Meeting for Sufferings - June 2009

At a Meeting for Sufferings held in London 6 June 2009

S/09/06/ 1: Worship

Sections of chapter 24 of Quaker faith & practice has been read in our opening worship, and we have remembered former members of this meeting who recently died.

S/09/06/ 2: Peace: Varieties of witness

We have heard presentations on peace-related work from some of the partners working with Quaker Peace & Social Witness: Philip Austin and Ann Bettys on the work of the Northern Friends Peace Board, Lee Taylor on the work of Friends of Hlekweni, and Helen Gilbert on the work of the St.Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace.

In our Home Groups we have followed an exercise from the Quaker Peace & Social Witness Turning The Tide programme called Nonviolence Spectrum, which has stimulated and challenged our thinking about non-violence.

Over our lunchtime, some of us have taken the opportunity to hear a presentation from Christine Cannon on her work as an Ecumenical Accompanier in Israel/Palestine, or to watch a film about QPSW peace work in the post-Yugoslavia countries.

Marigold Bentley of Quaker Peace & Social Witness, has presented an introduction to the work of the peace section of Quaker Peace & Social Witness. She concentrated on examples of different ways of working: as a visible Quaker presence in the peace and non-proliferation movements; as a support to volunteers promoting non-violence with factions in Nagaland, India; and as co-ordinator of ecumenical accompaniment in Israel/Palestine.

We reflected on the diversity of peace work, some involving taking a position and some being about not taking sides. Peace work extends into other areas of concern such as labelling of goods from the Occupied Territories; peace materials for colleges; and using the debate on essential public expenditure cuts to promote disarmament. We were reminded that we may be called to use our peace-making and listening skills in response to a growth of racial tension which might lead to violence nearer to home.

We have had an inspirational day hearing about how the Framework for Action is already being used and we encourage Friends to continue to engage in local initiatives and to support the centrally-managed work.

S/09/06/3: Responses from Meetings to A Framework for Action

Further to minute S/09/04/5, we have received a detailed report giving an overview of the responses to A Framework for Action (paper S /09/06/06/ A). We welcome the breadth of activities in hand or being developed. We encourage representatives to share this with their area meetings and committees and to continue to develop projects within the Framework and according to the new modes of working it sets out.

S/09/06/4: Statement on Climate Change

Further to a paper initiated by the QPSW Human Security and Environment Group and circulated at our meeting on 4 April 2009, and minutes received in response from local meetings, we have received a draft statement: A Quaker Response to the Crisis of Climate Change (paper S /09/06/06/ B) and minutes QPSWCC 09/35 b) and 09/47 d) of Quaker Peace & Social Witness Central Committee held 15-17 May 2009 which relate to this item.

Helen Drewery, General Secretary of QPSW has told us about powerful responses from 179 meetings so far on the actions they have taken or are planning to take to reduce carbon emissions and overwhelmingly expressing enthusiasm for a public statement in the run-up to the Copenhagen summit in December.

We agree to make a statement of commitment about how our faith is leading us to change our own lives (especially in the rich parts of the world), our witness and our work. The statement will go with others from faith groups through the Alliance of Religions and Conservation and the United Nations meeting in November in Windsor to political leaders before Copenhagen. It needs to be in language they can understand but rooted in our testimonies and to give the politicians courage to act boldly in the knowledge that they have support.

We thank the Human Security and Environment Group and ask our clerk in consultation with the clerks of BYM trustees and of QPSWCC to agree a final draft. In the light of the expressed enthusiasm of Friends elsewhere in Europe to join with us, we ask our clerk to liaise with the General Secretary of FWCC’s Europe and Middle East Section with a view to signing the statement on behalf of all Friends.

S/09/06/5: Membership and Appointments

a) Membership of Meeting for Sufferings

The following changes to Meeting for Sufferings membership are proposed.

Nomination

Beth Allen

Quaker Committee for Christian & Interfaith Relations

We duly appoint the Friend named.

b) Central Nominations Committee

brings forward the names of the following Friends for service or release as indicated:

Central Nominations Committee

Ken Randall release Kendal & Sedbergh AM

Quaker Finance & Property Central Committee / BYM Trustees

To serve as clerk from 1.9.2009 until 31.8.2012, and, by virtue of this position, as a Britain Yearly Meeting Trustee for the same period

Ron Barden renomination Northamptonshire AM

To serve from 1.9.2009 until 31.8.2012

Peter Coltman renomination Leeds AM

Stan Lee renomination South London AM

Rachel Ashton nomination Chilterns AM

Quaker Communications Central Committee

To serve from 1.4.2009 until 31.3.2012

Gill Greenfield nomination Mid-Somerset AM

Quaker World Relations Committee

Anne Allchin release Cambridgeshire AM

Friends World Committee for Consultation

Luke Freeman release Southern Marches AM

Quaker Committee for Christian & Interfaith Relations

To serve from 1.5.2009 until 30.4 2010

John Dodwell nomination Bournemouth Coastal AM

Representative to Ireland Yearly Meeting, 22-26 July 2009

Anne Davies South East Scotland AM

Representative to German Yearly Meeting, 16-18 October 2009

Marie-Helene Drouin Notts & Derby AM

Yearly Meeting Agenda Committee

(Meeting for Sufferings appointment)

Roger Cullen release Oxford & Swindon AM

We duly appoint the Friends named and thank the Friends released for their service.

S/09/06/6: Clerk of Trustees Report

Gill Waddilove, clerk of Britain Yearly Meeting Trustees, has reported on the meetings of Trustees held on 14 May, 23 April and 4 April 2009. She has also updated us on progress on the Friends House refurbishment. In this trustees are following three main principles: sustainability, accessibility and usefulness (particularly of the large meeting house). Plans are being developed and trustees are keeping a close eye on projected costs.

S/09/06/7: Draft Epistle to Ireland Yearly Meeting 2009

We have received minute QWRC 09/05/03 of Quaker World Relations Committee held 16 May 2009 together with the following draft Epistle to Ireland Yearly Meeting 2009 (paper S /09/06/ C).

6 June 2009

Dear Friends,

We send loving greetings from Friends in Britain as you meet at the Kings Hospital School, Dublin, to consider the theme “Gifts of the Spirit”.

We pray that your gathering will contribute to a greater mutual understanding of one another’s individual heartfelt convictions and lead you to cherish and nourish both that which is shared and the differences.

We respect you for your continued “Faith in Action” in working for reconciliation and social justice at home, as well as in supporting projects beyond your shores. The epistle from Ireland Yearly Meeting in 2008 reminded us of our shared concern for the environment. An opportunity to witness to that concern arises at the UN Climate Change summit in Copenhagen this December. Our local meetings are being asked to consider urgently what possible steps they could take on the path to sustainability and to support a corporate statement, which would be presented to the UN Secretary-General in November.

It’s a year since our Yearly Meeting was held in London in May 2008. Some eight hundred Friends of all ages met over four days to do business, renew friendships and explore the transforming Spirit which unites us. There is diversity in the ways that we understand and express the source of the Inner Light, but when we worship together we share the experience of the divine. Jesus's words in John 3:8 spoke to us: 'The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.'

Young Friends have reminded us that over time Quakers have changed and will continue to do so. Each generation finds expression out of its own experience and renews us. Following a long and wide consultation to discern the priorities for the Yearly Meeting's work over the coming years, we have agreed a document “ A Framework for Action”. It provides a frame of seven priorities to guide us in our life and work, a strategic focus rather than a straitjacket, and it also provides a basis for allocation of resources. The Framework is helping us to renew our sense of purpose, to deepen the spiritual life of our meetings, to work for peace and a sustainable future for the earth.

At our Yearly Meeting we also explored how we might become 'seeds of change'. In a botanical seed lies the potential for green shoots and the flourishing plant. But there is also the seed for the Spirit. An early English Friend, Isaac Penington, said: 'But some may desire to know what I have at last met with. I answer, "I have met with the Seed." … I have met with the true peace, the true righteousness, the true holiness…'

We were pleased that the Clerk of Meeting for Sufferings, together with our Yearly Meeting Clerk, the Clerk to Trustees, the Recording Clerk and a Young Friend, visited Ireland in January 2009 and joined both Irish Quaker Faith in Action (IQFA) and Ireland Yearly Meeting Committee. We look forward to maintaining that opportunity for exchange in future years.

Signed in the meeting on behalf of Meeting for Sufferings and of Britain Yearly Meeting.

Susan Seymour

Clerk

Meeting for Sufferings

We thank Quaker World Relations Committee and forward the Epistle with our warm greetings to Ireland Yearly Meeting.

S/09/06/8: Minutes & Correspondence

i Area Meeting Minutes

a) Notts & Derby AM: Concern regarding policing

We receive minute 5 of Notts & Derby AM held 9 May 2009 concerning

policing of the G20 protests (paper S/09/06/ mc i a).

The concern they raise is widely shared among us and we recognise that the problem may originate at a policy level. We have heard that this concern has already been acknowledged within QPSW. Quakers who are police officers might be asked to contribute to discernment of the way forward.

We forward this minute to Quaker Peace & Social Witness Central Committee and ask them to inform us of any response they may make and action we can take as Friends.

S/09/06/9

In our closing worship we heard from departing members of our meeting about how it has changed over the past six years.