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date Sat, 26 Mar 2016 12:07:25 -0400
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1 Report of Meeting for Sufferings, held in London 2016-02-06
2
3 *Introduction*
4
5 During our opening worship, extracts from the Epistle [1] of the Friends
6 World Committee for Consultation World Plenary meeting held in Pisac,
7 Peru, 19-27 January 2016, includng these words:
8
9 Although God can fill our hearts, God has no hands but ours to heal
10 this broken world. [2]
11
12 *Annual budget*
13
14 Church Government Advisory Group declined to suggest any changes to
15 Quaker Faith and Practice as regards how our annual budget is
16 determined, as QF&P is about general principles, rather than detailed
17 specifications which would require too-frequent updates. We agreed
18 with this, and heard, with respect to documenting the current budget
19 process, that the "Operational Plan" is the current core of the
20 process, but this changes too often to be usefully documented, even
21 informally.
22
23 *Refugee sponsorship*
24
25 At first several statements of support were made for asking Quaker
26 Peace and Social Witness to lend our names to the Citizens UK effort
27 to encourage the government's consideration of a Private Sponsorship
28 system. However, "serious reservations [were also] expressed both
29 about the scheme itself and the impact this could have on existing
30 work with and services for refugees." [3] QPS&W are initiating efforts
31 to clarify both the status of the organisation so far taking the lead
32 in this, Citizens UK, and the position of the main charities already
33 envolved in supporting refugees and asylum seekers.
34
35 Our representatives are aware of considerable interest within the Area
36 Meeting in participating in such a scheme, and will actively monitor
37 QPS&W's progress in this area.
38
39 *Yearly Meeting 2016*
40
41 Yearly Meeting will be in London, 27--30 May 2016. We are requested
42 to register [4] and to make use of the Spiritual Preparation for
43 Yearly Meeting guide [5]. Area Meeting Elders will shortly be
44 publicising two local sessions for those considering attending Yearly
45 Meeting, to provide an introduction and support for those considering
46 doing so for the first time, and to work with the two parts of the
47 preparation guide.
48
49 *Vision: Our Faith in the Future*
50
51 Scottish and Welsh representatives met in a 'house group' to return to
52 the new Vision document [6] and our consideration of the state of our
53 Area Meetings. A few of the comments that stayed with me:
54
55 * Meeting for Worship for Business -- "A Meeting for Worship with an agenda"
56
57 * "Right Ordering" -- in life as well as in our Meeting for Worship for Business
58
59 * Membership (historically) implied accepting the Discipline, does
60 it still? What obligations does Membership carry with it?
61
62 * Concerns need to be at least 3/4s baked -- AMs are told if they
63 send something to Sufferings, they have to be clear what they are
64 asking Sufferings to _do_. Likewise if an LM sends a concern to
65 AM, they should be clear what endorsing it _means_ in
66 practice. "I don't want AMs just dropping a dead pigeon on the
67 doorstep of Friends House".
68
69 Henry S. Thompson, Area Meeting representative on Meeting for Sufferings
70
71 [1] http://fwcc.world/plenary-2016/epistle-from-2016-friends-world-committee-for-consultation-world-plenary-international-representatives-meeting
72 [2] A paraphrase of part of a poem attributed, controversially, to
73 St. Teresa of Avila, _Christ Has No Body_
74 [3] http://www.quaker.org.uk/documents/mfs-feb-2016-agenda-papers-final-minutes-package.pdf
75 [4] https://forms.quaker.org.uk/bym/
76 [5] https://www.quaker.org.uk/documents/ym-2016-spiritual-preparation.pdf
77 [6] http://old.quaker.org.uk/our-organisation/meeting-for-sufferings/our-faith-in-the-future