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Yearly Meeting is an annual event in the life of British Quakers which can involve:
- constitutional decision-making
- annually overseeing and guiding the stewardship exercised between Yearly Meetings
- settling policy on major areas of work or witness
- promoting teaching and learning
- offering inspiration and leadership
- celebrating together
- re-dedicating ourselves
- calling us to action
- creating and sustaining a community, including those both under and over 19
Yearly Meetings are also occasions in which we can learn, practise, improve, and take back to our local meetings ways of conducting business which are rooted in Quaker tradition and our own experience yet also meet contemporary challenges. They should be a focus for every facet of Quakerism, constantly reminding us of what it means to be a Quaker today.
We are aware that we do not always achieve these purposes in our Yearly Meetings as well as we might; and indeed that it may not be possible to fulfil all the purposes to an equal extent at an individual Yearly Meeting. Seeking the right balance at any one Yearly Meeting is a necessary though difficult task. Our experience is that Yearly Meeting is most fruitful when its programme includes some decision-making and 'doing together', alongside more reflective sessions; and when it focuses on doing what only Yearly Meeting can do.
In 2011 we held a Yearly Meeting gathering in Canterbury. We made a commitment to work towards becoming a low-carbon sustainable community Britain Yearly Meeting minute
You may also be interested to read:
Britain Yearly Meeting epistle
Junior Yearly Meeting epistle
The Britain Yearly Meeting decision took place during a Yearly Meeting Gathering. There are many useful resources there such as the minutes, audio recordings from some sessions, as well as materials such as documents in advance.
The George Gorman lecture was by Simon Best and questioned the present and future of Quakers.
The Swarthmore Lecture was given by Pam Lunn and began the process of setting out our response to environmental challenges. The lecture CD is available from Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre
There are plenty of resources available from Britain Yearly Meeting concerning the environment and what we can do. You can sign up for their sustainability newsletter or start to take actions as a meeting.
Telling our stories will be important – sharing our successes and being accountable to one another will help us to achieve what we want. Some of them have Friends saying what they find hard or why they can’t do something – it isn’t all about ‘look how easy it was for me’.
Living Witness is the network of Quakers and particularly Meetings who are working on environment issues. There are plenty of materials on the Living Witness website including a carbon footprint calculator. The calculators can also be used online through Britain Yearly Meeting where they are called climate impact calculators.
You can join a website called imeasure in which you can record your electricity and gas meter readings every week. This will give you a good indicator of how much energy you're using. The data is collated and anonymised to be used by Oxford University in research. On the site there are lots of tips about how to use less energy and you can compare your figures to other people around the country who have similar size properties or similar number of people in the property.
Thanks to Jez Smith for this excellent page of links
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