Meeting for Sufferings: Memorandum of Understanding
'The group expects to send it for signature by Area Meetings, General Meetings and BYM trustees, with the aim that most will have signed it by February 2024.'
Later, Friends heard about the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the organisations together comprising the Religious Society of Friends in Britain, which amounts to more than seventy charitable bodies.
David Bunney introduced the MoU, which would set out the nature of the cooperation and mutual support that is needed to underpin the health of the Society. ‘We are being asked to consider and approve guidance for where the Spirit might become too energetic,’ he said, noting that ‘the public perception of Quakers is how we treat and respect each other, and that we are trustworthy… it has taken us centuries to get here’.
As the working group worked on this document, it became more and more clear, that, legalistic as it may appear, the MoU provides methods by which Friends can show their care for each other and for the Society. The group expects to send it for signature by Area Meetings, General Meetings and BYM trustees, with the aim that most will have signed it by February 2024.
One Friend said that ‘at our AM we have an MoU with all our [Local Meetings] and we are all very happy with it’. Another asked why do the related changes not come back to MfS for its approval, to which Siobhán Haire deputy recording clerk for BYM, said she was not against the idea that the MoU might come back.
Robert Card, clerk of MfS, said: ‘I think we are broadly minded to accept the MoU’, but there were some details that meant it couldn’t formally be signed off at this session.
The minute said: ‘Meeting for Sufferings is content with the Memorandum of Understanding as amended in light of this Meeting and, subject to legal review, we ask that it to be sent with our recommendation to all area meetings, general meetings and BYM trustees for adoption and signature.’
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