Meeting for Sufferings: Roles and responsibilities
Distinctly different roles of Meeting for Sufferings and Britain Yearly Meeting trustees were explored on 7 July
Meeting for Sufferings was told of the distinctly different roles and responsibilities of MfS and BYM trustees. Jonathan Fox, in his report on the work of Britain Yearly Meeting Trustees, said that the trustees were tasked with the strategic oversight of the centrally managed work – the ‘nuts and bolts of the charitable activities’ – while MfS was a visioning body that set priorities.
He said that BYM Trustees were required to listen, to implement priorities and to keep MfS informed of their work. The standing committees, he explained, were responsible to trustees.
Three fictitious scenarios were presented, each by a Friend, which helped to illustrate what kind of decisions are best left to trustees and which are most appropriate to be given to MfS. Friends found the session very informative, engaging, and helpful.
Jonathan Fox explained that it is not always easy to determine precisely the correct course of action to take. It can also be complicated, he said, citing the James Turrell offer, when not all the relevant information was available to communicate.
A Friend stated that ‘it seems to me we cannot command “vision” – all we can do it give space for it to rise up’. Sometimes, she said, worship sharing and allocating time for ‘doing nothing’ but thinking can generate interesting ideas and visions.
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