Northumbria rejig
Northumbria Area Meeting is giving itself a makeover
Friends in the northern county have decided to trial a new format to make their Area Meetings (AMs) more attractive to those who never go. There will only be four AMs per year, held on Sundays, with a new working group meeting monthly to progress routine business matters. However, these meetings will be open to Friends.
The new AMs will have a strongly social theme, with home-made lunches and teas, entertaining speakers, interesting spiritual events and local sightseeing within the day-long meetings. Visiting Friends will be encouraged to stay overnight beforehand with local Friends in order to attend the host’s Meeting for Worship.
The new AM business will be linked to the priorities in the ‘Framework for Action’ produced by British Quakers and particularly to the three charitable aims of the Society – strengthening our spiritual roots, promoting Quakerism and witnessing to our faith in action.
Local Meetings will be ‘twinned’ for the trial – a host will be supported by another Meeting and the following year they will swap places.
Alnwick Meeting is currently compiling a review of what Meetings in the area are already doing which relates to the Framework.
Local Meetings will only have to host an AM once every two years, so they can make it the special event that Northumbria is looking for in the future.
