'Almost 2,150 people had registered, including 430 attenders, while sixty-five young people had signed up for the Children and Young People’s Programme.' Photo: Clare Scott Booth, courtesy BYM
Yearly Meeting Gathering (YMG), 2021
‘We are not seeking a consensus, we are seeking the will of God.’
Session One
‘We are not seeking a consensus, we are seeking the will of God,’ Friends were told at Session One, as 545 screens were filled. This reading (from Quaker faith & practice 2.89) set the tone for the session, which Clare Scott Booth, clerk of Yearly Meeting (YM), introduced before nominations were formally appointed (these included Siobhan Haire of North London Area Meeting (AM) as first assistant clerk, and Adwoa Bittle of East Scotland AM as second). The gathering so far had been a ‘rich tapestry of opportunities’, said Clare (see ‘Fringe and preparatory’, page 11). Almost 2,150 people had registered, including 430 attenders, while sixty-five young people had signed up for the Children and Young People’s Programme.
Adwoa then read out nominations (‘the most beautiful of Quaker work’), and invited Friends to ‘very passionately’ consider nominating Friends to serve on Yearly Meeting Group 2021-22. Bridget Dunbar, from Agenda Committee, described her first ten days, saying that while she missed the chance to socialise, the online format had made her more ‘productive’.
Siobhan Haire set out the overall theme when she read the Yearly Meeting Agenda Committe report, and said the intention was to explore: ‘Anti-racism: our Quaker journey (can Quakers commit to being an actively anti-racist church?)’; ‘Acknowledging and welcoming gender diversity’; and ‘Faith-based action for climate justice’.
One of the challenges for Agenda Committee, said Siobhan, was to bring ‘issues of concern’, while also allowing for ‘fellowship’. ‘This requires us to bring the best of ourselves. So we can be generous when someone uses an awkward turn of phrase… To test ourselves rigorously… and humbly consider that we might be wrong.’
A Community Agreement had been introduced. There was ‘a growing sense that we need to do more than rely on good intentions’.
In worship, a Friend ministered on the risk of ‘othering’: ‘Sometimes it’s very hard to see that of God in people who hold views or perform actions that we find unpleasant… but I too can perform actions and hold views that are not ones that I would like to accept’.
Another Friend took inspiration from Jesus’ words which were ‘always for comfort and discomfort’.
The session ended powerfully with one Friend saying: ‘I feel a sense of anger. If we place ourselves in the centre and see others as the margins, we cannot walk in another’s shoes.’ She described talking to a young person of colour about the Bristol statue (of slave trader Edward Colston) who said: ‘It is not your opinion on statues that matters. You’ve had the privilege of deciding for us. Now shut up and let us decide for you.’
In this gathering, ‘we are being challenged to stop looking at the world from where we are sitting’ but look at it from others’ perspectives. ‘And that is an enormously big challenge,’ she said.
Session Two
Experimentation was the buzzword at Session Two, which started with ministry reflecting on the word ‘discernment’. ‘I hope and pray that this Yearly Meeting will have the courage to distinguish that which is of God and that which is of not,’ said an East of England Friend, noting that the word in Latin means ‘to separate and set apart’, not everything being ‘sacred and worthy’.
Sue Tyldesley and Yvonne Wood, convenors of the YM Pastoral Care Group, told Friends not to be afraid to ask for help. We may be ‘isolated in our homes’, they said, after ‘a difficult year’, and the large gathering may bring ‘difficult emotions’, as well as joy. Taking part in YM is for ‘our comfort and discomfort’, noted Yvonne Wood. ‘This will be a learning experience for all… with mutual upholding.’
Denise Gabuzda, clerk of Ireland Yearly Meeting, read the epistle from their April gathering, underlining questions such as: ‘What are we doing to confront the difficult issue of the lack of diversity in our worshipping communities?’
Margaret Bryan, clerk of Meeting for Sufferings (MfS), then read the MfS report, drawing out three srtands: recommendations accepted from Arrangements Group in the way of working; bringing to a conclusion the subject of assisted dying; and a review of the type of work done in our name, which included hearing from Quaker Life and Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW).
Much of the ministry focused on what one Friend described as the ‘creative tension’ between MfS and trustees. One Quaker asked the clerk to ‘reflect on the relationship… which is something I know those in AMs are a little worried about’. Margaret responded that certainly the relationship was ‘key’. ‘There is a tension between a situation in which MfS is there to provide the vision and that vision is bound to be limited by practical considerations… held together by the trustees and the staff of YM… so it always has to tread the right balance.’
A Cambridgeshire Friend wondered if Sufferings meets ‘sufficiently often to do all its work’ and suggested meeting via Zoom more frequently and for varying lengths, including ‘the long sessions needed for discernment’. Margaret agreed wholeheartedly that ‘the timetable we need has to be available; 2020 has been nothing short of continual experimentation’. Zoom had enabled them to ‘spread meetings out.’
Another Friend said how ‘exciting’ it was to see ‘this sense of a continuing experiment’ which ‘fits so well with the Quaker notion of being comfortable with uncertainty’.
‘Kingston & Wandsworth AM have had a concern for some time about the relationship between trustees and MfS,’ said one representative. ‘So I’m glad that we’ve heard of developments such as giving more time to Sufferings and having a chance to hear before trustees make a decision.’
Margaret Bryan thanked Friends for ‘all the challenging and appreciative things they have said’. With Arrangements Committee now planning for the next triennium, ‘we are continuing to experiment… The first thing is to acknowledge there is a problem… We have to bear in mind that there is no perfect way to do this… There are things we do well and things we could do better. So awareness is our motto for the next three years’.
Session Three
Anti-racism was the focus of Session Three, which posed the question: ‘Are we ready to commit to being an anti-racist faith community?’
Over 500 Friends gathered, having had opportunities to take part in a number of preparatory events. Clerk Clare Scott Booth introduced them to two visitors with experience of anti-racism work: Richard Reddie, director of justice and inclusion for Churches Together in Britain and Ireland; and Paul Goodliff, general secretary of Churches Together in England.
Liz Brooks, a member of YM Agenda Committee, delivered prepared ministry that gave a context for the discernment before the Meeting. She spoke of previous discernment on racism by YM and MfS, highlighting that ‘this work is not new, and it is evolving’. She read the minute from December 2020’s MfS: ‘Our testimonies to equality and truth demand that we engage in a drive towards real change, turning our declared intentions into reality. We are called to commit to becoming an actively anti-racist church.’
Liz continued: ‘So why bring this matter back to Yearly Meeting in session now? It is so all Friends can own it. It is not enough to agree a minute. We need to live this with our whole being.’
Deeply moving ministry followed, with Friends sharing pain and vulnerability. One Friend considered how the Society welcomes Friends of minority experiences. ‘We are not entitled to the pain and trauma of others’, they said, urging Friends not to put the responsibility for educating white Friends about racial justice on the shoulders of Friends of colour, but to ‘educate ourselves’, and to ‘listen with grace’.
A member of the Friends with Jewish Connections group wondered whether antisemitism would be included in anti-racism work. They also ministered about how people are in ‘different places in landscapes of trauma, and power, and privilege’ and the need for everyone to recognise their own privilege, but also ‘how somebody who has suffered and is in a different place in the system will feel [us] as part of that system of oppression’.
Ministry was then offered by one Friend which visibly shook them and others: ‘All I want, and all I have wanted for the longest time, is to feel equal and, again, here, in this room, I don’t. I hear people talk all week about George Floyd but we are here now, in the UK, in your Meetings, feeling like outsiders every day. This is not the experience I was promised.’
Another Friend spoke of their experience as someone with ‘dual heritage who passes as white’: ‘[I have] often been in the company of casual racist comments… I didn’t know how vigilant I had been in Meeting for Worship over the last thirty years until I attended Meeting for Worship for black people and Jewish Friends… it was the first time I was able to be deeply with my own experience and I’m not sure we are ready for the journey ahead.’
The readiness of the Society concerned Friends, with one sharing that ‘I don’t think I know, and I don’t think we as a church know, how to be anti-racist’. Another said ‘I’m committed to taking the steps necessary along the route to becoming an anti-racist church’ and hoped framing the commitment this way might reassure those who do not feel confident.
Further ministry emphasised the spiritual imperative being felt: ‘We may not be ready, we may not feel that we’re ready, but this is a step we need to take, in faith and trust that the Spirit will show us what we need to do.’
Another Friend challenged the Meeting with ‘If not now, when?’ and acknowledged that the work will not be easy, but ‘this is not about us’. Referring to the Friend who ministered about not feeling equal, they said: ‘[She was] very clear and very honest, we too must be that kind of Quaker, and I’m proud to have her amongst us.’
Session Four
Almost 350 Friends gathered for Session Four, to hear rich and moving ministry that seemed to bring some Zoom faces to tears. A Friend from Scotland began by quoting the song ‘Where have all the flowers gone?’ invoking the ‘beautiful flowers of the spirit, the soul, the body of the earth’.
The nature theme returned with one Friend talking about her ‘sometimes rather wild and overgrown garden’ which occasionally needed ‘pruning’ or ‘pulling up’.
There was a prophetic note struck when one Friend shared his previous night’s vision: ‘I saw us all in the Meeting House in Euston, a great people gathered… and I heard Jesus say to Francis of Assisi, “Go and rebuild my church, which you see is in ruins”.’ Francis was mentioned again when a Cambridgeshire Friend said she drew comfort that both he and Jesus’s disciples sometimes ‘got it wrong’. ‘Faithfulness’ is ‘not always getting it right, it’s about listening again and again.’ Francis initially thought ‘rebuild my house’ meant physically building a church, not ‘rebuilding the house of prayer’. ‘We need to rebuild our house of prayer… so that we can see more clearly… what we are meant to do.’
A Manchester Friend told us how she could hear bells, which could be a call to action ‘to act radically and rapidly’ on climate justice. ‘I worry about… where we are on this. I know a lot of us are doing a lot already, but there is a danger of getting bogged down in process.’
Quaker history came up with one Friend talking about the 1750s, when London Yearly Meeting put ‘massive pressure’ on Friends in Pennsylvania to raise war-funding taxes. ‘Friends act corporately as best they can, but wealth and vested interest and privilege get in the way of hearing the word of God, and it takes massive, massive courage to act in the face of that. Like the man in the Bible, we are asked to give up what we have… to let go of its distractions – to do what is right.’
One Nottingham Quaker recalled a man found dead in his flat from starvation, weighing only five stone. There are those in need ‘who are very close to us’, she said, who we ‘pass in our streets’, or are ‘behind locked doors’.
‘We have been here before,’ one Friend ministered. It took more than twenty years to get to Quaker equal marriage, she said: ‘I know that black Friends’ experience of Yearly Meeting and Friends’ Meetings is different than mine, as a white Friend. I know that though I am committed to equality as a testimony that I see black Friends differently and treat them differently. This shames me. It is my intention to bring into consciousness all the ways that I do this, and to amend my life.’
Session Five
Friends heard BYM trustees’ annual report in Session Five on Sunday, including the financial statement for 2020. Caroline Nursey, clerk of trustees, and treasurer Linda Batten, read the reports, which outlined a difficult year. Overall income was £16 million, which included a single legacy of £6 million, designated to educational funds. Contributions were ‘significantly higher’ at £3 million, but the Quiet Company’s income of £1.5 million compared to a usual £5 million. Expenditure was less than the budgeted £14.5 million, but on average BYM has been spending £1 million pounds a year more than its income. With a balanced budget target set for 2023, ‘unrestricted costs must be reduced by one third’, ‘which means having fewer posts’.
‘So far we have managed to avoid compulsory redundancies,’ said trustees, but more restructuring lies ahead. There have been thirty-seven voluntary redundancies so far, mostly from the Quiet Company. Seven local development workers (LDWs) are now in place, with seven due next year. ‘The shape of BYM staffing has not been decided, but it will have to change.’
One Friend said he was left with an ‘overwhelming sense of gratitude at the exceptional work of committees, staff and trustees in extraordinary circumstances’, concluding ‘we are in better health than ever’. Another Friend from Cambridge echoed this, saying that we have to ‘cut our cloth to fit’.
One Quaker asked who was making the staffing decisions, to which Caroline Nursey responded that, while Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW) Central Committee was responsible for discerning priorities, Management Meeting is responsible for the staffing structure.
Friends then heard from a QPSW sub committee member who said that, ‘While we should celebrate our unity’, staff ‘are not just numbers on a spreadsheet. They are people with families and mortgages living like the rest of us through a pandemic’. He questioned how radical Quakers actually are when ‘the wellbeing of the organisation trumps the wellbeing of the staff’ and said that he has seen ‘a pressure to push ahead not because of the financial impetus but because we have plans – even though it has caused huge stress for people who work for us’.
Caroline Nursey agreed that it was ‘critically important’ that staff feel they are well treated and said that surveys suggest that they ‘are generally pretty happy’. Counsellors are available, she said, and redundancy and furlough terms ‘are good and much better than statutory terms’, and better for lower-paid staff. While she was proud of management decisions, ‘it is really, really hard. Change is hard’.
More questions were raised about the relationship between trustees and Meeting for Sufferings with one Friend saying that she had heard ‘a great deal of disquiet’ about ‘how trustees are interpreting their role and responsibilities’, which has been ‘rumbling for a while’. Could both trustees and MfS study the 2005 and 2006 briefing papers, so ‘that in our next Yearly Meeting, we all actively consider whether any of the fears about the trustees has come to pass’?
Friends were told that trustees and MfS are generally ‘working well together’, but they should ‘keep looking at how we improve’. There is ‘a fine balance’ between which details need to be done by trustees or MfS for checking, and ‘which things need wider discernment’. Threshing sessions as a supplement could be a helpful new step.
The session included a rallying call for Friends who could afford it to increase their donations. A fifty per cent increase would halve the forecasted £2 million deficit.
