| Northern Friends Peace Board Annual Report of our work in 2004 Introduction After the intense peace witnessing and campaigning of 2003, 2004 was a quieter year for Northern Friends Peace Board. Our review process that began at the end of 2003 continued during the following few months, resulting in the laying down of some work and the establishment of foundations for the next phase. Our experiences of involving a large number of our members in thematic working groups was mixed, with a number of very positive outcomes but also some difficulties in ensuring their effectiveness and the appropriate level of commitment from members. Our survey of Friends’ interests, needs and activities likewise gave us a mixed picture of constant and committed involvement in peace witness alongside dilemmas and questions about the peace testimony in practice. A report from the Oxford Research Group towards the end of the year concluded that, whilst peace campaigning activities in response to very particular situations is crucial, so too is sustained and planned project-based peace work. We recognise that our responsibility is to take a longer-term approach, being careful to plan and evaluate properly, alongside our responses to crises. Our own members’ involvement in a variety of activities with Friends and others locally is our strength, but – as for Friends throughout Britain – they often find themselves having to fill several different roles in addition to those on Northern Friends Peace Board. We are grateful for all that our members bring to the Board, in helping develop our understanding and our witness. We are grateful too for the continued financial support that has come from Friends, Attenders and their Meetings throughout the year and for the funding from charitable trusts and bequests. We are always conscious of the need to use these valuable resources with care, but also greatly encouraged that the support we have had over recent years will enable us to look ahead a reasonable distance in our work and to resource it properly when need be. Board meetings As usual, we had four meetings of the Board during the year, covering a wide geographical area. The meetings are part decision-making events and part opportunities to learn from speakers and from one-another. They remain a key feature of our life as a worshipping committee and community of Friends. Highlights of these meetings during 2004 include: In Lancaster in February, we heard from Marigold Bentley of Quaker Peace and Social Witness about the wider spread of that Committee and its sub-committee’s work and activities. We also spent a good period of time exploring the themes that were emerging in our review exercise (see below for more detail about this), aided by a colourful audio-visual presentation of the results from our Clerk. Our summer meeting saw us travel to Aberdeen for a meeting at the northern-most Meeting House in Scotland. Foundations were put in place for the new project groups and a consideration was given to the most effective and valuable way of meeting together as a Board. David Gee spoke to us about the emerging area of work he was developing on non-military security. We experimented on this occasion by putting members up partly with local Friends and partly at the city’s youth hostel. We valued the extra time we were able to spend together and in meeting and socialising with Aberdeen Friends during the weekend. Another coastal location in September – this time Liverpool. Our speaker on this occasion was Colin Parry, whose son Tim was killed at the age of 13 by an IRA bomb in Warrington town centre in the early 1990s. Colin and his wife Wendy had spent some time after their son’s death in travelling and meeting with people in Britain, Ireland and the United States, seeking to understand a little more of the context of the conflict which had made such a tragic impact on their family. With support from many quarters, they had been able to set up the Warrington Peace Centre. Colin’s presentation to the Board was personal, passionate and hugely memorable. An icy November day, but a warm welcome and warm meeting house in Harrogate! Crucial business at this meeting was based around Board members’ own contributions to and involvement in the work of the Board. We had important appointments to make to our Executive committee (including Clerks for the coming years) and spent time considering the range of other ways in which our members can act in furthering the Board’s work, within the meetings and committees and in relating it to Friends and attenders in their Monthly Meetings. In the afternoon, Ray Gaston and July Greenan (an Anglican vicar and member from Leeds) gave a vivid presentation in words, music and pictures of their church’s journey in witnessing for peace over recent years. Harrogate Friends joined NFPB members in the evening for a ceilidh, warming ourselves up through dance before heading back into the cold night. Review and forward planning At the end of 2003, we launched a review of our recent work, and this continued in the first months of 2004. Having evaluated our three key working groups during a Board November 2003 meeting, we went on to consult much more widely with Friends. A series of questions were taken by our members to Friends and Attenders in the north. Some turned these into questionnaires for people to complete, some consulted Friends by phone, and others considered the questions in groups. The responses were very illuminating, and some of these are summarised below. You and the Peace Testimony:
QUESTION: How do you live out your Peace Testimony?
QUESTION: What do you find easy in relation to the Peace Testimony, and what do you find challenging?
Easy …
Difficult …
Support and encouragement QUESTION: What resources and activities – from whatever source – have you found helpful in your Peace Testimony and witness in recent years and would you expect to find useful in the future? Books – QF&P, Inspiring People, Meeting for Worship, Other Organisations, Briefings, Leaflets, Public Witness, Speakers, Discussions, Training & Workshops, Display materials, Focus on children & young people As a result of the whole process, the existing working groups were laid down in the course of the year, and terms of reference were drawn up for new project groups. In addition, the Executive and Board set out a framework for the continuing work. The first project groups pick up and develop work started under the wider Culture of Peace and Challenging Militarism Working Groups. It was valuable for a period to have a large number of our members involved in the work of these earlier groups, but we concluded that it was not sustainable for such a number to be active in this way of a longer period of time. Similarly, whilst taking an overview of issues under the general headings of the working groups enabled a number of concerns and interests to be picked up, it did mean that we had begun to spread our energies and focus too thinly. The new project groups have therefore been set up with a narrower focus, a more limited time-scale and smaller memberships. They will be based around work on:
An additional strand that emerged from the consultation process is that NFPB needed to make itself more visible and to develop a variety of means of working with Friends locally and regionally. One way in which we shall be developing this is to look at how we arrange our quarterly Board meetings. At the end of the year we wrote to Meetings suggesting that they may wish to invite us to meet in their Meeting Houses and develop a programme that will in some way be of joint interest to NFPB and to Friends in that area. We hope too that each of our project groups will look at ways of including a strong sense of joint working with local and regional groups of Friends. Working groups Whilst the activities arising from the larger working groups were not developed in any new directions –– this year (due to the review process), it did continue. Culture of Peace Workshops We were involved in three workshop activities during the year. In (February?) we facilitated a workshop on Building a Culture of Peace at Bradford Friends Meeting House for about fifteen Quakers and others from Bradford and surroundings. Facilitators were Philip Austin and Mary Alice Mansell. In the months leading up to Easter we worked with the Quaker Outreach in Yorkshire committee in developing a long-weekend programme of workshop activities around the theme of Pathways to Peace. Four members of Northern Friends Peace Board worked with other Friends from Yorkshire in facilitating a range of activities for several dozen participants on the theme at Cober Hill conference centre near Scarborough. NFPB facilitators were Philip Austin, Una Parker, Jenny Wistreich and Kathleen Rodham. In October, we ran a workshop at Keswick Friends Meeting House for Friends and others from north Cumbria on the theme of Living Peace. Twenty participants worked together in exploring current concerns, visions for the future and in developing and priorities strategies for action. Racism Our concern about racism as an element of ‘un-peacefulness’ in our communities continued. In the lead up to the European and local elections in the spring, we felt it important to give Friends and others some encouragement to voice our hope that racist politics would not make any headway. We produced a simple poster for Friends to use in Meeting Houses (see below) and distributed sheets of mini-stickers, for Friends and others to use as they saw fit. We continued to keep in touch with other Friends’ groups on this area of concern. With Quaker Voluntary Action (QVA) we developed a bid for a joint one-year peace worker, to be selected, supported and funded by Quaker Peace and Social Witness and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. We were unsuccessful in this bid but the exercise was valuable in giving shape to some possible ways of working together in the future. We were very pleased to be able to attend two consultative events organised by the Quaker Life Racial Equality committee, in Birmingham and in Leicester respectively. These too were valuable in getting a sense of what our own distinctive contribution to work in this are could / should be. Challenging Militarism We continued to monitor resources and activities relating to the war in Iraq and those in other parts of the world, and developments relating to disarmament and militarism. With such a range of issues and opportunities for involvement, our chief role has been to look for places where Friends can make a particular contribution. We have done this through continued distribution of our Signpost Leaflets, through our newsletter and other mailings to Friends, through email circulation lists and through resources and calendar items on our regularly updated web site. Missile Defence We have continued our active involvement with the Missile Defence Working Group, a networking and co-ordinating body bringing together staff members from campaigning and research organisations whose work encompasses US missile defence. We play a role in monitoring web-based news services and circulating information and news to other members of the working group. We helped in hosting meetings when the group has met in the north (which it has done alternately with its London meetings) and in supporting a process of dialogue with civil servants from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Ministry of Defence. Board members supported peaceful protests at Fylingdales and at Menwith Hill in Yorkshire throughout the year and joined with other Friends in attending the Meetings for Worship at the gates of these bases on the first Saturdays of each month. The Board has helped to publicise these Meetings through printed fliers and through submitting diary notices to The Friend on a regular basis. Resources, communications and networking As well as our project work and our Board meetings, we continue to serve as a resource for Friends and other acting for peace in a wide range of different ways. Information: Our website is regularly maintained and updated and continues to receive visits from the world over. It includes information about our work and electronic versions of materials produced by our projects and working groups, as well as information to many other peace initiatives in the UK and abroad. We produced two newsletters in the course of the year and had materials and a display at Britain Yearly Meeting and at the QPSW Annual Conference. Resources: Our core materials have sold well throughout the year. These have included The Peace Papers, our envelope re-use labels, mini-stickers, posters and postcards and banner kits. Occasionally we also still get requests for publications such as Orange and Green, published by Northern Friends Peace Board in the 1970s on the subject of the then-emerging troubles in Northern Ireland. We have been pleased to be able to provide packs of materials and exhibition resources for local Friends to have a visible presence at particular events. Networking: In addition to the project-related networking, we maintain our links with a number of other bodies, some through membership links. These include the Network for Peace, the Network for Christian Peace Organisations and the International Peace Bureau. Amongst Friends we try to make ourselves visible and available at Britain Yearly Meeting and attended the November meeting of the European Quaker Peace and Consultation. We have supported the Week of Prayer for World Peace for a further year by compiling and hosting web-pages for the week on our own site. We continued to maintain and contribute to the PeaceTest email discussion list for Friends. Report of the Executive The Executive submit their report and the accounts for the year ended 31st December 2004. The Executive confirm that the accounts comply with current statutory requirements and the charity's constitution. PRINCIPAL ACTIVITIES The principal activity of the Board is the advancement within its areas of operation of the religious principles of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) through the education and training of members of the public in matters of justice, peace and the integrity of creation with special reference to that against the occasion of all wars through the provision of organised courses and programmes. ORGANISATION AND ACTIVITIES The Board shall maintain a Scottish postal address, and its constitution shall be governed by the Law of Scotland. Procedures of the Board and its committees shall follow the general counsel on church affairs set out in the Book of discipline of the Society. The area of operation covered by the Board shall be primarily that covered by the General and Monthly Meetings of Britain Yearly Meeting in Scotland, North Wales and Northern England. The Board employs a co-ordinator, and a part time administrative assistant. There were no changes in activities in the year. REVIEW OF PROGRESS AND ACHIEVEMENTS A review process carried out in the early part of 2004 involved a consideration internally of the functioning of our working groups and other activities and externally, of the needs and concerns of Friends and others in the north of Britain. This resulted in a set of new proposals being developed, three new project groups being set and further activities to involve the wider network of Friends in future work. The bulk of the work continued to be conducted from our office at the Victoria Hall in Bolton. Four Board meetings took place during the year, with speakers on a range of issues of interest to our members and of relevance to our work of seeking to support Quakers and others in acting for peace in all its height and breadth. The Executive Meeting, comprising our Trustees, also met four times during the year. During the period covered, Joanna Valentine has served as Clerk to the Board, Nova Brockbank as Assistant Clerk, Clare Whitehead as Clerk to the Executive, and Tim Carlisle as Treasurer. Tony and Jane Robinson served as joint Administrative Treasurers in 2004, undertaking the bulk of the routine book-keeping and payments in and out of our accounts. Philip Austin and Steven Waling, Co-ordinator and Administrative Assistant respectively, undertook a basic training in the use of QuickBooks accounting software in the autumn in preparation for them taking on the bulk of the finance administration from the beginning of 2005. Other key activities to note during the year have included
The law requires the Executive to prepare financial statements for each financial year which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charity and of the incoming resources of the year and the application of resources of the charity for that period. In preparing those financial statements, the Executive are required to:
COMMENTARY ON THE FINANCIAL STATEMENT Giving from Friends and their Meetings has was slightly less during 2004 than it was in 2003. Revenue from Charitable Trusts was significantly less with the end of the three-year grant from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and of the associated project work. The new projects set up are ongoing and it is fully expected that the existing funds will be sufficient to meet the needs of these projects. We received further income from legacies this year and an increase in the regular commission payment from the Phone Co-op in relation to our affinity scheme with them. New computer equipment was purchased during the year RISK STATEMENT In order to avoid running at a deficit we continued to exercise caution in our spending during the year. This has meant that our reserves remain at a good level, giving security and confidence for the future. A higher proportion of our assets were in the form of cash rather than stock at the end of the year, putting us in a stronger operational position. RESERVES POLICY In March 2001 Trustees agreed that we should endeavour to hold in our reserves the equivalent of four month's running costs, based on the period of notice required for the termination of our Co-ordinator's employment and any winding up costs associated with that. Our current reserves exceed this margin, largely as a result of the unexpected receipt in the course of the previous year of three legacies. There may be unexpected uses to which these funds might be put in the course of the year and we expect to draw on them to develop project work when necessary. By Order of The Executive Clare Whitehead Clerk to the Executive during 2004
Northern Friends Peace Board Members during 2004
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