“Young Friends General Meeting is a group for Quakers (The Religious Society of Friends) aged 18 to about 30. It has existed for the past 100 years and currently provides fellowship and support for approximately 200 young adult Quakers.

As Quakers we aim for the starting point in all that we do to be equality. In relation to marriage we feel that the state should not be precluding same-sex couples from civil marriage. We therefore welcome the proposals that the government has made as the first steps towards marriage equality.

Although this consultation is focused on civil marriage we feel it is important to understand where marriage fits into our religious life. Our community supports same-sex and opposite-sex couples, and membership in our community forms an important part of their lives as individuals and couples. In addition, religious forms of marriage are seen by many in our community to be a deeply significant part of their relationships. Therefore, as a religious society, we are disappointed that the state is proposing to continue to impinge on a national decision by Quakers in 2009 to support and celebrate marriages between same-sex couples in the same way as we do for opposite sex couples. We are grateful to be able to recognise and report marriages in our community in accordance with our beliefs and value this ability. However, we strongly feel that preventing Quakers from reporting marriages to the state for same-sex couples is fundamentally unfair and goes against our religious liberty, conscience and commitment to equality. Similarly we feel that precluding opposite-sex couples from civil partnerships represents a parallel inequality.

We recognise that there are people and religious groups who have different ideas and beliefs. We are not trying to enforce our views on others and do not wish to compel other religions to act against their conscience. However we believe that all religions should have the right to perform same-sex marriages should they so wish.

We feel that maintaining separate legislation for recognising same-sex and opposite-sex partnerships will perpetuate inequality in our society and we believe that to be consistent the government should open marriage and civil partnerships to all couples. As a religious society we feel we are moving towards recognising a wide range of relationships where genuine tenderness, openness and love are the basis for committed relationships and that decisions around terminology such as ‘civil partnerships’ and ‘marriage’ may be better left to couples rather than the state.

Signed on behalf of Young Friend’s General Meeting,

Sally Nicholls and Ian Goggin (co-clerks)

May 2012”

27th-29th July 2012, Bristol Redland Meeting House

YFGM are teaming up with The Leaveners (Quaker Community Arts organisation) this summer to present an exciting weekend project for anyone between the ages of 18 and ‘around 30 years’ old. A team of facilitators will be providing an informal but packed programme covering a variety of creative art forms (including crafts, written and performance arts), aimed at discovering how the arts can further, and be a form of, spiritual experience. No previous experience of YFGM or The Leaveners needed!

Download more information and a booking form here:

http://leaveners.org/assets/SpiritualityandtheArtsForm.pdf

We are still looking for volunteers to help make this fantastic event happen! If you would be interested in running a workshop, download an information pack, or email lauren@leaveners.org. We are also looking for caterers. Travel expenses and full support provided.

Information Pack: http://leaveners.org/assets/SATA2012VolunteerForm.pdf

Any questions about the weekend? Email lauren@leaveners.org or call The Leaveners Office 0121 414 0099

For information about project and/or accessibility bursaries email Hugo at yfgm@quaker.org or call 01214721998

What will YAFs gain from taking part?

• A greater understanding of Quaker history and processes
• Developed personal spiritual practices
• An understanding of leadership within Quakers and the wider world
• An opportunity to develop your practical skills for your professional, voluntary and spiritual lives
• An understanding of how to approach conflict in the workplace or in other situations
• Increased involvement in your Quaker community
• Developed facilitation and group work skills
• You can also take part in 3 short courses at Woodbrooke for half the normal price

It’s an opportunity for you to grow as a Quaker leader in your community, and hopefully feed that back into YFGM in the future.

The Young Adult Leadership course as Woodbrooke is taking applications until May 30th.

The cost for the course is quite £1450, so YFGM has financial assistance to help people who want the opportunity. 

YFGM has £3000 specifically budgeted to help those who want to participate (and you should all want to). Woodbrooke itself also has funds should we run over a bit, and there is always YFGM’s normal bursary fund.

We have a little form for you to fill out so we can determine how to divide up funds if we have more than 2 applicants.

The form to apply for funding is here.

If you have any problems with the form, email me. If you need a paper copy, email me or phone 07942907949.

The application deadline for funding assistance is June 15th. We will consider applications up until Woodbrooke give us the names of those who have been selected to take part in the course.

YFGM has got under my skin. It turns out that wherever I am in the world, and however busy I might be, I still get a bit glum when it’s a YFGM weekend and I’m not there! I found this out in February when, despite a difficult morning monitoring Checkpoint 300 (the checkpoint between Bethlehem and East Jerusalem, through which thousands of Palestinians have to pass through every morning, mostly having waited for at least 2 hours) I was still preoccupied by the decisions made in Nottingham by my YFGMer friends.

Some might call this just a little bit tragic, but I see it as testimony to the strength of the YFGM community, and the experiences we have together.

It’s an itinerant community; no two YFGMs are the same, either in terms of people attending, the sessions we run, the atmosphere, or indeed the location. But it’s also, I think, a strong one, where you can feel surrounded by support, even if you haven’t seen those supporters for three months.

Since I have been here working as a human rights observer with the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel, I have felt warmly upheld by the YFGM community. I’ve felt this both personally, through the emotional support I’ve had from the friends I’ve made here, and I suppose practically in the work that I am doing, because people are interested in the work that I am doing here and the people I am meeting.

I’ve also encountered communities out here in which I see strong and supportive bonds between members. In Wadi Rahal, a village of about 1000 people, everyone is related, and there is a real family atmosphere when walking through the streets. From these streets you can also see the Israeli settlement of Efrat, which has expanded so that it is now just 50m from the house at the edge of Wadi Rahal.

Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states that in occupied territories (such as the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since 1967) “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” Some of the land the settlement is built on is owned by the farmers of Wadi Rahal.

Furthermore, although the separation barrier that winds its way through the West Bank has not yet been built around the village, they have the maps which show the planned route, and it will go approximately 3m behind the back of the villages’ school. Much more of the villages’ land will be taken when the separation barrier is completed.

Over the past years a popular resistance committee, made up of ten young people from the village, has been coordinating demonstrations to protest against the building of the separation barrier, and the confiscation of their land for the settlement. Every Friday the villages would pray in the land that has been confiscated. At first it was people from the village, but soon they were joined weekly by internationals, and also Israeli peace activists. Anas Ziada, a student of Social Work who was part of the popular resistance committee, was grateful for the support of these Israelis: “I will never forget the Israeli solidarity with us. They came many times to help us, all the way from Tel Aviv”.

In the popular committee, it is Anas’ job to rouse support from the villagers, so he went house to house at first, explaining what the committee was planning, and inviting people along. Recently they have ceased their demonstrations, having been threatened by security staff at the local settlement. They were told that those people who have work permits for Jerusalem would have them revoked if the demonstrations continued.

Far from being downhearted, Anas says that this is evidence that their campaign is having an impact: “Some people say that popular resistance doesn’t make any difference, but I say, why would they come and talk to us if we weren’t making a difference?”. Whilst the protests in Wadi Rahal are suspended, people in the village have been visiting neighbouring villages Al Ma’sara and Al Walaja, to attend their protests against the wall and the confiscation of their land. As EAPPI is here to show solidarity with communities like Wadi Rahal, the people of Wadi Rahal also show their solidarity to their neighbours in their nonviolent resistance – that’s the kind of community spirit I hope is echoed in our own young Quaker group.

Disclaimer:  I work for Quaker Peace and Social Witness (QPSW) as an ecumenical accompanier serving on the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained in this email are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer (QPSW) or the World Council of Churches. If you would like to publish the information contained here (including posting it on a website), or distribute it further, please first contact the QPSW Programme Manager for I-oPt teresap@quaker.org.uk for permission. Thank you.

We hope you are all looking forward to the next YFGM as much as us, please remember to book early if you are on our database already you can register yourself by logging into the database (http://www.yfgm-members.org.uk/) the registration form is available on the documents page of our web site (http://yfgm.quaker.org.uk/docs/) .

YFGM is happening beside the seaside in Bournemouth 4th-7th May, as you can see this is a slightly longer event, which normally allows for us to explore the concerns of Young Friends with an extra special interest group session, as well us giving us an opportunity to spend more social time together. As always there are bursaries available and we have a accessibility policy, so please feel free to ring us about your accessibility needs.

We still have some unclaimed belongings left from the last YFGM in Nottingham, please ring the office if one of the following belongs to you: a blue superman t-shirt, a grey pair of gloves with green strips, a brown scarf, black umbrella and black top.

Please contact me in the office if you need anything.

In Friendship

Hugo
YFGM coordinator

Many would wonder what makes an eighteen-year-old who, only having read about Quakers on the Internet, never having even been to her local meeting, travel 130 miles to a tri-annual General Meeting of Young Quakers.  Strangely though, that thought did not enter my own mind until the very moment I arrived at Nottingham Friends’ Meeting House, and by then it was too late – much too late.

I’ll warn you right now:  yes, there were embarrassing ice-breakers.  We even had a quiz.  But you know what?  It worked.  By the time we reached the pub on Friday night, and with the discovery of an encyclopaedia under our table (don’t ask) causing much hilarity, I felt very much at home.

During the course of the weekend, I went on a ‘treasure hunt’  around Nottingham, I wrote a poem about Quaker history which included the lines ‘we are big on equality and we have no priestly’ and I got a total of about six hours sleep.  I also learnt the Quaker business method, I found out what an ‘epilogue’ was; I learnt the value of silence and of words.

I think what drew me to Quakerism was its openness and acceptance.  And that acceptance, I feel, is really true.  It’s not ‘it’s okay that you’re different but really I’m going to try and change you to fit with what I believe.’  In my opinion, all the people I spoke to and all those I heard speak at YFGM are very similar, but that is by far from a negative thing.  I think that similarity is the desire to question, to be ‘radical’, as we heard in a talk from Simon Best during the weekend.  Every Friend is searching for something, and they are not content to just go through life with apathy, without caring, and without challenging the status quo.  And so that means that whilst there were and are differences among them, it interweaves with a seamlessness to make anyone and everyone welcome.

So, in conclusion, where can you find me on May bank holiday weekend?  Why, in Bournemouth at the next YFGM, of course.

Then why not attend YFGM February 17th-19th at Nottingham Quaker Meeting House

Young Friends General Meeting (YFGM) is a national group for Young Adult Quakers aged between 18 and 30-ish.
We are a scattered community, and meet three times a year for residential weekends in different Quaker Meeting Houses to spend time together, explore our faith and ways of living out the Quaker testimonies to truth, simplicity, equality and peace.
YFGM is inviting new people to attend for *free including travel
Over the weekend you can expect: games, silent worship, socialising, speakers, direct action activism, business and food.

Fill in the registration form and email (your details) or post it to the office. If you have any trouble contact our Coordinator by emailing yfgm(at)quaker.org.uk or phone 0121 4751998.
*We will reimburse your travel expenses (up to £100) at the event, provided you register 2 weeks in advance.

If you’ve made it to this site, well done!  We’re currently under construction, and hope to be putting up info, beautiful pictures, thrilling videos and who knows, maybe some polls and useful links.

All you need know for now is that YFGM will meet from the 21st-23rd October, in Lancaster Meeting House.  See you there!