Meeting for Sufferings: The Canterbury Commitment: where do Friends go now?
Meeting for Sufferings heard the report of the group appointed to review the work of the Britain Yearly Meeting Sustainability Group
A key item in the morning session of Meeting for Sufferings on Saturday 7 April was the report of the group appointed to review the work of the Britain Yearly Meeting Sustainability Group (BYMSG).
The purpose of the BYMSG, which was set up as a working group of Meeting for Sufferings in October 2014, is to oversee and encourage progress in relation to the commitment made at Yearly Meeting 2011 in Canterbury to become a low-carbon sustainable community.
Jane Stephenson, clerk of the Review Group, said it was made up of four Friends and set up in April 2017. She talked about its terms of reference and how it had gone about its report – consulting as widely as possible: from committees to Area and Local Meetings, and individual Friends. She explained that it had been tasked with considering improvements that could be made and whether the BYMSG was the most effective way to oversee and encourage progress in becoming a low-carbon sustainable community.
The review group acknowledged the hard work of the BYMSG and its achievements, such as successful gatherings, including a special interest meeting at Yearly Meeting Gathering in 2015, and the commitment by trustees to write sustainability into the terms of reference of central and standing committees.
It also stressed the progress made by the board of the Hospitality Company in reducing the carbon emissions of Friends House and the appointment of a position at the Quaker United Nations Office in Geneva. However, it stated that ‘the work of the Group appears to have been beset by confusion, frustration and poor communication on all sides’ and highlighted a ‘lack of clarity in relation to its authority’ and that the group ‘sits outside the Quaker structure’.
One of the key recommendations in the report was to lay down the BYMSG. More ‘shared ownership’ of the commitment was to be encouraged as well as a special meeting planned for later this year that would include a wide range of participants – such as Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW), Quaker Life Central Committee (QLCC), BYM trustees, representatives of Sufferings, the board of Friends House (London) Hospitality Ltd and members of the Sustainability Group – to decide how the commitment should be brought forward.
It was recognised ‘that the review has raised wider issues, one of which is the relationship between the centre and outside’. The move towards a low-carbon community can, it was stressed, be a ‘joyful process’ and not one that is just about ‘hair shirts’.
A Scottish Friend described the report as ‘exemplary’ and recognised the good work that had been done on the concern. However, he said he was troubled that in laying it down one merely ran ‘the risk of recreating the situation we have today’.
A Welsh Friend shared these concerns and recommended that no time limit should be made on laying down the BYMSG. Another Friend reiterated the need for a strong spiritual basis for the commitment and said: ‘Friends do not like being told what to do and in the absence of a clear spiritual basis I wonder if we need to be clearer on this. This would enable Friends to unite behind it more than we have so far.’
A Friend said he was ‘disquieted’ by the ‘lack of oomf’ in the report and what he had heard. The Canterbury minute, he stressed, was ‘seminal’ and yet Sufferings was hearing of ‘limited resources’.
He said: ‘I feel that minute 36 needs to be central to our work. It needs serious resources. We seem lost for what to do’.
Another Friend, experienced in the area, reminded those present: ‘We are not different from other groups in struggling with these issues. There are Friends who feel that they have the answer and want to push it and others who do not want to look. We are all part of the problem. There is dividedness within each of us alongside the outer dividedness. It is hard. It is not surprising we get stuck.’
He believed that the issue of sustainability is the most important one Friends have had to deal with in recent times.
A Friend, who worked as a specialist in the area, said: ‘The way we are struggling is not unlike other large organisations. There is absolutely a place for a single group outside the official structures.’ He felt it was important to have groups ‘at the edge’ and said that in time these ‘pressure groups hit the buffers’ and suggested that was the case and if ‘we are ready to own it at the core of the organisation, we should do it adventurously’.
Lis Birch, speaking as clerk to the BYMSG, said that Friends needed to be bold. She highlighted a concern mentioned several times in the report – that the BYMSG was ‘outside the existing structures’.
She continued with energy and passion: ‘It’s shameful. We have a Yearly Meeting concern. A group was set up. How do we come to think of this group as on the outside of the structures? Why can’t that work?’
‘We have set up,’ she said, ‘committees and staff to effectively “outrank” the Sustainability Group. This is more Kafka than Quaker’ and cited the fact that it had taken twelve months for a requested meeting with Friends House staff to actually happen ‘and even then it was not a dialogue’. She explained that her experience had prompted her to ask: ‘Are you going to shoot the messenger or heed the message?’
She said it was ‘right that climate change should be embedded. The major problem is how we work with the existing Britain Yearly Meeting work plan. It is shocking that it has taken so long to get existing structures to incorporate’ the concern.
She expressed concern that ‘money could be found for secular and political concerns’ and yet, she felt, the Sustainability Group related to a major Yearly Meeting commitment ‘to our faith and our lives’. She stressed that Meeting for Sufferings had a responsibility and said: ‘Area Meetings – it’s your responsibility for reaching members, and if you do this Meeting after Meeting, year after year, it could work.’
Lis Birch explained: ‘In the last twenty years, there have been at least five groups that have tried to promote sustainability and, one after another, they have been laid down. Why? We set up groups and, when they find a voice, they are laid down. This is not a pattern and example to follow. We must look to new ways of working.’
She said that ‘there should be a thorough review of our structures, including central structures, and including our centrally managed work. We must be prepared to review our structures. You have to be clear what love requires of us now.’
A Friend agreed that the commitment to sustainability was on the same level as the testimony to peace: ‘I recognise it as a corporate commitment, an area where we definitely need a leading. That can only come from those who have studied. Our willingness to change is a really important part of our being Quakers.’
A Friend who was on the Quaker Life Central Committee said that ‘quite a bit of time’ had been spent ‘considering how we can bring sustainability into our work. There is a willingness.’
However, he added that the bit ‘disturbing us most is what is happening at Local Meetings. We need to find a way of recreating the power and inspiration of the large gathering and of some of the speakers we have heard this morning’.
A Friend said she was ‘flabbergasted’ to read a yellow page made available to Friends attending Sufferings. It was a minute written by the Sustainability Group that contained a response to the review report. It represented the Group’s thoughts on the report and she said she was surprised their views seemed not have been incorporated in the report.
A Friend, who had years of experience in industry, said: ‘If you have tried something five times and failed then there is something deeply wrong with your culture. It will not be technical. What is it that has caused this to fail five times? This needs to be addressed.’
A draft minute was presented after lunch. It reaffirmed the commitment to sustainability, affirmed the spiritual basis of the concern, highlighted the need for leadership, mentioned the four recommendations of the Review Group, but was ‘unable to unite to lay the Sustainability Group down’ and recommended the subject ‘be developed further’.
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