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author ht
date Tue, 29 Dec 2015 07:57:46 -0500
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1 Meeting for Sufferings was held at Woodbrooke from Friday evening 4
2 December through Sunday lunchtime 6 December. The main focus was on
3 "Our Area Meetings today", but before reporting on that, here's a
4 brief summary of other points of possible interest:
5
6 * Concerns were expressed about TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and
7 Investment Partnership), and the question of what BYM could do to
8 mobilise opposition was raised. The response was that it was
9 unlikely that this would receive much effort from the centre, too
10 much else going on.
11
12 * As part of BYM Trustees' report the BYM Treasurer reminded us that
13 "More action requires more money", while noting there had been good
14 legacy income, as well as the best-ever income from the Hospitality
15 company (which manages Friends House and, as of this year,
16 Swarthmore Hall).
17
18 * The "Vibrancy" project will receive 675,000GBP pilot fuding over
19 the next 3.5 years, with 3 or 4 regional officers being appointed,
20 managed from Woodbrooke
21
22 * Following on from BYM 2015's focus on equality, we heard from the
23 Housing Threshing event which happened at Woodbrook in September
24 that our Friend Alastair Cameron was helping to take the lead in
25 work towards establishing an ethical landlords' association.
26
27 * BYM 2015 had referred one proposed change to our Books of
28 Discipline, paragraphs 3.27 (revised) and 3.28 (new), which give
29 guidelines for Friends speaking publicly, back to Sufferings. We
30 reviewed and threshed a redraft of these, and now ask Friends to
31 please consider them carefully in advance of Yearly Meeting
32 Gathering 2016 where they will be presented for approval.
33
34 About half our time together was spent reflecting on the status and
35 state of our Area Meetings. Perhaps not surprisingly, many other AMs
36 are reacting to "challenges and opportunities" similar to those which
37 lead to the creation of SE Scotland AM's STIR group. We had several
38 discussion sessions in a 'Home' group consisting of all the
39 representatives from AMs in Scotland and Wales, followed by a plenary
40 session.
41
42 There will be a more extensive summary of the results coming from the
43 centre in due course. In the meantime, here are a few high- (and
44 low-) points:
45
46 * There is a sense of weariness/sadness around the issue of AM (the
47 event);
48
49 * "The business method is not working quite right"
50
51 * We are suffering from many weighty Friends having been "creamed
52 off" into AM Trustees
53
54 * Many AMs have launched some form of review process
55
56 * We need to re-understand AM's relationships (up, down, sideways)
57
58 * A number of people mentioned the "Northumbria model", about which
59 material will be made available [and I will forward it to Sesame]
60
61 * There's value in trying harder to make the 'business' aspects of
62 AM (the event) as focussed and efficient as possible
63
64 * Gatherings for Fellowship, centred on food, hospitality,
65 socialising, have been very successful, and need not, indeed
66 perhaps should not, happen on the same day as AM for business
67
68 * More effort needs to go into "job descriptions" that make the jobs
69 feel possible
70
71 * We should ask ourselves, if AM (the event) didn't exist, [why]
72 would we have to invent it?