Present: Rachel Bryers, Sarah Davies, Marielke Nieuwerth, Anja Nuttin, Paul Sladen, Jason Schweiger, Maartin Spreij.
We welcome everyone to Groningen, the Netherlands. We are excited to be here. We welcome especially Sarah, our new Secretary, and everyone else who is new to CC. We look forward to a constructive weekend.
We have had a discussion on what function EMEYF has, and what function Communications Committee has. This has been particularly helpful at this time as many of us are new to our roles on CC, and we have discussed and clarified our roles. It has been suggested that it would be helpful for the Secretary to have a written job description. Sarah will draft this, for approval by the other members of CC. The Elders, Anja and Paul, have expressed their concern to ensure contact is made with isolated young friends throughout the area. Jason has reminded us that the Gatherings Coordinator now also has responsibility for communications with the EMES Executive Secretary about publishing articles written by young friends in their newsletter, Among Friends, and this will be added to the job description. Marielke has suggested that the Treasurer?s role be seen as that of a consolidating treasurer, coordinating the work of the Secretary and the Charitable Committee Treasurer, who have day to day responsibility for the bank accounts.
We welcome the participation of the Secretary and Elders in CC and suggest that the definition of CC is expanded to include these people, making a total of six members. Following minutes CC5.94, AM15.88 and AM17.93, we are reminded that CC can be proactive in bringing forward initiatives and enthusiasm, as well as attending to any business allocated to it by Annual Meeting.
Jan Ramaker from Groningen Monthly Meeting has now examined the consolidated accounts for 2002 and 2003. The Brussels and UK accounts for 2003 have been looked at by Xavier Verhaeghe, the QCEA Office Manager, and Richard Struthers, respectively. We ask Jonathan and Sarah to forward their signed accounts to Marielke as soon as possible. We thank the examiners for their work.
The 2003 accounts include a small deficit in the petty cash balance arising from Annual Meeting, which cannot be explained. We hear that, in future years, there will be a handover period of three weeks in the terms of the Secretaries, and we hope that this will help to avoid such discrepancies and misunderstandings in the future.
The treasurers feel that it has been very helpful to use the standardised format for account headings, and this has made it much easier to consolidate the accounts.
We are not aware of any changes which need to be made to the 2004 budget, so this will remain unchanged from Annual Meeting. Marielke and Sarah will meet later today to clarify when we expect to receive income from various bodies, and other practical aspects of the accounts.
Jason has been in touch with some members of the Planning Group for Spring Gathering 2004. They are confident that the event will be a success, but are concerned that only 13 people so far plan to attend. We have thought through various ideas to help encourage more people to attend. These include: getting more specific information from the Planning Group on the location, and circulating these details; using the email mailing list kept by the Secretary to publicise the event; and contacting National Contact People. We will start to pursue these ideas this afternoon and hope that enthusiasm and greater attempts to reach as many individuals as possible will be worthwhile.
We have heard that a young Friend from the Ukraine plans to attend Spring Gathering. We are concerned that they have not yet applied through us for a bursary to attend the event. We will attempt to clarify this afternoon whether a bursary application has been made, and if not, will contact the individual to initiate the process. In the event that, due to time constraints, we cannot acquire funding for this individual's attendance, we will pay their expenses from EMEYF funds.
We remind everyone that the procedure for applying for bursaries should be followed (see minute CC02.09), and will ensure that the bursaries guidelines and application form are adequately distributed. In order to process applications, they should be made at least six weeks before the start of a gathering. We are reminded that this procedure has been agreed to benefit everyone who attends gatherings equally.
Sarah has told us of progress in the planning of the World Gathering of Young Friends, which will take place in August 2005 in Lancaster, Britain. Much progress has taken place since we last heard an update, and we had a lively discussion about some points relating to it.
There are many ways in which Young Friends can get involved. The planning committee is looking for a full-time administrator to be employed. They are also keen that more people get involved in the planning process, through their bi-monthly planning meetings (the next to take place on 16-18 April 2004), or through a ?year-ahead? gathering to take place this summer (1-6 September 2004), or through other planning events. They are keen that people involved in EMEYF get more involved, and would still like a representative of EMEYF to be appointed to join the planning committee. We will try to find someone to fulfil this role by asking those on the email list if they are interested, and forwarding names to the planning group of these people and anyone else we think might be interested. If we cannot find someone, we will bring the matter back to Annual Meeting.
We ask that more use is made of the EMEYF email list to publicise these opportunities, and will encourage individuals to take part. We also agree that EMEYF may have an important role in providing a forum for those taking part to support each other, and disseminate and share their experience. We will bear this thought in mind as the shape of the gathering becomes clearer.
We have heard from Sarah some of her experiences and concerns about the role of EMEYF Secretary, and its relationship to the work of the QCEA office. We feel that these are important issues, and would like to offer as much support as we can to the QCEA Programme Assistants. We value the link with QCEA, and we hope that QCEA and its Programme Assistants feel enriched through their contact with EMEYF.
We have also heard that Jonathan Riddell, our Charitable Treasurer, has made an application to the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust to fund the work of the EMEYF Secretary. This amounts to a sum of ?714 per year, which would be a substantial increase on the sum we currently pay QCEA. We are concerned to ensure that QCEA uses this money directly to fund the EMEYF Secretary, and are also aware that, as employers of the EMEYF Secretary, we have substantial responsibilities for their welfare. We ask Rachel to write to our representatives on the QCEA Council to outline our concerns, and to ask them to raise these at the forthcoming Council Meeting. We value the work done by our Secretary, and remind ourselves to be concerned for them as an individual.
Jason has been in contact with EMES about our contribution to their newsletter Among Friends. As yet, despite his encouragements, no-one from EMEYF has submitted any articles. We will continue to use this column to publicise all events, including Spring Gathering and Annual Meeting. Details of any events to be advertised in this way should be sent to Jason as soon as possible.
In the meantime, we encourage all Young Friends to sign up to receive Among Friends. This can be done by contacting Bronwen Harwood, EMES Executive Secretary, and copies can be sent either electronically or on paper. Jason will disseminate this information via the email list and Sarah will send it to National Contact People.
We have heard from Sarah about a DVD which has been produced in North Carolina on the subject of Quaker Diversity. We agree that this sounds like a valuable resource, and that EMEYF should purchase a copy for use at EMEYF gatherings and by other Young Friends groups. We also ask Sarah to send details of the DVD to the mailing list, as we think that other groups or individuals may also have an interest in it.
We have been reminded that £772 remains of the legacy left by Dina Van Dalfsen, a Dutch Friend, for use by EMEYF. This money is to be used to organise an event to study ?the spiritual strengths and faculties of Quakers, now and in the past; in which ways these could be enhanced and applied to serve all human beings in general and to promote peace and reconciliation in particular, paying attention to modern research in the field of para-normal or psychic faculties?.
An EMEYF event was previously organised in 2001 on the theme of ?Empowerment and Practical Peacemaking?. This was a very successful event and we are excited at the possibilities for the use of the remaining funds.
We ask Marielke to talk to some Dutch Friends who knew Dina, to clarify ways in which she would wish the money to be used. We will also think through any ideas we have, and collate these to present at Annual Meeting. We ask Anja to facilitate this process.
Sarah has shown us the items which have been prepared for the Annual Booklet 2003. We agree that it is nice for reports to be written both by outgoing and incoming postholders, and will try to fill these gaps where possible. We will try to find a photo from an EMEYF event during the year for the cover. The booklet will be forwarded as usual to all National Contact People, Communications Committee, all organisations which have given us funding, and others. Sarah hopes to have the booklet finished by April. We thank her for her work on this.
Sarah has made attempts to make contact with Young Friends from the Middle East and Eastern Europe, with mixed results. However, we feel that this has been a worthwhile exercise, and thank Sarah for doing this.
We have also talked about outreach to participants of this summer's Quaker Youth Pilgrimage, which will be travelling through England, The Netherlands and Germany. We feel that it would be useful for someone from EMEYF to meet the Pilgrimage group, to tell them about EMEYF and give them copies of our outreach leaflet. We ask Rachel to find out their itinerary, and contact anyone from areas where they are staying to try to arrange for someone to meet them.
We have been contacted by an individual who would like to attend Spring Gathering, but is prohibited by the cost. We would like to help this individual with the cost, but feel that in that interests of equal access to such help, we should first make enquiries as to whether anyone else is in a smiliar position.
We ask Jason to send an email asking anyone to get in touch with us if they would like to attend Spring Gathering, but are unable to afford the cost. He will ask for replies by Friday 19th March. Communications Committee will then consider each case individually, by email. We hope that this will give us enough time to deal with this matter before Spring Gathering.
After discussion, Marielke has proposed changes to the budget to reflect the late payment of some grants, which we expected to receive in 2003. We agree these changes, which double the amount of income expected in 2004 from EMES and Dutch Yearly Meeting.
In order to try to prevent such late payments in the future, we ask Marielke and Sarah to send letters to our funders, asking them to confirm in which month we can expect payment, to allow us to make enquiries as soon as a payment is missed.
Annual Meeting will take place from 22nd to 24th October 2004 in Quaker House, Brussels. We enjoyed the input from an external speaker at last year's Annual Meeting, and hope to run a similar session this year. Any suggestions should be forwarded to Rachel.
We have had a hard working but constructive weekend. In Groningen we have made cultural discoveries, and had adventures and misadvertures. We thank Marielke for being a wonderful hostess, and everyone for their patience and enthusiasm. We look forward to holding Meeting for Worship tomorrow morning with a couple of members of Groningen Monthly Meeting.
Signed in and on behalf of Communications Committee,
Rachel Bryers