Meeting for Sufferings: Opening and agenda

104 gather on Zoom for Meeting for Sufferings with a lively pre-Meeting earlier in the week

Some find it difficult, while others are grateful for it, but Friends are accustomed to meeting via Zoom videoconferencing now. ‘I can only see twenty-five of you, but know there are 104 of you out there,’ said Margaret Bryan, Meeting for Sufferings (MfS) clerk, in her welcome. ‘Nurture is a continuing process for all who come to our meetings whether or not they decide to consider membership,’ read the day’s elder, a nod perhaps to the afternoon’s discernment.

To try to account for the loss of informal in-person interaction, representatives had been invited to a ‘pre-Meeting’ earlier in the week, and conversation had been lively. As Sufferings considered the agenda for the day, one Friend asked whether the subject of those conversations – the ‘wider implications’ around Sufferings’ and Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) trustees’ role in the Society – could be considered as a ‘matter of urgency’. A report reviewing MfS Arrangements Group’s terms of reference was already on the agenda, and the clerk said she hoped to hear views on the subject then. That would allow Friends to decide what to do next, she said.

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