Meeting for Sufferings: March Meeting - part two
Rebecca Hardy reports on the second part of the final Meeting for Sufferings
QCCIR annual report
Reshuffling two of the morning’s items was either ‘Spirit-inspired or genius’, said Elaine Green, clerk to Quaker Committee for Christian and Interfaith Relations (QCCIR), introducing the group’s annual report. QCCIR’s work for 2025 was governed by ‘clarity, curiosity and perseverance’, she said, echoing the themes highlighted in the ‘Peacebuilding in the UK’ session. A main focus of 2025 was writing guidance on Quakers’ approach to gender diversity – work that is ‘deeply grounded in our faith and yet speaks to us being in the world but not part of it’. This will also be shared with other faith groups. The year brought ‘acute’ issues around the turnover of committee members, shrinking from the ideal number of eleven, to six (mostly due to ill health). This wasn’t sustainable, so Central Nominations Committee is finding new Friends to serve. ‘Some… are put off because they think they can’t do it,’ said Elaine, but everyone thought this at the start. Pleading for people to come forward, she said: ‘It is talking to people you don’t agree with all of the time… It is the deepest faith work I have ever done. It’s not easy… but it’s the most uplifting, spiritually-driven work you could ever do.’
One Friend praised her ‘moving talk’ and asked if Quakers were involved in Church of England conversations about Sarah Mullally, the recently-appointed first female archbishop of Canterbury. Due to the structure of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, Quakers in Britain ‘have a bigger voice’ than its size might suggest, ‘so we do engage in these conversations… We’re in the space where dialogue happens.’ It’s so important to ‘be in the room’, even if ‘you feel uncomfortable’, Elaine stressed.
One Quaker said they had felt ‘pushed to their feet’ to speak on ‘disquiet about the antisemitism guide’. Is QCCIR doing any ‘bridgebuilding with the Islamic community’?
Elaine said she could speak briefly, although the question deserves more time. ‘That piece of work went on for many years and was led by Quaker Life (QL)… our relationship with the Jewish community has been fraught for many years… because their community is also a spectrum of opinion and experience, they are not monolithic… but what they do have in common is a very, very long history of violent antisemitism.’
Quakers were ‘a bit late to the party’ to draft a statement, she said, but it was right to say to Friends, ‘we need to stand back and listen to what we think we are observing’. Islamophobia is ‘real, and we recognise that’. It was a ‘fair point’ that Quakers ought to say something about it. The antisemitism guide ‘doesn’t mean that other things are not very live and sensitive’.
Received Minutes
Friends then turned to minutes from other Quaker groups, including from QL Central Committee to lay down QL Representative Council. One Friend emphasised how important the group had been for his spiritual development, which was echoed by another Quaker. It was ‘always a forum in which Friends were learning from one another’, particularly in eldership and reducing conflict. ‘Since Covid and the loss of Woodbrooke, there are not so many places we can do this,’ they said, adding that conflict had arisen at some Quaker gatherings because of a lack of ‘active, deep eldership’. They hoped that QL could support more work in this area.
BYM trustees’ report
It was then time to consider Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM)’s trustees’ report, including an update on the review of strategic priorities. Kit King, assistant clerk to trustees, spoke from Amman, Jordan. The situation there was stable and Kit (they/them) was not worried for their safety. However, ‘it is scary to live in a place where you hear air raid sirens every day and see missiles going overhead’ and Kit felt ‘deeply worried about those living in other parts of the region who are in less protected areas’. Kit had written to the Quaker schools, Ramallah Friends School in the West Bank and Brummana High School in Lebanon, to share upholding.
Marisa Johnson, clerk to trustees, then spoke to the report, telling the room that trustees had met online on 7 February. It had been ‘a difficult week’ for staff responsible for the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI), she said, and, out of many crises, it had been the worst so far. Yet all ecumenical accompaniers were ‘safe and back in their own countries’. This was ‘quite a feat’, and she thanked staff who run the programme and Oliver Robertson who oversees it.
Concerning the wider review of strategic priorities, Marisa reminded the room that trustees are trying to make sure that work discerned by Yearly Meeting (YM) ‘is actually carried out’. It was not about creating new priorities, she said, but ‘making sure we align with what has already been discerned’. Trustees have ‘a workable set of priorities’ that they hope will meet with Friends’ approval, and they hope that the continuing YM will mean they are given ‘more of a steer, more often’.
With the report put to the room, one Friend spoke of the difficulties of measuring a programme’s impact, particularly in international conciliation and accompaniment. ‘They tell us it is valuable,’ but the impact ‘is almost impossible to discern’. Could this be reflected in an added clause? Another Friend urged that the priorities be disseminated in ‘as clear and accessible way as possible’.
Paul Parker, BYM’s recording clerk, said that once the priorities are approved, ‘we will definitely think about how we will publicise them, and will be reporting them to continuing YM over the years’.
The point about measuring impact was ‘a good challenge’ and much Quaker work required longer than ‘the three-year funding cycle’, for example. The document didn’t set down a narrow restrictive framework, he said, but ‘I do think we have to look quite creatively’ at ‘longterm, committed’ programmes. Ultimately, ‘if people on the ground are telling us it is valuable, then that is a measurable outcome’.
Before more talk on antisemitism, Paul Whitehouse, BYM’s treasurer, spoke to the accounts, saying last year had ended with a deficit. This was planned for and less than thought. ‘We are working to reduce the deficit to zero by 2027.’ While BYM was in a fortunate position not to have to rely on three-year funders, it was ‘more reliant on dead Quakers and I don’t think that is right’. Last year, donations were down on the previous year. Properties and investments bring in income, ‘but we need today’s Friends to give as well… and we should not be backwards in saying that’.
But, first, there were more reflections on the antisemitism guide. Although trustees were not directly responsible for it, as Quakers, Marisa said: ‘We felt that it was important to challenge ourselves to ask some difficult questions’ about ‘our prejudices and perspectives’.
‘We are absolutely clear that this guidance does not subvert other commitments that YM has made,’ she reiterated, but it was trying to look at a longstanding ‘aspect of racism’. Unfortunately, a lot of this debate polarises with what is happening in Palestine and Israel, but ‘we are trying to look beyond that… If we can apply some insight into that, it might actually help us in our wider work about antiracism’.
Kit King later spoke more on the guide, urging Friends who agreed with it to submit feedback, as ‘you’re always going to hear from those who dislike something’. Feedback so far showed that some found it challenging, which suggests ‘it is fulfilling its purpose in getting us to look inwardly at how we might be contributing to deep roots of antisemitism’. The ‘moving’ feedback session had included ‘deep ministry on personal experience of antisemitism’, and Kit encouraged Friends to ‘use the guide as a starting point to have discussions’. There had been careful communication with different communities in how this guide might impact them, Kit added.
One Friend said that their preparatory group shared ‘considerable concern’ about the guide. While it is helpful in highlighting antisemitic tropes and phrases that might come up in meetings about Palestine, she ‘pleaded’ for it to go to YM as the ‘evidence supplied did not seem to reflect a wider picture’, and Friends had not been consulted enough. ‘I don’t see how it can’t undermine our statement about genocide,’ she said.
Marisa said: ‘I’m sure that what you have said has been heard and I hope that Quaker Life will be considering how we go forward from there.’
Time to go
With the final minute accepting the report and priorities, Friends then departed, with art exhibitions and ‘a celebratory tea’ to look forward to.
After lunch, there was an hour-long Meeting for Worship, in which Friends spoke movingly about Meeting for Suffering’s history. ‘I have the great honour of having ancestors who became Quakers right at the beginning,’ said one, with some imprisoned in York Castle. ‘Sufferings has given me a great sense of continuity that the Quaker values that began in the 1650s have gone on, and I hope they will go on just as strongly in our Yearly Meeting.’
Another Quaker ministered that ‘old, old mountains that have long since lost their volcanic activity still remain holy mountains… Strong times call for strong medicine,’ she said. ‘One of my favourite passages is when Jesus talks about how you can’t put new wine into old skins. I pray that the new structure we are moving into will allow that living water, that living fire, to burn brightly and to shine through the delusions of our time. And find fresh ways forward.’
For the full Meeting minutes, see http://www.quaker.org.uk/mfspapers. Yearly Meeting now takes place as usual over 1-4 May, but as a new year-round structure also in 2026 on 18 July (Kings House Conference Centre, Manchester and online), and 21 November (Friends House, London and online).
