Meeting for Sufferings

2 December 2017

Henry S. Thompson, SE Scotland AM representative

All the papers for the meeting are available online at

  http://www.quaker.org.uk/documents/mfs-dec-2017-updated-agenda--papers-package

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

The first item is perhaps the most significant decision Sufferings has
taken in the whole of my first term so far: we are asking YM2018 to
agree 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.

*Book of Discipline Revision Preparation Group*

"By the Holy Spirit, guard the good deposit entrusted to you."
   2nd Letter of Paul to Timothy 1:14

Sufferings endorsed the recommendation from the Group for "a full
revision" of our Book of Discipline, and forwarded it to YM Agenda
Committee, asking them to bring this YM in 2018.

A bit more detail:
 * The 1994 revision merged the 2 existing books ("Church Government"
   and "Christian Faith and Practice in the Experience of the
   Religious Society of Friend" _without_ any review of the CG bits;

 * YM2014 was asked to commence a revision, but did not reach unity;

 * Sufferings then established the Revision Preparation Group charged
   with better preparing us for the question when it came back again;

 * They in turn launched the "Reading Quaker Faith and Practice"
   exercise, which was much more successful than they had expected.
   Three kinds of outcomes were reported back to them, broadly
   speaking:

   - Engaging with the book and the process
   - Understanding why revision is appropriate
   - Listening to differences

 * Following on from the last of these, they established a "Theology
   Think Tank", whose report, in the form of a small book entitled
   _God, words and us_, has just been published and is available from
   the Friends House bookshop.

 * They concluded that the Church Government parts really need a
   complete rewrite:

   - The only completely up-to-date CG parts are online;
   - Lots of supplementary information is also available but not
     'officially' part of 'the book'

 * A key part of their recommendation is to separate core from
   supplementary material.  For example, in the (new in 4th edition)
   Chapter 16 on Marriage the first 15 sections are 'core, the rest
   'supplementary'

 * Sufferings _expects_ that if YM agrees, Sufferings will be asked to
   appoint (and oversee) a Book of Discipline Revision Committee.

In conclusion, Sufferings endorsed the following summary
recommendations and asked that YM2018 agree that:

  "the time is right to begin a revision of our book of discipline.
   This revision should:

  "1. begin with, but not be limited to, church government, namely the
   sections which focus on our procedures and corporate discipline.

  "2. divide material between that in the main body of the book, which
   lays out principles, and supplementary material, which gives
   details.

  "3. draw on the richness of theological thought in our yearly
   meeting, now and historically, seeing diversity as fundamental to
   our community, not as a flaw

  "4. give a Revision Committee the freedom to be creative while
   remaining in close contact with the yearly meeting."

*Finance report*

Overall summary: Anticipated 2017 deficit down from last year, about
125,000GBP, out of 12MGBP.  A further 2MGBP is available from 'legacy
funding' for new projects.  The Hospitality Company, which manages
Friends House and Swarthmore Hall, represents nearly 1/2 of
centrally-funded staff, but turns a profit for us as a whole, which
goes for our 'charitable work'.  Although the planned 2018 budget is
almost unchanged from 2017, and not only were contributions are up, a
bit, in 2017, and Trustees are budgetting for that to happen again in
2018, a 700,000GBP deficit is forecast.

*Investments in Israel-Palestine: West Bank"

In response to a minute from Devon AM, Trustees responded that we hold
no current investments in West-Bank-active companies, Investment
policy guidelines are currently under revue by Trustees.

*Lobbying Act*

Trustees are supporting an exploration of bringing a case for judicial
review to force the passage of an amendment to remove the
vulnerability to retrospective application of the Act in the case of a
snap election.

*Sanctuary Everywhere Manifesto*

A second draft of this has come to us from the Forced Migration
Advisory Group.  It combines good will and aims with some inopportune
phrasing.  MfS offered some further amendments to try to address this,
and then returned it with our approval as amended.

*General Meeting for Scotland*

Adwoa Bittle (GM Clerk) gave an intro to GM, with a lot of good
detail, including our campaigns wrt Fracking, Militarism in Schools
and Economic Justice.

  See the GM website:  http://www.quakerscotland.org/