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+Meeting for Sufferings
+
+3 February 2018
+
+Henry S. Thompson, SE Scotland AM representative
+
+All the papers for the meeting are available online at
+
+  http://www.quaker.org.uk/documents/mfs-feb-2018-updated-agenda--papers-package3
+
+The minutes and other follow-up material will also appear sometime
+soon linked from
+
+  http://www.quaker.org.uk/our-organisation/meeting-for-sufferings/papers-and-minutes
+
+*Yearly Meeting 2018 -- report from the Clerk*
+
+We had a brief introduction to plans for Yearly Meeting (4--7 May 2018
+at Friends House, London).  Perhaps the most interesting thing in this
+regard was a phrase from YM Agenda Committee (YMAC) at their recent
+meeting: "Preparing YM for radical change".  This came up several
+times in different contexts during the day, and was explained as
+referring to the growing awareness of the need to recognise and
+respond to the fact that we are shrinking, and getting older.
+
+Further to Sufferings' decision, as reported in December, to recommend
+to YM that we should set about revising our Book of Discipline and
+that Sufferings should manage the creation of a Revision Committee to
+undertake the necessary work, the largest agenda item at YM 2018 will
+be devoted to preparing for and making that decision and addressing
+the consequences.
+
+Deadlines for young people's participation in May are fast
+approaching:
+
+  Junior Yearly Meeting:  23 February 2018
+  Young people's YM programme: 18 March 2018
+ [Those two are not at Friends House]
+  Children's programme at YM: 18 March 2018
+ [This one _is_ at Friends House]
+
+See http://www.quaker.org.uk/events/?category=1 for details.
+
+Once again those planning to attend YM in May are asked to register in
+advance:
+
+  https://forms.quaker.org.uk/ym/
+
+*Yearly Meeting Gathering 2020*
+
+Deborah Rowlands, YM Clerk, also gave some background to the
+recommendation from YMAC, which Sufferings agreed to, that the 2020 YM
+Gathering should be held at the University of Bath from 1--8 August,
+2020.
+
+*Report from BYM Sustainability Group*
+
+This Group, which is not itself empowered or funded to do work itself,
+is near the beginning of their 2nd 3-year 'term'.
+
+They have sometimes found the lack of resources of their own difficult
+to deal with.
+
+They are concerned that the uptake of the sustainability concern is
+very uneven across the YM -- YM said we need to change in the 2011
+Canterbury Commitment [1], but that hasn't always translated into
+action
+
+Sufferings received the report but postponed any discussion until our
+own review group, appointed last year, reports.  This is now planned
+to be in time for April MfS.
+
+The Group's report closed with these lines from G. K. Chesterton's
+_The Ballad of the White Horse_:
+
+   “I tell you naught for your comfort, 
+    Yea, naught for your desire, 
+    Save that the sky grows darker yet 
+    And the sea rises higher.”
+
+[1] http://www.quaker.org.uk/documents/minute-36-leaflet-2011
+
+*Quaker Life Central Committee (QLCC) report*
+
+This item took by far the most of our time, and was structured by way
+of a response to a challenge from QLCC's Clerk (now co-Clerk) Jocelyn
+Bell Burnell in her report to us in December 2016 to make these annual
+reports from the major central committees more than just a box-ticking
+exercise (see my report of that meeting for details).  The core of
+this year's report is QLCC's new Strategy (see the Agenda link above)
+and their proposed priorities within that.
+
+Jocelyn gave a brief introduction to these before lunch, and QLCC
+members were available over lunch to discuss them.  Then after lunch
+we met in our geographically-determined House Groups (Scottish and
+Welsh representives in our case) for an hour-long worship-sharing
+session, followed after a short break by a return together and a
+continuation of the worship-sharing approach.  I think the change in
+process worked very well, although we really need to hear back from
+QLCC as to what _they_ got from it before we really know how well it
+succeeded.
+
+In our group, and more widely, I think the deepest concerns around
+QLCC's role all centred around membership and worship: the process of
+admission to membership, the need to understand Quaker discipline as a
+key part of membership, the centrality of deeply experienced worship
+in holding our community together, making it attractive to enquirers
+and sustaining us as we seek to witness to our faith in the wider
+world.
+