Meeting for Sufferings: MfS Annual Report is agreed
The Annual Report from Meeting for Sufferings to Yearly Meeting was agreed on 1 February
Friends agreed the MfS Annual Report 2019 to Yearly Meeting 2020 which was revised in the light of comments received before the Meeting.
The report outlines the work undertaken by MfS in 2019, highlighting the latest in the annual series of Young People’s Participation Days, when in December it welcomed around thirty thirteen- to eighteen-year-olds, and the work being done on sustainability.
MfS ‘is responsible for overseeing our corporate witness and our recently appointed Sustainability Monitoring Group is tasked with checking progress towards becoming a low carbon sustainable community’, it says, also noting the forthcoming major sustainability gathering at Woodbrooke in December 2020.
According to the report, the work on diversity and inclusion is expected to continue, and it highlights the fact that both Young Friends General Meeting (YFGM) and Quaker Life Central Committee (QLCC) have reported their statements to MfS on the theme of gender diversity.
Other actions mentioned include a statement of principles on the Court and Prison Register, which form part of a ‘Gold Minute’ sent to all Meetings. This follows a minute from York Area Meeting (AM) asking for the parameters of the register to be reviewed. The statement emphasises ‘the importance of witness being grounded in faith, and the need rigorously to test one’s concern. We do not act in our own strength alone’.
MfS will also review the plan to meet at Woodbrooke every three years when planning for the triennium that begins in 2021 ‘as we look at all our work through the lenses of “sustainability” and “simple church/simple charity”’.
Finally, the report notes some concerns brought to MfS which include one from Southern Marches Meeting in April 2018 about the erosion of truth in society.
According to the report, minutes sent to MfS from Staffordshire AM and North West London AM led to a special interest session at MfS in October on whether there should be a Quaker position on assisted dying, which AMs have continued to engage with. During the session, one Quaker asked if there had been any resolution on the issue of non-geographical membership. Oliver Robertson, head of witness and worship for BYM, said that the issue was complex and currently with QLCC.
