
General Meeting (GM) attracted seventy-four devices, with eighty people taking part. This was my first GM and I was a little overwhelmed by the number of papers, the length of the agenda, and the fact that I wouldn’t know anyone. I shouldn’t have worried.
Martin Burnell welcomed us and gave us the essentials on how to communicate. We then settled down for opening worship. Nicola Maharg read from Quaker faith & practice 24.49: a paragraph as true today as it was in 1986. Elizabeth Allen then took us quietly and efficiently through the business at hand.
The new local development worker (LDW) for Scotland is likely to start in the first quarter of 2021. The relevant clerks will meet soon to discuss what the LDW might do.
GM agreed to take over the Quakers in Scotland Facebook page, which volunteers have been managing thus far. And to improve communication with, and engagement of, Friends, attenders will, for a two-year trial period, be added to GM mailing lists.
Joyce Taylor presented the Parliamentary Engagement Working Group (PEWG) report. Four points stood out: members of the group have been active in Stop Climate Chaos Scotland; filling the parliamentary engagement officer post has been postponed, as it was felt that with some staff being furloughed it did not seem appropriate to take on new staff; Nicola Sturgeon has responded to a letter regarding a green and just recovery – the original letter and her reply will be placed on the GM website soon; and individuals are encouraged to make submissions to the Scottish government’s Just Transition Commission consultation by 30 June.
The UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) has been postponed to November 2021 due to the pandemic. Martin Mansell updated us on the Hub Group, set up to coordinate Quaker activity around the conference, and on the new roles it is fulfilling now.
We heard a report on the ways Local and Area Meetings have maintained communications during lockdown. This was a summary of the feedback received from Meetings to a survey that the GM Communications Group circulated earlier this year. Joyce Taylor thanked all who had replied. Referring to recent Woodbrooke research, Joyce asked us to reflect on the statement: ‘We have a chance now not simply to return to what we did before but to “make our own”, creatively and adventurously, what is revealed to us by the light and life we have found.’ Suggestions included installing videoconferencing facilities in Meeting houses, and using the Jenny Auld legacy to help fund this.
This was an interesting and informative meeting and I am extremely glad I was part of it. My misgivings were allayed by the warmth and concern of speakers and participants. The breakout session at the end was particularly helpful: full of encouragement and suggestions on what to put in this report, as well as reflections on the morning and how we might blend technology with face-to-face meetings.
