Yearly Meeting special interest sessions 2
'Zoom worship in the pandemic had been "a complete bloody lifeline frankly".'
Over 100 Friends attended a session about the Quaker study centre in Birmingham, Woodbrooke’s future.
Ingrid Greenhow, clerk of trustees, described the situation the centre faced at the start of 2020, and the intense pressures that were brought to bear as a result of the pandemic.
She presented a mixed picture. The expanded online provision enabled them to reach more people than ever in 2021, with around 22,000 participants. However, challenges they were already facing were compounded by the pandemic. A £250,000 deficit is forecast this year, and a further £350,000 is needed for repairs and maintenance over the coming years, not including accessibility modifications required to make it fit for purpose. This is ‘not a sustainable situation’.
As a result trustees are asking: ‘What are we handing on to the future?’
Friends were invited to ask questions. These ranged widely, from partnerships and alternative funding, to legal issues around the building and the future of long-term learning, such as ‘Equipping for Ministry’.
One Friend spoke of the centre as ‘the intellectual and spiritual heart of Quakers in Britain’.
That trustees and staff were highlighting accessibility was received gratefully by another Friend, who said that, as someone with accessibility needs, it is ‘the most hostile space I enter voluntarily’.
Ingrid Greenhow brought the session to a close with thanks, asking that Friends continue to uphold them: ‘We have difficult decisions ahead of us.’
On Sunday morning a select few (perhaps because Friends were at their own Meetings) gathered to hear about Local Development Work (LDW) in your area. Sophie Smith from Quaker Life introduced four local development workers, with a range of experience, and talked about how Our Faith in the Future was acting as a guiding document for LDW strategy. The key model was ‘accompaniment’, and two LDWs gave examples of how they had been working in practice.
The Quaker Disability Equality Group (QDEG) held a worship-sharing Meeting, entitled ‘Community, faith, action: Including disabled people’.
Twenty-nine people gathered as Eleanor Tew introduced the session: ‘In [QDEG] we see including disabled people as part of the Quaker testimony to equality. And putting it into practice as putting our faith into action.’
The benefits of Zoom were highlighted, with one describing it as ‘a complete bloody lifeline frankly’. Another emphasised that participating from a space that is already set up for their needs ‘can make a massive difference to just the threshold that you have to clamber over to be able to take part at the same level as everyone else’.
The hard work that it takes to ‘advocate for yourself and ask for the help you need’ was raised by several present. One Friend with autism asked: ‘How do we advocate for being included when the rules of Meetings are to be still and silent if your body won’t let you sit still if you have got tics or stims, and a mind that won’t quiet or a pain that needs to move?’
Another Friend with autism spoke about how their experience of Quakerism, including such practices as taking the time to process things in silence, made them feel at home: ‘It’s just so rare in the rest of the world, and so refreshing.’
Yearly Meeting special interest sessions reporting by Alastair Reid, Annique Seddon, Elinor Smallman, Joseph Jones, Laurence Hall, Rebecca Hardy and Sarah FitzGerald.
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