Wigton Meeting House: shedding light
An apology and explanation
Every Meeting house is a place of many precious memories. It is also a landmark and a symbol. So the decision to lay down a Meeting, and sell a Meeting house, is not one taken lightly. It is done with a heavy heart. There are Quaker ways of laying down a Meeting and disposing of its property. These have been carefully discerned over centuries. Last week an article was published on the third page of the Friend about the laying down of Wigton Meeting and the sale of Wigton Meeting House. It contained some significant inaccuracies and omissions. In a letter on page eight some wholly unfounded, derogatory allegations about North Cumbria Area Meeting (NCAM) trustees were also made. They were untrue. The Friend apologises unreservedly to the trustees of the Area Meeting.
The Managing Trustees
North Cumbria Area Meeting
Wigton Meeting House write:
Some of the relevant facts are as follows: Wigton Local Meeting (LM) was laid down at its own request. Full details can be found in the appendix to the NCAM Trustees’ Report for 2009 (see ).
The date and the time of the Special Area Meeting where it was decided to lay down Wigton LM were arranged – as was the venue in Wigton – to suit Wigton Friends and attenders. Two of the signatories of the letter published agreed to that date and time but then either arrived very late, or did not come at all, and subsequently complained that the timing was inconvenient.
Wigton Friends Meeting House (FMH) is owned by the North Cumbria Area Meeting Quaker Trust (NCAM). To suggest therefore that trustees ‘sequestered’ money relating to the Meeting house is untrue and defamatory since they are the lawful owners. Since Wigton LM was part of NCAM, any residual funds were rightly transferred on its demise.
The name plate was removed, as were details from the website, because the Meeting for Worship had been properly laid down.
Only one of the signatories is a member. Four of the other signatories came infrequently to Meeting for Worship before Wigton Local Business Meeting asked for it to be laid down. The fifth person first started attending in January of this year, after that decision had been taken.
The movement of furniture from Carlisle Meeting House during its refurbishment was announced well in advance by letter, and with the intention of causing as little disruption as possible. There are a number of rooms at Wigton FMH and far more space than is used. The letter closed by asking the group to contact the clerk of trustees if what was proposed was inconvenient. It did not do this.
However, during the previous week persons unknown and unauthorised changed the combination on the locks, preventing entry to the building by the trustees and legitimate persons like our cleaner. Trustees then said that unless the new combination was made known to them the police would be informed. Only then did one of the signatories tell the trustees what the number was.
Some of the people involved on the day when police were called were neither Quakers nor former attenders, but people with no connection at all with Quakerism.
Area Meeting (AM) has on a number of occasions asked the group if they wished to apply to AM for Local Meeting status, as laid down in Quaker faith & practice (Qf&p), but they have not done so.
AM has also suggested to them on a number of occasions that they should follow the procedure laid down in Qf&p 4.25 (fourth edition) for resolving disputes, but they have never done so. Instead they instructed solicitors to write to the Trustees.
The group has been physically and prayerfully supported by elders and Friends from the other North Cumbria Local Meetings. The Wigton LM’s initial request to be laid down was delayed for six months at the behest of AM, during which time members of other Meetings attended faithfully, giving support in the hope that the Meeting for Worship might be sustained. It was only after this – at the special AM held in Wigton in October last year – that the decision was taken to accede to Wigton’s wishes, as determined through their Local Business Meeting, and lay the Meeting down.
In spite of all this the trustees continue to allow the informal worshipping group to use the building on Sunday mornings free of charge, in accordance with the wishes of the Area Meeting. At other times they are welcome to use it under the same conditions as any other group, providing they seek the permission of the trustees and book it in advance.
Comments
I have been a member of the Society for nearly Forty years, and during that time there has apparently a policy of closing and/or disposing of Meeting Houses. On two occasions I and my family have offered our own resources to protect Meeting Houses going back to the 18th Century, (or earlier). One of those would have been our Meeting House as it is only a few miles from our homes. On each occasion I have received abuse, and false accusations and I have left the meeting in tears. There is a small group, in Monthly Meeting, that appears not believe in the Society owning property, these disputes have been going on since the 1960’s. In sadness, Ron Drew.
By Clattering.ford on 26th September 2010 - 23:02
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