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+*Meeting for Sufferings*
+
+10 April 2021
+
+Henry S. Thompson, SE Scotland AM representative
+
+All the papers for the meeting are available online at
+
+  https://www.quaker.org.uk/documents/mfs-2021-04-agenda--updated-papers-package
+
+The minutes and other follow-up material are available from
+
+  https://www.quaker.org.uk/documents/mfs-2021-04-follow-up-package
+
+* BYM the charity, its trustees and AM charities/trustees*
+
+An important initiative was mentioned which aims to address the
+relationship between Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) the charity and Area
+Meeting (AM) charities.  There's a request from BYM Trustees to AM
+Trustees to feed back to them about this [1].  Online meetings are
+planned for May.  Heading towards an Memorandum of Understanding
+between BYM Trustees and AM Trustees, by the end of 2021.
+
+Note that (some of?) Wales is actually going ahead with a merger at
+the Charity level!
+
+At this point I had to step away from the meeting for an hour, during
+which mostly routine business was covered.  One unexpected and
+apparently somewhat unsettling item came up during Trustees' report [2].
+The following is from a report to East of Scotland AM by Robert
+Thompson, their Sufferings representative, quoted by permission:
+
+  "There was lengthy discussion around the decision to remove the
+   name of William Penn from a room at Friends House. ( William Penn
+   was a known slave owner). Trustees have commissioned research into
+   the relationship between Friends and the Transatlantic Slave
+   Trade. Meeting for Sufferings heard reactions for and against the
+   the removal of the name at Friends House. The final Minute stated
+   'We have heard that it is important to acknowledge the reality of
+   the past including both our good work and our failures to address
+   injustice.'"
+
+*Assisted dying*
+
+Sufferings returned to this topic in response to minutes from several
+English Area Meetings.  Area Meetings had been invited to consider the
+matter and feed back.  Our own AM decided we had considered this
+matter in the Scottish context several times in recent years, and
+decided not to do so again this time.
+
+Brief introductions by representatives of the two AMs asked for
+Sufferings to support BYM publicly endorsing a narrow legalisation of
+assisted dying, along the lines of the approach that has been in place
+in Oregon in the USA since 1997 [3].
+
+There was a deep sense of worship and care in the meeting over two
+sessions, and we had had the opportunity to prepare in advance during
+an evening worship sharing session the week before.
+
+It became clear that we still don't have a settled view on this
+matter, having heard moving ministry based on personal experience
+across a wide spectrum of conclusions.
+
+On a more positive note, there was very broad support for doing more
+to promote better funding for palliative care and the Hospice
+movement.  One statement that has stayed with me in that regard was
+'unravelling the tangled web around how we die in this country is not
+best started by pulling on the end labelled "legalise assisted
+dying"'.
+
+*'Overseers' and 'Elders'*
+
+Sufferings responded to a concern about these names by encouraging AMs
+to experiment with alternatives both to names and to the structures
+themselves.
+
+*Yearly Meeting and Yearly Meeting Gathering 2021*
+
+Yearly Meeting in Session 2021 [4] will be held on the weekends of 31
+July and 7 August. It will be an online event, as will Yearly Meeting
+Gathering (YMG) [5], which will run for three weeks from 19 July.
+
+Booking information coming soon, bookings will open in June.
+
+In preparation for Yearly Meeting itself, AMs will be asked to
+facilitate opportunities for fellowship to engage with a number of
+matters of business, which should be at least in part face-to-face
+insofar as possible, and scheduled to coincide with relevant online
+YMG sessions.
+
+The theme of YMG, "For our comfort and discomfort: living our
+testimonies of equality and truth", will be pursued via a focus on
+three topics
+
+         1) Anti-racism: our Quaker journey;
+	 2) Acknowledging and welcoming gender diverse people;
+         3) Faith-based action for climate justice.
+
+Looking further ahead, it has been agreed that the dates for YM 2022
+will not be changed: still 27--30 May.
+
+*Simplification of central governance structures – a paper from BYM Trustees*
+
+Friends will know that I've been concerned about how our Society is
+being run these days, and have reported before about the various ways
+in which this concern is occasionally reflected in sessions at
+Yearling Meeting and Sufferings.  It seems that Trustees have now
+decided that a root-and-branch restructuring, under the banner of
+simplification, is called for, and a working party has been actively
+exploring this.  As a result there will shortly be a series of
+workshops for Sufferings to explore what this might look like, and by
+the time I present this report at Area Meeting on 11 May, these will
+have happened and I'll have a much more informed position from which
+to share details.
+
+I'm trying to be hopeful that this will be the start of a genuine
+consultation, rather than an announcement of a _fait accompli_.
+
+Two things that were said in the relatively brief, mostly positive,
+consideration of this item:
+
+   We can't go on as we did before, only meeting online: We need
+   physical community sometimes _as well_.
+
+   There's an important distinction between respecting tradition
+   and getting stuck in traditional_ism_...
+
+[1] See *Clarifying the relationship between BYM trustees and AM
+    trustees – an invitation* under item MfS 2021 04 10 in the papers
+    in advance, linked above
+[2] See *BYMT-2021-02-14 Responding to racism* under item MfS 2021 04 09 ditto
+[3] https://www.dignityindying.org.uk/assisted-dying/international-examples/assisted-dying-oregon/
+[4] https://www.quaker.org.uk/ym
+[5] https://www.quaker.org.uk/ym/programme-1
+
+[Note for Clerks/Alan Frith.  I attempted to capture my own
+contribution when the matter was put before the meeting, see below.
+As far as AM on the 11th goes, I'll cover this in my presentation and
+you don't need to include anything from it in whatever draft minute
+you prepare for the report about Sufferings as such, above.  Perhaps
+indeed it would make sense to have two separate agenda items, i.e.
+  1) Report on MfS 2021-04-10
+  2) Rethinking the governance of BYM.
+As far as Sesame is concerned, it's up to you Alan whether you include
+this under the same heading or (my preference) separately, as my
+personal reflection on the matter.]
+
+My experience as I come to the end of 6 years on Sufferings has led to
+a conclusion about BYM governance which I find is shared by
+wide range of sources which I've heard from, and it means that the
+proposed rethink of our governance process is very welcome.
+
+By a series of well-meaning, and individually not unreasonable, steps,
+we have arrived at a point where Meeting for Sufferings is no longer
+fit for purpose.  Not so much because we're doing a bad job at what
+we've been asked to do, piece by piece, but because our business has
+grown and ramified to the point where it is almost never the case (the
+sessions on assisted dying at Sufferings on 2021-04-10 being a notable
+recent exception) that the full power and value of a gathered meeting
+for worship for business are being brought to bear.
+
+So I was very pleased to see what I take to be the most important
+sentence in the paper from Trustees:
+
+ "The Working Group considered the core functions from first
+  principles, setting aside our understanding of existing
+  structures."
+
+I hope almost _nothing_ will be off the table as we start
+consideration of possible new approaches to the governance of
+the Church and the Charity.  What I mean by 'almost' is that the
+place of Yearly Meeting in session as the ultimate worldly
+source of authority for BYM is not, at least for me, at issue.
+
+But _anything_ else, particularly wrt the Church, and what is
+delegated to what bodies by BYM when it is _not_ in session,
+needs to be rethought again from the ground up and the top down.
+Sufferings obviously have a key role to play in this, and our
+dissatisfaction with our current situation now needs to turn
+into an energetic contribution to fixing it, even if this means
+laying ourselves down in our current form, to say nothing of
+reconsidering the name(s) of whatever comes after.