Yearly Meeting Gathering (YMG), 2021: Fringe and preparatory events

Fringe and preparatory events from Groups Fair to Stories for Rebel Quakers

by The Friend staff: Rebecca Hardy, Joseph Jones and Elinor Smallman. 6th August 2021

Many thanks must go to the committees, staff, groups and individual Friends who have been able to put together, and support, such a full Community and Fringe programme. Several of these groups were available for conversation at the Groups Fair, which ran over Saturday afternoon and Sunday night. Friends could log in via Zoom to speak to people they might otherwise be chatting to on stalls. Those interested in the new ‘Black, Brown and People of Colour Fellowship’, for example, chatted to Edwina Peart, BYM’s inclusion and diversity coordinator, about the group’s emerging vision, and how it felt to worship in a space where everyone was a person of colour. It felt ‘lovely’, where ‘no eyebrows were raised at my very presence’. There were as many differences inside the group as with those outside it, she said, but related a ‘gathering momentum’ on issues important to those involved, such as bringing Quakers up to speed with other faith organisations.