Things are getting worse, please send chocolate…
A report on a conference to inspire small Meetings
The weather couldn’t have been worse as I drove towards Birmingham. Heavy grey clouds added to the gloom and the windscreen wipers were struggling. I was struggling to remain positive, too. ‘Why am I doing this?’ I thought. The title of the Woodbrooke course didn’t lift me. ‘Inspiring small Meetings’, ‘No pressure there then’, I grumbled.
But Woodbrooke and the people you meet there are very special and never fail to lift the spirits. Two days later, driving home, I realised that, once again, Woodbrooke had worked its magic and I was buzzing with ideas. In two days I had changed from feeling, ‘If only we were a large Meeting, we’d have lots of people to do all the things that need doing’. Now I felt, ‘How fortunate we are to be a small Meeting. It may be hard to find people to do things but at least we all contribute as best we can. We know each other so well. We have a lot to be grateful for’.
People had travelled to Woodbrooke from far and wide (from Guernsey to Tobermory!). Some Meetings had their own premises, many met in people’s homes. We faced different challenges. Course leaders Lizz Roe and Michael Booth encouraged us to focus on our hopes, rather than our fears.
We were given advice as to how to reach out to the community. For example, bring someone to Meeting – most new Quakers have been brought by a friend. Also, interestingly, target the age group only ten years younger than the average age of your members; if most of you are in your fifties, don’t expect to attract young families.
We were taught how communities feel nurtured, through sharing celebrations, expressing friendship, working and learning together and sharing spiritual journeys.
Finally, we were encouraged to develop a vision for our own particular Meetings and work out what we could hope to achieve over the next three months/one year/three years. We were encouraged to be realistic. For example, ‘fix the toilet in the gents’ would be easy, ‘find three new members’ might be hard, and to focus our energy on what would benefit the Meeting the most. We were even given ideas as to what we could do if our Meeting got ‘stuck’.
In the introductory session, a postcard seemed to ‘speak’ to most of us. It said, ‘Things are getting worse, send chocolate’. The thought of chocolate, and the actual taste of it, fortified us more than once when energy levels were dropping. If energy levels are dropping in your small Meeting, just put your name down the next time Woodbrooke runs this course. You don’t even have to go to them, they will come to you and run it as part of the Woodbrooke-on-the-Road programme. I can promise you won’t be disappointed. I can’t promise you’ll get chocolate but, travel hopefully, and you might!
