Meeting for Sufferings: Stewardship and sharing stories
Meeting for Sufferings heard from the Quaker Stewardship Committee
The central role of the gathered Meeting for Worship in the life of Quakerism was highlighted at Meeting for Sufferings held at Friends House on Saturday 1 April.
Ursula Fuller, clerk of the Quaker Stewardship Committee (QSC), spoke to the report of the Committee in the morning session and talked about its work.
The QSC, she explained, had a vision for ‘vibrant and well managed’ Meetings throughout Britain. Its key role was to ‘look after good governance’ and help Meetings and other bodies that collectively form Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) with their stewardship.
She stressed that despite the need to comply with aspects of charity law legislation, such as the appointment of trustees, the ‘ultimate authority will still be with the gathered Meeting’.
Most QSC work, she said, was focused on providing support, advice and training for treasurers and trustees to enable them ‘to meet the requirements of charity law in their stewardship of finance and property’ and in ‘encouraging openness, accountability, transparency and integrity in all our affairs’.
She highlighted the tremendous work being done by trustees and treasurers on behalf of the Religious Society of Friends who, she said, worked very much ‘in the background’.
The written report was in three sections: Quaker Stewardship Committee and the role of trustees; how QSC helps Friends and Meetings; and current areas of interest. It asked Meeting for Sufferings to consider three questions: What more can QSC and Area Meetings (AMs) do to ensure that trustees and treasurers receive the support they need? Would making wider central use of the information in trustees annual reports and accounts be a worthwhile allocation of BYM’s resources? How can QSC best prompt a wider conversation to ensure that BYM’s governance structures are sustainable in the long term?
A Friend said ‘some Area Meetings were struggling to find trustees’ and that trustees in some areas were ‘running out of steam’.
Another Friend commended the scope of the report. He suggested that ‘regular reminders would be very useful’, such as news of relevant courses, and wider use of ‘model reports and the setting out of accounts would be most helpful’ for AM trustees and treasurers.
A Friend praised the work done at the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre and described the courses she had attended as ‘very inclusive and informative’.
Another Friend spoke in a positive, energetic, tone and enthused those present: ‘I would like someone to be proactive and go out to Area Meetings and explain the joys of being a trustee and how we do things.’
Then she added a stinging note of realism: ‘If we are not more proactive the future will be bleak. There is a big decline in trust in the structures of Quakerism. We need to change and we need to change quickly.’
A constructive comment was made by a Friend who recommended the ‘use of outside agencies’ when appropriate and who felt this idea ‘could be shared more widely’. The Committee and Quaker Life were thanked for the high quality of material produced to help trustees and treasurers, particularly ‘the information on employment law and data protection.’
A Friend hinted at the tension that existed in some places between trustees and Area Meetings. There was a ‘them and us’ attitude. Trustees, a Friend said, needed strong feedback.
Several Friends cited examples of Meetings where photographs had been combined with engaging text in a report and said this had been an excellent outreach tool in the local community. The imaginative presentation of information was a way ‘of allowing us to talk about what we do and to learn what others are doing’. It was felt Friends could ‘make better use of our reports across Area Meetings and Britain Yearly Meeting’. The idea was commended.
A Friend wondered if ‘not appointing trustees’ and not being a charity was an option. Would it offer more freedom to ‘do it our way’ and lobby?
This suggestion received a robust response. A representative informed Sufferings that ‘not appointing trustees was not an option’ and the recording clerk strongly reinforced this statement.
The Society, Paul Parker explained, ‘had to be something’ and not being a charity had profound implications for money and property. There were compelling reasons why the Society became a charity in 2005. They remained. The Society is not precluded from lobbying as eighteen months ago it registered as a ‘lobbying group’.
He thanked Friends for the work they were doing and encouraged them to ‘share success stories’. We need, he said, to communicate more with each other.
You need to login to read subscriber-only content and/or comment on articles.