Meeting for Sufferings: Advocacy strengthened
Advocacy to be given greater priority in the future
Ministers and MPs can expect to hear more from Quakers in coming years. At their meeting on 31 March, Meeting for Sufferings (MfS), the national committee of British Friends, resolved that greater resources should be devoted to advocating Quaker views to decision-makers.
MfS asked the trustees of Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) – the organisation of Friends in England, Scotland and Wales – to give ‘greater priority’ to advocacy when allocating resources. This is likely to affect how BYM uses its money and staff.
The minute declared: ‘Advocacy is an unseen process, involving building up relationships with appropriate public servants, ministers and elected representatives, representing our values as well as the voices of those who are losing power in society.’
The discussion saw several Friends speak of the need for resources to be allocated well if advocacy is to be effective. The minute stated: ‘When we select an issue as our target for change, we need to increase our knowledge on it’.
The minute added: ‘Effective well-timed advocacy springs from our experience and knowledge and cannot happen in isolation but needs to reach across the many areas of concern Friends are engaged in, both centrally and locally.’
The discussion arose after BYM trustees asked MfS for guidance as to whether they wished to see more resources allocated to advocacy. One Friend said that MfS should ‘spell it out that we do want higher priority given to advocacy’ in a way that trustees ‘can’t possibly mistake’.
There was a warning on money from another Friend. He said: ‘With resources that are not limitless, there will be something that has to give in order for us to make this a priority.’ He asked: ‘What is going to drop off the bottom in order that this can stay on?’ He added that whatever was abandoned, ‘some Friends will see [it] as really important’.
By the time they reached the minute, the Meeting was in unity on giving greater resources to advocacy even if this affected money for other areas. The minute recognised ‘that where we ask for greater priority in one area of work, we must accept lesser priority in others’.
A few Friends spoke of the need for advocacy to be based on work that Quakers are already doing. One referred to Quakers working in prisons and with homeless people. She said that Quakers should ‘increase the flow of information from that very low grassroots level’ to other Friends engaged in advocacy.
Discussion of the need for advocacy arose in part from an offer last year by Southern East Anglia Area Meeting. They wanted to fund an extra post in Friends’ House, for someone to work with the parliamentary liaison secretary.
BYM trustees said they could not accept the offer without guidance from MfS about priorities in allocating money. There was a suggestion that it was inappropriate for Friends in one area to determine the allocation of central resources. Several Quakers in East Anglia have told the Friend that there is considerable resentment over what is perceived as trustees’ unwillingness to engage with the Area Meeting’s suggestion.
The MfS clerk, Christine Cannon, emphasised that decisions on detailed expenditure were a matter for trustees, not MfS. Reference to the Southern East Anglia offer was not included in the minute.
Discussion of advocacy had been deferred from MfS’ meeting in February, when it followed on from a discussion on radical resistance and the state. On that occasion, consideration had been given to direct action and civil disobedience, although these topics were not mentioned on Saturday.
