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1 Meeting for Sufferings
2
3 2 December 2017
4
5 Henry S. Thompson, SE Scotland AM representative
6
7 All the papers for the meeting are available online at
8
9 http://www.quaker.org.uk/documents/mfs-dec-2017-updated-agenda--papers-package
10
11 The minutes and other follow-up material will also appear sometime
12 soon linked from
13
14 http://www.quaker.org.uk/our-organisation/meeting-for-sufferings/papers-and-minutes
15
16 The first item is perhaps the most significant decision Sufferings has
17 taken in the whole of my first term so far: we are asking YM2018 to
18 agree that we should set about revising our Book of Discipline and
19 that Sufferings should manage the creation of a Revision Committee to
20 undertake the necessary work.
21
22 *Book of Discipline Revision Preparation Group*
23
24 "By the Holy Spirit, guard the good deposit entrusted to you."
25 2nd Letter of Paul to Timothy 1:14
26
27 Sufferings endorsed the recommendation from the Group for "a full
28 revision" of our Book of Discipline, and forwarded it to YM Agenda
29 Committee, asking them to bring this YM in 2018.
30
31 A bit more detail:
32 * The 1994 revision merged the 2 existing books ("Church Government"
33 and "Christian Faith and Practice in the Experience of the
34 Religious Society of Friend" _without_ any review of the CG bits;
35
36 * YM2014 was asked to commence a revision, but did not reach unity;
37
38 * Sufferings then established the Revision Preparation Group charged
39 with better preparing us for the question when it came back again;
40
41 * They in turn launched the "Reading Quaker Faith and Practice"
42 exercise, which was much more successful than they had expected.
43 Three kinds of outcomes were reported back to them, broadly
44 speaking:
45
46 - Engaging with the book and the process
47 - Understanding why revision is appropriate
48 - Listening to differences
49
50 * Following on from the last of these, they established a "Theology
51 Think Tank", whose report, in the form of a small book entitled
52 _God, words and us_, has just been published and is available from
53 the Friends House bookshop.
54
55 * They concluded that the Church Government parts really need a
56 complete rewrite:
57
58 - The only completely up-to-date CG parts are online;
59 - Lots of supplementary information is also available but not
60 'officially' part of 'the book'
61
62 * A key part of their recommendation is to separate core from
63 supplementary material. For example, in the (new in 4th edition)
64 Chapter 16 on Marriage the first 15 sections are 'core, the rest
65 'supplementary'
66
67 * Sufferings _expects_ that if YM agrees, Sufferings will be asked to
68 appoint (and oversee) a Book of Discipline Revision Committee.
69
70 In conclusion, Sufferings endorsed the following summary
71 recommendations and asked that YM2018 agree that:
72
73 "the time is right to begin a revision of our book of discipline.
74 This revision should:
75
76 "1. begin with, but not be limited to, church government, namely the
77 sections which focus on our procedures and corporate discipline.
78
79 "2. divide material between that in the main body of the book, which
80 lays out principles, and supplementary material, which gives
81 details.
82
83 "3. draw on the richness of theological thought in our yearly
84 meeting, now and historically, seeing diversity as fundamental to
85 our community, not as a flaw
86
87 "4. give a Revision Committee the freedom to be creative while
88 remaining in close contact with the yearly meeting."
89
90 *Finance report*
91
92 Overall summary: Anticipated 2017 deficit down from last year, about
93 125,000GBP, out of 12MGBP. A further 2MGBP is available from 'legacy
94 funding' for new projects. The Hospitality Company, which manages
95 Friends House and Swarthmore Hall, represents nearly 1/2 of
96 centrally-funded staff, but turns a profit for us as a whole, which
97 goes for our 'charitable work'. Although the planned 2018 budget is
98 almost unchanged from 2017, and not only were contributions are up, a
99 bit, in 2017, and Trustees are budgetting for that to happen again in
100 2018, a 700,000GBP deficit is forecast.
101
102 *Investments in Israel-Palestine: West Bank"
103
104 In response to a minute from Devon AM, Trustees responded that we hold
105 no current investments in West-Bank-active companies, Investment
106 policy guidelines are currently under revue by Trustees.
107
108 *Lobbying Act*
109
110 Trustees are supporting an exploration of bringing a case for judicial
111 review to force the passage of an amendment to remove the
112 vulnerability to retrospective application of the Act in the case of a
113 snap election.
114
115 *Sanctuary Everywhere Manifesto*
116
117 A second draft of this has come to us from the Forced Migration
118 Advisory Group. It combines good will and aims with some inopportune
119 phrasing. MfS offered some further amendments to try to address this,
120 and then returned it with our approval as amended.
121
122 *General Meeting for Scotland*
123
124 Adwoa Bittle (GM Clerk) gave an intro to GM, with a lot of good
125 detail, including our campaigns wrt Fracking, Militarism in Schools
126 and Economic Justice.
127
128 See the GM website: http://www.quakerscotland.org/