Yearly Meeting Gathering 2021 took place from 19 July to 8 August. Yearly Meeting in session was held between 30 July and 8 August. Yearly Meeting Gathering was the first online-only gathering of Britain Yearly Meeting.
Over three weeks, more than 1,000 Friends gathered online to worship, listen and learn together. During YMG, we made decisions on three central issues that we considered under the theme of 'For our comfort and discomfort: living equality and truth in a time of crisis'.
"We have pledged ourselves to continue to be a gentle, angry people who dare to live for truth and justice in a time of crisis."
Epistle and Minutes
Download the
Epistle from Yearly Meeting Gathering 2021 (PDF)
Download the
Epistle (Word .docx)
Download the
Minutes from Yearly Meeting Gathering 2021 (PDF)
Download the
Minutes (Word .docx)
Documents
- Preparation Pack (PDF)
- Our Community Agreement (PDF)
Documents in Advance
- Agenda and Notes (PDF)
- Yearly Meeting timetable (PDF)
- Schedule of Nominations (PDF)
- Testimonies (PDF)
- Annual Report (PDF)
- Annual Review - Our Faith, Our Work (interactive page)
Annual Review - Our Faith, Our Work (printable PDF) - Tabular Statement (PDF)
Sessions
Yearly Meeting Gathering took place online over three weeks, with Yearly Meeting sessions timetabled over two weekends.
The theme of Yearly Meeting Gathering 2021 was: “ For our comfort and discomfort: living equality and truth in a time of crisis". Under the umbrella of this theme, we continued our consideration of privilege, diversity and inclusion, and climate justice.
There were three strands to discernment, anti-racism, acknowledging and welcoming gender diverse people and faith-based action for climate justice.
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Introductions & Reports: Sessions 1-5 (Videos)
- Session 1: Yearly Meeting Agenda Committee and Agenda of Yearly Meeting. Speaker: Siobhan Haire, First Assistant Clerk of Yearly Meeting.
- Session 2: Our national representative body. Report from Meeting for Sufferings, read by the Clerk of Meeting for Sufferings, Margaret Bryan.
- Session 3: For our comfort and discomfort, living equality and truth in a time of crisis. Liz Brooks reminds Quakers of the commitment to anti-racism made by Meeting for Sufferings and explains the purpose of bringing this matter before the Yearly Meeting as a whole.
- Session 4: Meeting for Worship. No recording.
- Session 5: Britain Yearly Meeting Trustees. Caroline Nursey (Clerk of Trustees) and Linda Batten (Yearly Meeting Treasurer) introduce the report from Britain Yearly Meeting trustees and the 2020 accounts.
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Introductions & Reports: Sessions 6-11 (Videos)
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- Session 6: No recording.
- Session 7: Quaker Stewardship Committee. Clerk of Quaker Stewardship Committee, Yvonne Dickson, introduces the report from the committee.
- Session 8: Gender diversity and inclusion. Sue Hibberd speaks about gender inclusion.
- Session 9: Faith-based action for climate justice. Lindsey Fielder Cook, Lesley Grahame and Anya Nanning Ramamurthy speak in the session focusing on faith-based action for climate justice.
- Session 10: No recording available.
- Session 11: Epistle. Clare Scott Booth reads the Epistle of Yearly Meeting Gathering 2021.