Meeting for Sufferings: Friends consider simplification
‘Is Meeting for Suffering content to see significant amalgamations of AMs (and other bodies) take place?’
Simplification was the next big agenda item. Lesley Richards, clerk of Symud Ymlaen (Moving Forwards) and Helen Drewery, clerk of Pan London Governance Steering Group, spoke on the proposals for different configurations for Area Meetings (AMs). Friends heard that in London and Wales and the Marches there are plans to bring a group of AMs together so that there is only one charity, with one set of trustees being responsible for legal and financial matters across the wider grouping. This idea is at different stages of consideration elsewhere, in Scotland and Yorkshire for example.
‘Our vision is of a simpler structure demanding less Quaker time and energy to run, and freeing Friends to do more of what enriches our lives and attracts people into our communities,’ Helen Drewery told the room.
To this end, she said, the seven areas in London would be merged into one charity, along with Quaker Property Trust. It would mean ‘a significant change’, she said. London would be twice as big as its current size. There are also questions on how London would be represented at MfS, with one proposal for seven informal clusters.
Lesley Richards then spoke about the complicated proposals in Wales and the Marches (see MfS minutes 2022 07 07). The region has five Quaker charities – four AMs and Meeting of Friends in Wales. But Quaker boundaries and national boundaries don’t match.
‘Things feel as if they are stirring,’ she said, adding that they will be seeking approval for the new system to be in place in January 2024.
Friends were presented with two questions: ‘Is Meeting for Suffering content to see significant amalgamations of AMs (and other bodies) take place?’ and ‘Are there implications that may need the attention of other YM-level bodies?’
Friends supported the changes, ‘freeing up Friends to do less admin,’ as one spoke of feelings of overwhelm and pressure. ‘I think we lose people. I confess to feeling it myself.’
Several, however, raised fears of ‘fragmentation’. One East Anglian Friend said ‘this is probably the most pressing organisational issue that Sufferings has to face. Most of our Meetings are drowning in demands of our process and systems, and need to be liberated. However there is an enormous danger, which is that we can begin to fragment and separate’.
A Quaker from North-West England, whose AM had been through a similar simplifying process, said that it was ‘quite do-able’, but ‘it hasn’t brought us a bigger worshipping community… London may be alright, as you’ve got “a ring” [the M25], but it’s very hard to do in a spread-out distance’.
This was taken up by a Friend who asked if there would be help centrally to guide AMs through the process. ‘We are conscious that organisational changes at the top can often leave people at the bottom of the organisation cold.’
The minute recognised the ‘appetite for further consideration of the emotional aspects of the hard work of change.’
Next week: afternoon session. Minutes at www.quaker.org.uk/mfspapers.
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