Work and worship
Deborah Rowlands tells the story of Meeting of Friends in Wales
I remember vividly the first Meeting of Friends in Wales held in 1992, in Llanwrtyd, just across the mountain from me. It was experimental, it was new, but it had a clear role to play on behalf of Friends throughout Wales. I wanted to be involved! Ever since then I have found this body the most natural place to live out my faith. I have grown immeasurably by working alongside Friends who show commitment, faithfulness and energy in routine tasks, which keep the Meeting going, and in taking on new challenges.
A Committee for Quaker Work in Wales had been active since the early 1980s, translating material into Welsh and ensuring that Friends were represented on Welsh bodies when appropriate. Then, out of a General Meeting for Wales held in 1989, a strong sense emerged that Quaker work and witness in Wales would benefit from being held within a Gathered Meeting, which could test and promote the concerns of Friends.
So, Meeting for Sufferings set up an ad hoc group, including representatives of those Monthly Meetings that had Local Meetings in Wales, plus some from other Meetings. It would make recommendations about how such a body might be constituted – whether a General Meeting to replace the General Meetings which at that time included parts of Wales, or a new body which overlaid the existing structure.
Some Friends saw it as rather a messy solution, but Meeting for Friends in Wales started as an experimental body in 1992. It was reviewed in 1996, by which time, and with devolution around the corner, it had established its place in the structures and attracted a strong band of committed Friends. The Meeting adopted a slight change of name, which expressed the sense that this was ours, not done for us. It became, Meeting of Friends in Wales (MFW).
Thus, in 1997 MFW was ready to welcome residential Yearly Meeting to Aberystwyth, and produced its first book, Mae’r Gân yn y Galon, Quakers in Wales Today, which painted a picture of what it meant to live as Friends in this part of Britain. It would not be its last book. In 2013 and 2014, with financial support from Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, we produced a DVD and YouTube video, in Welsh, subtitled in English, on Living the Quaker Way, Y Ffordd Dawel? and two books of contemporary writing by Friends in Wales, Tua’r Tarddiad, and Towards the Source. Still available to buy, they are outreach tools, which can also be an ‘in-reach’ resource among Friends.
‘A Vision for Wales’
Having a Welsh Quaker body that could relate clearly to churches in Wales had been one of the triggers for creating the new body. Through MFW, Quakers have played a full and active role within Cytûn (Churches Together in Wales) since its inception. Friends were active in securing funding for an ecumenical liaison officer, for the newly formed National Assembly of Wales in 1998.
We have worked closely with successive officers in promoting Quaker witness at the Assembly. We have a representative on the Cytûn committee of Church and Society policy officers, which has an eye to Assembly legislation and its effects. MFW’s Wales Focus Group helps to discern when and how to respond to public events. In 2015, a day long workshop called ‘A Vision for Wales’ helped to set some direction for our witness.
The Meeting has responsibility for outreach, taking account of two languages in Wales (Quaker faith & practice 5.04/5.05). Consequently, we need to ensure additional bilingual or Welsh language resources, and be a witness to cultural institutions in Wales. We regularly staffed a tent at the geographically shifting National Eisteddfod, first in our own right, but more recently working with other churches in the Cytûn space, to provide an ecumenical welcome, taking responsibility for a Quiet Corner and holding Meetings for Worship.
Two years ago MFW began providing an annual Quaker lecture at this week-long Welsh language event. Similar witness has extended to the Royal Welsh Show, which is held in Llanelwedd each July, with our awareness of the rural nature of much of Wales. The commitment to such work grows and will continue: this year we supported Quaker Life’s first venture into the Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts, with its potential to reach considerable numbers.
How welcoming were our own Meetings, though? In 2000 MFW adopted a concern about inclusion. Might the challenge of working in two languages illuminate our practices more broadly? The Prosiect Croeso Ysbrydol / Spiritual Hospitality Project, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, drew together a small group, coordinated by Stevie Krayer, to examine these questions, not only within Wales but in other bilingual communities across Europe and beyond.
The ensuing report, entitled Opening the Door (2003) continues to resonate for Friends. Yearly Meeting Gathering this year showed us (Minute 38) that it is a shared concern, which has not gone away. As one Friend in Wales put it:
I remember reading this [report] about six months after it was first printed. And I remember feeling ashamed and embarrassed about our Quaker Meeting house. I was librarian then (still am!) and immediately had all the labels/notices made bilingual. We refreshed our leaflets, made welcome packs – did all sorts of other things because of Spiritual Hospitality. Not that we were unfriendly or uncaring before. It was just that Spiritual Hospitality made us all think beyond the norm where welcoming and being inclusive was concerned. I think Spiritual Hospitality is top of my list for changes that have come about through MFW.
In 2004, in response to a recommendation from the Spiritual Hospitality Project, the Meeting set up a group to examine the feasibility of employing a part-time administrator. Two years later a grant from Britain Yearly Meeting, which recognised the responsibilities MFW carried on its behalf, led to the appointment of Jules Montgomery, who has brought a flair for design, diligence in routine tasks and a Friendly enabling spirit to MFW ever since.
One of her earliest tasks was to create a website to enable an outward facing presence in both languages and communication amongst ourselves. This supplements the MFW newsletter, Calon (meaning Heart in Welsh), which carries high quality articles, reports and information in both languages.
MFW meetings move around Wales, often using community halls and church premises. There are few Quaker Meeting houses. One former clerk described her time as ‘a blur of good venues, meeting lots of Friends, and making sure the business got done’. Sustainability, peace, advocacy, forced migration and sanctuary have featured regularly in the programme over the years, as well as our position within the wider Yearly Meeting in Britain, and the tasks we have been given.
As well as day meetings, residential meetings have been a treasured part of the calendar. Friends of all ages have got to know one another well through sailing together on Lake Bala and walks along the cliffs at Llangrannog, as well as through song, dancing and poetry.
Challenges
There have been challenges around borders too. In 2005, the RECAST report, which looked at structures throughout the Yearly Meeting, recommended that Monthly Meetings in Wales should have borders coterminous with the Welsh border, to align the structure more clearly with present-day political reality.
Some bold proposals were put forward. Might Meeting of Friends in Wales become the trustee body for the whole of Wales? Might Local Meetings gather in smaller clusters than current Area Meetings to ensure mutual support and care for membership matters? How might lines of communication between Local Meetings and MFW be made clearer? Quakers along the Welsh/English border joined in the conversation. Would there be change to neighbouring Area Meetings?
In the end the only tangible change was that out of Hereford & Mid-Wales Area Meeting, two new Area Meetings, Mid Wales and Southern Marches, were formed. However, the process helped to define respective roles more clearly, and regular get-togethers of clerks and clerks of trustees were set up to support one another in good practice, and enable a Wales-wide perspective.
Meeting of Friends in Wales continues to have plenty to do! All Friends who live or worship in Wales can count MFW as theirs, regardless of the border and with representation in Meeting for Sufferings, Quaker Life Representative Council and Quaker Committee for Christian and Interfaith Relations (QCCIR), it has been able to ensure that a distinctive Welsh voice can be heard. We need to reappraise regularly, of course, but MFW gives us a Spirit-led place to discern how to act together.
As one Friend has put it: ‘My greatest joy has been the experience of being part of business meetings that open with silence and finish with gratitude.’
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