BYM Trustees meeting, 22 November 2024
Britain Yearly Meeting Trustees (BYMT) met to discuss the new operational plan and received various reports including reparations and central structures.
What are Britain Yearly Meeting Trustees responsible for?
Britain Yearly Meeting Trustees are responsible for the national organisation of Quakers in Britain, including the stewardship of its properties, finances and staff. This is the organisation which carries out the centrally managed work discerned by Quakers through Yearly Meeting and Meeting for Sufferings and the central and standing committees of Friends appointed by them. They are also responsible for legal compliance with charity law, health & safety, data protection and safeguarding, as well as for any other work Yearly Meeting asks them to undertake.
What did they do at this meeting?
At this meeting for worship for business, Trustees set the budget for 2025, and agreed the operational plan for 2025–2027, which sets out what the organisation expects to deliver over the next three years. This includes the work of local and youth development workers, Quaker work for peace in the UK and abroad, climate justice campaigning and peace education, as well as outreach, communications and political advocacy. The organisation will also service Yearly Meeting and its many committees, including work on the change from Meeting for Sufferings to the new continuing Yearly Meeting which will replace it from 2026. Trustees agreed to create a new, temporary, senior management position to oversee the changes this development will require in several aspects of the organisation's work.
Trustees also received the annual Environmental, Health & Safety report, and a report from their Reparations Working Group, which has been working on how Quakers will make meaningful reparations for their role in the transatlantic chattel slave trade. A new risk framework was presented, and Trustees spent time considering the work of the Group to Review Central Structures. They decided that the time was not right to propose the forming of a new single central committee to oversee the central work, but to look at other ways to address the need to allocate and prioritise resources across Britain Yearly Meeting's charitable programmes, as well as to explore how to build greater engagement and participation in Quaker work by Friends not yet involved with the centrally managed work.
What happens next?
Trustees next meet in February, when they will receive a report on the work done in 2024 and the difference it has made in the Quaker community and the wider world. They will also consider how to take forward the work of the Group to Review Central Structures in new ways, as well as receiving reports on communications and fundraising activity. They will be considering how the financial arrangements for the new continuing Yearly Meeting will work - both to pay for representation from area meetings and to support a wider range of Friends to attend.
How can I find out more?
Friends who attend Meeting for Sufferings in December will hear a spoken report from Marisa Johnson, the clerk of BYM Trustees, and will be able to offer comments and ask questions.
Minutes of previous meetings can be found on the BYM Trustees page.