Meeting for Sufferings: Sufferings to include four places for Young Adult Friends
Meeting for Sufferings has approved an experiment to include four new places for Friends under thirty-five for the remainder of the triennium
Friends enthusiastically welcomed a proposal to create four places reserved for Young Adult Friends (YAFs), aged under thirty-five, at Meeting for Sufferings for the remainder of the current triennium.
Naomi Major, the project officer for the Engaging Young Adult Quaker (EYAQ) project, spoke to Meeting for Sufferings about the proposal.
She described this experiment as a temporary arrangement to raise awareness of Meeting for Sufferings within the YAF community and hopes that it ‘serves as a stepping stone’ to future involvement.
One Friend asked whether eligibility for YAFs would be restricted to those in membership of the Religious Society of Friends, and queried whether it would require a constitutional change if not.
The response emphasised the temporary nature of the proposal (which will be reviewed after the triennium comes to an end) and highlighted that association with Young Friends General Meeting (YFGM), not membership of the Society, was enough for Meeting for Sufferings when a YFGM representative is appointed.
Management Meeting was cited as another example of precedent: all members of Management Meeting are members of Meeting for Sufferings, but not all members of Management Meeting are members of the Society.
One Friend, who had been co-opted onto Sufferings as a Young Friend thirty-five years ago, told the Meeting that it would be ‘shooting ourselves in the foot’ if the pool of potential Young Friends eligible to serve were to be narrowed.
The current YFGM representative ministered support for the proposal and spoke of how it can be lonely in their position. The Friend expressed the hope that the appointment of four more YAFs could ‘really start a conversation’.
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