Trustees in the tool room
Some Friends may recall Nevil Shute's 1960's best seller, “Trustee from the toolroom”. It tells the story of a technical journalist, Keith Stewart, whose sister and brother in law die in a ship wreck on an island in French Polynesia. Keith inherits the responsibility for bringing up their orphaned daughter but is too poor to do so, without the illicit diamonds that lie in the wrecked yacht. He must find them. Without giving away the plot, what can be said for our purposes is that the story has a happy ending!
Yearly Meeting has set up the new Quaker tool room and Trustees will now go to work. Some Friends fear a ship wreck; others fear there are no diamonds and still others fear a sad ending or at the very least the transformation of Meeting for Sufferings MfS) into a mere talking shop, as Dorothy Nelson wrote in The Friend on 2 June. Some Friends in our Monthly Meeting feared even worse: the end of the Society of Friends as it has been known for centuries, as we become subject to the law of the land via Charities' law in a way which will distort our essence as worldly dissenters and spiritual assenters. On the other side, Friends like Roger Sturge say that Meeting for Sufferings, the main 'loser' in the shifting of Quakerly tectonic plates, will be 'freed to fly'. It will no longer succumb to an endless pre-occupation with detail and administrative matters.
As a Balby MM representative on our national standing representative body, I feel that both of these positions over-state the situation but under-state the possible resolution of this crucial change. They do not refer to the specific content of what has been decided, as recorded in the BYM Minutes, or to the draft text on the roles of BYM, MfS or the Trustees in the revisions for Quaker Faith and Practice. These, I welcome. The latter is still a draft, and is subject to further change. I agree that MfS does need to be freed from the endless detail that organisations like ours must deal with. When it becomes pre-occupied with this, other important items can get pushed off the agenda and its guiding, spiritual role can become diverted.
On the other side, if MfS does not deal with the 'major issues' concerning administration it will not be able to carry out its combined spiritual or business responsibilities; for we know, as others do not always, that these things must go together. As the YM Minute records, there must be safeguards, and these safeguards are listed in draft paragraph 7.04 for the revised QFP. We need to be certain about these issues, as the Trustees must consult with MfS about these, and as they are major decisions there will be intensive consultations, if necessary. We will not just sit there to receive reports. Trustees need to recognise that.
If the Trustees and MfS disagree then the issue will go to YM. We need to take care here, as it may be that a major decision will need to be taken before YM is due to meet. There are three possible solutions should a stalemate arise (for example, should Trustees, on perfectly sound business grounds, decide that Friends House should be sold, MfS says no and the decision cannot be delayed ). These three possible outcomes are: YM is recalled, MfS assumes trustee powers or mediators are brought in. As the draft chapters for QFP are presently written none of these seem to be provided for. Practice in Monthly Meetings gives us some guidance here: trustees bring major decisions to MM, consult and an approach is agreed by MM, recorded in the Minute and trustees act. It is trustees who take the (legal) decision. This dual decision-making is very Quakerly and it has worked for a long time. It requires trust on both sides of the process and that is the best way to go in the relationship between MfS and the Trustee Body. MfS needs to be as close to the tool room as it is possible to be without being in it, when necessary. It does not need to do all the work but it must share the decisions on fitting and turning major products. A happy ending will then be assured.
Dave Feickert, Balby Monthly Meeting Representative on MfS
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