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• Introducing QCEA’s New Representatives

• Border Meeting 2002

Liz Scurfield:

I was brought up a Christian Scientist. In 1993 I began attending Quaker Meeting in London and became a member of Hampstead MM in 1995. I have been very involved with local meetings over the past 9 years, helping to start a Spiritual Friends initiative, as an Overseer in the Meeting and organising study groups both for the local Meeting and the Monthly Meeting. I have been attending Britain Yearly Meeting regularly, becoming familiar with the national and international work of the Yearly Meeting. More recently, I have been Monthly Meeting representative for Quaker Peace and Social Witness.

I co-founded the Chinese Department at the University of Westminster and am now the Chair of the Department of Modern Languages there. My lifelong interest in modern languages is based on my commitment to international and cultural dialogue, exchange and understanding.

Martina Weitsch:

I was brought up as a Quaker in Bad Pyrmont Yearly Meeting where I was an active Young Friend. I moved to the UK in 1978 and have been active within Britain Yearly Meeting since the early 1980’s. I have served on a number of committees at the national level. In the last few years I have concentrated on my local and Monthly Meeting. I have been Clerk of my local Meeting and an Elder and have been very involved with the Monthly Meeting outreach project, Quaker Quest.

My work has been in the social housing sector in the UK both in local government and in housing associations. The last four years I have been self-employed as a consultant to the social housing sector.

Impetus for change:

We both realised that we had been in the same fields for a long time and needed change. We embarked on the Equipping for Ministry course at Woodbrooke at the beginning of this year partly to prepare us for any opportunities for Quaker service either in the UK or abroad. The opportunity arose more quickly than we had imagined and for us, our new role in QCEA is an exciting and challenging new direction in our lives.

We see QCEA as uniquely able to act as a communication link between European Friends and the institutions of Europe. Building on the work of QCEA to date, we hope to be able to further this by:

• Providing information to European Friends

• Listening to Friends’ concerns and views on European issues

• Facilitating discussions among Friends to develop these concerns and views

• Communicating these views and concerns to European decision makers

• Working actively within the network of other NGOs whose concerns are close to those of Friends.

This agenda will be affected by crises and issues outside the world of QCEA and Friends. There will be a need for quick and effective reaction to those outside issues. There is also scope for being proactive, identifying issues which Friends may want to speak out about and being ready to speak when the opportunity to be heard arises.

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The lecture contained a challenging proposition and provided much food for thought. The view was put forward that maybe we should distance ourselves more from the world and its power structures (an approach adopted by another peace church, the Mennonites). It was suggested we could do this to ensure that our spiritual voice keeps its clarity and stays true to itself. Whilst this viewpoint challenged us to think deeply about the issue, a consensus emerged that an important part of Quakerism was social action and being involved in the world. It was felt that there was a need to ‘speak out’ as Quakers and engage in issues of concern thereby seeking to influence the power structures that be.

Given the group’s feelings from this discussion, the QCEA workshop was very fitting. We moved from considering being ‘strangers of the world’ to how to be ‘citizens of the world’ and trying to clarify which issues concern Quakers and which ones we want to be ‘speaking out’ about. The consensus that had emerged earlier which suggested Quakers wanted to be active in the world was reflected in an exercise held in the QCEA workshop. This exercise showed that the group was highly involved at all levels of society (local, national, European and international), disproportionately so when compared to many segments of the population. It was telling though that involvement was least at the European level. We challenged ourselves to think why this was the case and how we could engage more with the European institutions.

Reasons offered for why we didn’t involve ourselves more were that the EU seemed distant from us; there was a lack of media coverage on the issues that matter in the EU; furthermore it was difficult to find understandable and simple documents from the EU that we could digest. Whilst it was accepted that we have a responsibility as citizens to participate, it was felt that there was also a duty on behalf of those working in the EU to provide the very conditions that enable us to do this fully. Having agreed that we have a role as Quakers, we all gave thought to which policy areas of the EU Quakers feel they have a particular message to bring. Whilst there were divergent views, education, international development, and foreign policy and security came high on people’s list of priorities. There was a real fear emerging from many Quakers that the EU is becoming an “inward-looking” body and developing into a “fortress Europe”. We felt that we could provide input through cooperation with other faith groups, stressing the ethical aspects of policy and giving examples of how to work for peace and social justice.

We can conclude that Quakers indeed have a lot to offer to the European project - we just sometimes need the confidence to walk in the light a little more, as well as the conditions that enable us know how to do so effectively.

Hannah Pennock (intern at QCEA in September 2002)

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Jan and Marjorie were in Brussels and in Membership of Belgium and Luxembourg Monthly Meeting at a time when the first steps towards the creation of the Quaker Council for European Affairs were being taken. They saw the importance of QCEA as a Quaker contribution to peace in Europe and beyond and have always been supportive of the Council and its work.

As Jan leaves us now, the title of his famous and historical novel on the early days of the Religious Society of Friends can stand witness to everything he hoped and worked for, The Peaceable Kingdom. Jan’s life will be commemorated fondly in his native Netherlands and by all who were privileged to meet him or to be helped and encouraged by him.

The Council sends its deepest sympathy to Marjorie and his family.

Neville Keery, Clerk

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At the same time, QCEA is continuing to hold seminars across Europe. In August there was a one-day seminar in Stockholm as well as sessions at France Yearly Meeting. In September QCEA was present at the Border Meeting (for more details see above) to run a workshop as part of the theme “how can we let our lives speak of God in public life?” At all the seminars the response has been very positive: Friends are keen to find out more about the EU and to gain information on how they can put forward their concerns more effectively.

Bronwen Thomas

If you would like a briefing pack (full set available in French, German and English) please click on the following links to download:

English - French -German

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Study Tour to Brussels and Strasbourg to learn about the European institutions and QCEA’s work with them.

More details here, or contact Bronwen Thomas for an application form.

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Deadline for applications: Friday 8th November 2002

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Back to the main Around Europe page