Meetings for Sufferings: Linking Friends worldwide
Meeting for Sufferings heard from the Quaker World Relations Committee
Working collaboratively is at the heart of the mission of the Quaker World Relations Committee (QWRC), Friends attending Meeting for Sufferings were told when they gathered in the William Penn Room on Saturday 1 April.
Barbara Windle, the QWRC representative to Meeting for Sufferings, presented a paper on the work of the group in the afternoon session. She described some of the many ways in which the committee was enriching understanding between Friends worldwide and helping Quakers in Britain take an interest in issues around the globe.
The committee membership of eight includes six representatives from Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM)to the Friends World Committee on Consultation (FWCC) and two co-clerks of the QWRC Forum and Network.
The reconstituted committee, Barbara Windle explained, now has two years’ experience. She told Sufferings that the specific tasks required of it had been undertaken. These included deepening relations between Friends in Britain and other Yearly Meetings, holding an annual consultative Forum, furthering Quaker witness through collaboration with FWCC and intervisitation, working on building community, and responding to the concerns of other Yearly Meetings.
The report, she said, looked back at key activities in the past year and looked forward to plans for the coming year. It also included the consideration of queries for Sufferings.
Barbara Windle said that one of the key responsibilities of the committee is to encourage intervisitation, when Quakers from different parts of the world meet face to face. It was important to bear in mind actual and opportunity costs, and to consider the carbon footprint any intervisitation might involve. It was, she said, a ‘matter of judgement’ and she described how a decision was made to send the younger members of the committee to Peru for the world gathering in 2016.
She highlighted the benefits and increasing use of ‘virtual visiting’ and gave some examples.
‘We are very mindful’, the report states, ‘of our purpose of enriching understanding between Friends worldwide and engaging Quakers in Britain in Quaker issues and concerns around the globe.’
The World Relations Network was created, she explained, ‘to encourage and develop a sense of a world beyond these shores.’
The committee will have a residential meeting in York over the final weekend in September. There will also be an internationally focussed meeting as part of the event with York Friends. It is hoped that this will be a model for an annual event with BYM Friends in different parts of the country each year.
Barbara Windle said that the committee would be delighted to received interest from Friends who might like to offer hospitality to world Friends when they were visiting Britain.
A Friend supported the use of international Skype. She described how an Experiment with Light group of nine had linked up via the Internet across continents: ‘it works beautifully. I commend that way of meeting between Friends.’
Another Friend thanked Friends for their work with the committee and also endorsed the use of the Internet to aid communication between Friends across the globe.
