‘It’s going to be an evolution, but we do need to get on with it.’

Restructuring BYM is a tricky operation, but Caroline Nursey managed Oxfam’s humanitarian response in Darfur. The clerk of trustees talks to Joseph Jones

You’ve been clerk of Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) trustees for six months now. How are you finding it?

I’m really enjoying it. If you’re chairing or clerking something, the biggest pressure is always: ‘What is the CEO, or, in this case, the recording clerk, like?’ I have chaired things in the past where there were issues around that but it’s an absolute pleasure working with Paul [Parker]. He’s so capable and visionary. So my role is to offer support, to try and make sure he doesn’t do too much… and sometimes to, you know, suggest that something might be done a bit differently, or challenge on certain points. I think it’s such a strong management group overall, and the trustees are a really interesting and vibrant group of people too – with different perspectives, from different parts of the country, but a lot of people who are willing to put in the time, and are very conscientious.

I’m enjoying being part of Meeting for Sufferings again too, because, of course, one of my tasks is to report there. It’s a good way of explaining to people what we’re doing but also getting their feedback and a sense of what the wider Society is wanting.

Where did your Quaker journey start?

I was brought up in the Church of England but I got to that usual teenage point of thinking: ‘How can there be a God when there are so many hurtful things in the world?’ My mother became a Quaker when I was in my teens but I wasn’t going to do what she was doing! It did mean, though, that I knew about Friends. Later, when I was a very young teacher, the school I was at wanted to celebrate the sinking of the Belgrano. I struggled to explain why that was an issue for me. I felt very isolated. So I went running along to Quakers and found it hugely supportive. Three years after that I was accepted into membership. More or less straight after that I went to Tanzania, so there was a period when I wasn’t in regular worship, but it did feel right to make that commitment and sort myself out before I went.

At what point did you start getting involved in clerking and committees? It never seems to take very long…

After six years in Africa I returned to Walthamstow and almost immediately was asked to be assistant clerk, then two months later to be clerk – you know how these things go! Then I went to my first ever Yearly Meeting in 1994 – the year they were accepting the new Book of Discipline – and it was so exciting. I was just blown over by the process and filled in one of those yellow [nominations] forms. I was in my very early thirties then and Friends are always very keen to get younger people so I was immediately approached to go on to QPS [Quaker Peace and Service] Central Committee, then I think about a year later I was asked to clerk.

So, is it a process you enjoy?

I love clerking! I really love that process. There was one time when I was clerking QPS and there was a difficult minute to put together. The other members had gone for coffee and I thought: ‘How can I do this?’ 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, and I really, really enjoy the task of trying to make it clear to the gathered Meeting what it is they have to do, and holding them to it. You know, if it’s a tough decision, no one likes making it, and I think the clerk can help to keep the Meeting focused. I love the way it comes together and you can see the way forward – which is not what any individual had in mind when they walked into the room – and then recording what’s there. I think it’s magical… well, spiritual!

Have you found many differences between working in Local Meetings and clerking national committees?

It’s exactly the same. Of course, you have to be very conscious that, at a national level, you’re working with people who have significant experience. But otherwise it’s exactly the same: you have to prepare and make it as easy as possible for people to come to a decision.

Can we step back a bit? You’re the executive director of BBC Media Action, which works to promote good communications in developing countries. You went there from Oxfam and VSO. Where does your concern for Africa in particular originate?

I think I’ve always been fascinated by Africa. I can vividly remember the Biafran war, and a poster of a Biafran child on the church door. I had a conversation with my parents just asking: ‘How can this be?’ That was formative.

Then, just being there in the middle of rural Tanzania, that was very meaningful. In my roles since it’s been very much a case of rushing around in a Land Rover, or sitting at a computer. So, it’s a bit of a caricature I suppose but I always go back to that close engagement with people and community. That experience was wonderful, and changing.

Did they feel faith-led, these concerns?

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. Going to Meeting for Worship, sitting there, it helps keep things in proportion. I couldn’t worship in Tanzania but in Ghana I went to Hill House Meeting. Often there were only two of us – perhaps half a dozen – but that was a very pleasurable thing over those three years. More recently, in Sudan, I was having a very pressurised time with Oxfam. We had a big programme in Darfur and we had staff killed while I was there. It was very political – we had prime ministers and foreign secretaries through all the time, and I was on the UN Standing Committee and chaired the NGO forum. The engagement was absolutely full-on. But I used to worship at someone’s house – there was an American Quaker working for another agency and it was hugely valuable.

Are there many similarities between administering secular charities and Quaker bodies? I know that you’ve talked to MPs about the issues of safeguarding in the aid sector and that’s something Friends are thinking about too.

I think safeguarding is extraordinarily difficult. I think abuse happens in all sectors but it can be particularly difficult for charities, whether that’s a secular one or a church. I think some of us were slow to realise that… that bad things can happen. That good people can do bad things. However much we want to think, at Local Meeting, that we’re all good people, we have to be aware that anyone, including those who are holding responsible roles, could be a potential abuser. We have to put in place systems to keep children and vulnerable adults safe. It’s a very difficult thing to do, and we’re never going to stop it entirely – it’s impossible – but we can put processes in place that make it less likely to happen. We’re going to have to do more as Quakers. And as Britain Yearly Meeting trustees we’re going to have to find better ways of helping Meetings protect their children.

The other obvious similarity is the issue of fundraising…

Whatever organisation you’re in, one of your primary responsibilities is to ensure that money is used responsibly. BYM is unusual in that it does have significant reserves, but that’s also misleading because a lot of that is in buildings. We don’t want to have to sell Friends House. We don’t want to lose the opportunities given to us by previous generations of Friends, who made some very sound and Spirit-led financial decisions. But I think trustees can clearly see that if we just carry on as we are doing, we’ll run into trouble in seven or eight years’ time. We are spending more than our income. Now, that’s OK, we can do that for a few years, but we need to find better ways of bringing income in. We need to make sure we are spending our money on things that match our priorities. That’s what’s behind the recent restructuring, where we’re bringing communications and fundraising together [see ‘News’ 19 July]. We’re investing in fundraising and looking to create a team that we think will be more effective in helping Friends to understand the work, as well as their responsibility to finance it. And when we look at change, we’ve got to do that in the next five or six years because, after that, we won’t have the money to do it.

There are different restructuring processes underway, aren’t there? There’s one that’s looking at being a simpler church, but there’s another that’s about supporting Meetings more locally. Inevitably, these things overlap. But our sense of the last Meeting for Sufferings was that, yes, it wanted to see movement on this, but movement with caution. So, it was something of a surprise when it was announced the following week that jobs would be ‘deleted’ (which I know some Friends thought was an unfortunate phrase).

Restructuring communications and fundraising isn’t intrinsically linked to the project to support Friends more locally, except insofar as we think it will help to bring in more income. More income will help with that process, and means we might not have to cut other stuff as much. So it’s not directly involved but it is linked.

Of course, the value of a restructure is separate to whether any restructuring is handled well…

Yes and, frankly, the recording clerk knows it hasn’t been handled as well as it should have been. He’s written to staff to say so. One of Paul’s strengths is that he’s able to sit back and say: ‘Didn’t get that right, and next time we need to do it differently.’ I think that’s a great sign of leadership. Having been through a few restructures in my time I would say that’s it’s extraordinarily difficult to get it right. Who you speak to at what point – and whether they’re going to go and speak to other people – it is just really, really difficult. But I agree with Paul that it hasn’t happened the way we wanted it to, and the management group has definitely learned some things.

What are the other big challenges as we try to become a simpler church that gives support more locally?

I do want to say that one of the reasons I think local support is important is because it can help people navigate our national structures. For Friends who aren’t involved in national work, it becomes the route by which they’re connected to the wider Society.

What I hear there is that one of the problems that needs to be solved is the dissociation between Friends on the bench and Friends House.

Yes. But also everything being too complicated. There are too many committees, and a lot of them are too big. We need to look at what governance is required, and how we deliver that appropriately, so that valuable staff time is not taken up by serving committees. Also, we don’t want to take committee members away from their Local Meeting.

How developed is the planning? Do you have a vision in your head of what it all looks like, yet?

Not exactly. And I don’t think it’ll look the same everywhere. It’s not going to be a cookie-cutter solution. Every Area Meeting is different. Some are wealthier, and I know some are keen to support others. But 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. It’s going to be an evolution, but we do need to get on with it.

I think readers of the Friend have good things to say about Vibrancy workers, and localisation. But there are two concerns I’ve heard. One is a worry that we’re moving from the priesthood of all believers to something more like a clergy model…

I think that’s a total misunderstanding of what’s being proposed. These are not ministers. They’re not hierarchical leaders in any way. These are people to be used… to work with role-holders and others. To make things happen. And, you know, we’ve had paid workers for hundreds of years.

The other worry, following a Yearly Meeting in which we were encouraged to think differently about how we operate, is that we’re going to find another way to support things as they already stand.

I don’t think so. A good worker will be able to help grow green shoots. Help Meetings to change. A resource to help Meetings make shifts to being more open, or more simple. But also link them up to resources that will still be central.

We’re meeting on the day that Boris Johnson becomes prime minister. Friends will have different politics, but there is a feeling of pessimism about where we are. I sense, though, that you’re an optimist. What hopes do you have for the Society and the wider world?

I am an optimist. That’s why I think the restructuring is important. We’re going to make it possible for the Society to grow, be stronger, and witness to the wider world. The world is facing more challenges than it has since the 1930s and we need to be able to speak to it.

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Comments

I am amazed and humbled by the “Simpler Church” and the “more Support for Local Meetings” programme for Quakers in Britain. I love committees so these proposals are really revolutionary for me, and I keep thinking Brilliant!!!! Sorry to hear of central job losses - How much money is needed annually? Can we be clearly told? And create a target for local meetings and area meetings for their giving to central work?  This might be a shock, but money should not be spent on non central organisation when the money is needed by our Quakers in Britain, centrally. If we adopt simplicity and local meeting focus for Quakers in Britain, would this save money that could be used by Quakers in Britain centrally?  best wishes David Fish Coventry Quaker Meeting

By davidfishcf@msn.com on 23rd August 2019 - 18:20

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