Trustees: creating time and space
Peter Ullathorne describes the first national trusteeship conference
‘A remarkably rich experience’ was how one trustee described her experience of trusteeship at the first national conference of Area Meeting (AM) trustees, held at Woodbrooke recently. Around seventy Friends from AMs throughout Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM), including members of Quaker Stewardship Committee, spent a thought-provoking time together covering trustee experiences to date and opportunities for future development in this relatively new type of service.
In her keynote address, Christine Davis spoke of the role of trustees in taking on some of the burdens of Area Meeting to free it for the deep discernment that is its most important role.
She talked of the spring-cleaning that trustees had achieved over the past few years, sorting out papers and legal anomalies, throwing light on superfluous tasks, remembering that today’s treasure is tomorrow’s junk. AMs need to know that someone understands the law and is dealing with its requirements, while remaining quite clearly part of the Area Meeting.
The conference had started with small groups comparing experiences of the first few years – with some participants from registered Area Meetings, and some not yet at that stage. The broad range of approaches and styles of organising relationships in AMs was perhaps one of the most surprising aspects. Although the standard governing document was in place in most registered Meetings, the actual relationship between trustees, Area Meeting and Local Meetings (LMs) was varied. The model of centralising all property and financial matters was in contrast to areas where LMs are relatively self-sustaining and financially independent. But each had their tensions.
An important part of the conference was sharing ideas, both formally and informally. Small group discussions gathered together trustees with similar interests in topics such as larger Area Meetings with staff, Meetings with related charities, the burden of property on some small Meetings, small and scattered Meetings, and relationship issues.
Relationships, and the personal factors involved in being together in the Quaker community, were the subject of much reflection. We need to ensure trustees, AMs and LMs are moving together as one entity in unity. We need to deal with each other sensitively in Quakerly ways to build trust and allay people’s fears.
On the Saturday evening Friends gathered in small groups to consider a humorous account of the (fictional but all too recognisable) goings-on in the ‘Midsommer Area Meeting’, and to reflect on how they would present these in the Trustees’ Annual Report. We were reminded that our annual reports were now public documents, available to anyone on the Charity Commission website, and therefore represented a great opportunity for outreach and conveying the Quaker message – an example of speaking out in the world.
It was evident that trustees were at the beginning of a very necessary job of clearing past problems, and creating new opportunities for our Area Meetings; freed from much of the burden of budgets and reports, they could claim the visionary role, linking with Friends throughout BYM through Meeting for Sufferings’ new approach, facing up to issues in the world rather than constantly looking at our internal arrangements.
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