DOCUMENTS in ADVANCE

The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Australia Inc.

DOCUMENTS in ADVANCE Yearly Meeting 2 – 9 July 2016 The Friends’ School, Hobart Published by The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Australia Inc., Canberra Printed and distributed from AYM Office PO Box 556 Kenmore Q 4069 May 2016

CONTENTS Yearly Meeting 2016 Timetable ...... 3 General information to prepare for Yearly Meeting ...... 4 First Timers at Yearly Meeting ...... 4 Pastoral care at Yearly Meeting ...... 4 Elders at Yearly Meeting ...... 4 Business Sessions at Yearly Meeting ...... 5 Abbreviations, Terms and Definitions ...... 6 Australia Yearly Meeting appointments ...... 8 Statement of Membership of AYM ...... 11 AYM Officers’ Reports ...... 12 Presiding Clerk’s Report for YM16 ...... 12 Secretary’s Report ...... 13 AYM Secretary Appointment Committee ...... 14 AYM Treasurer’s Report & Budget 2016 – 2017 ...... 14 Regional Meeting Annual Reports ...... 15 Canberra Regional Meeting Report ...... 15 New South Wales Regional Meeting Report ...... 17 Queensland Regional Meeting Report ...... 17 South Australia & Northern Territory Regional Meeting Report ...... 19 Tasmania Regional Meeting Report ...... 20 Victoria Regional Meeting Report ...... 22 West Australia Regional Meeting Report ...... 23 Reports from AYM committees, working groups and associated bodies ...... 26 The Australian Friend Committee ...... 26 Australian Friends Fellowship of Healing ...... 26 Australian Quaker Narrative Embroidery: Friends in Stitches ...... 27 Backhouse Lecture Committee ...... 27 Child Protection Committee ...... 28 Children & Junior Young Friends Committee ...... 30 Children & JYF Coordinator’s Report ...... 31 Communications Committee ...... 32 Earthcare ...... 34 Ecumenism and Interfaith Reports ...... 36 First Nations Peoples Concerns Committee ...... 36 Friends Peace Teams Report ...... 41 The Friends’ School, Hobart ...... 42 Friends World Committee for Consultation Committee (FWCC) ...... 44 Handbook Revision: Expert Committee on Hosted Committees ...... 45 Information Technology Committee ...... 47 Morrow Bequest Committee ...... 49 Peace & Social Justice Fund Committee (P&SJFC) ...... 49 Quaker Learning Australia Committee ...... 50 Quaker Peace & Legislation Committee (QPLC) ...... 51 Quaker Service Australia Incorporated ...... 52 Safe Quaker Community Committee ...... 53 The Sanctuary Management Committee ...... 54 Silver Wattle Quaker Centre ...... 55 Thanksgiving Fund Committee ...... 57 Yearly Meeting Planning Support Committee ...... 57 Young Friends ...... 58 Appendix 1: Standing Committee Minutes ...... 59 Appendix 2: Privacy Policy for recording Friends’ personal data ...... 65 Appendix 3: QSA Appendices ...... 68

Yearly Meeting 2016 Timetable

Saturday Sunday Mon- Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sat Standing Sunday 7.45- The Meeting House will be open from 7.45 for an optional Meeting for Worship Committee timetable 8.30 begins 9-10 8.30 - Meeting for Meeting for Meeting for Meeting for Meeting for Meeting for Friday 1 July, Meeting 9.30 Worship Worship Remembrance Worship Worship Worship 2.30 – 5.30 for and continues Worship Saturday 2 10-11 9.30 – Prep Formal Formal Session 4 Formal Formal Formal July, 9.30 – Group 11.00 Session Session 3 Session 5 Session 7 Session 9 3.30 or earlier photo & Peace - until the morning reports business of tea 11.00 – Morning Tea SC is 11.30 completed 11 – 12.30 11.30 – Prep Prep Prep Session Prep Session Prep Final Winter 1.00 Session Session QLA & M4L/ QSA or Session Meeting for School – Earthcare First Communications Handbook Young Worship Open Nations (Publications) Revision Friends & Space Peoples’ Committee IT Cttee Concerns 12.30 – 1.00 – Lunch 1.30 2.00 Lunch 1.00 – 4.00 1.30 – 3.00 2.00 – Prep Prep Peace witness Formal Formal Depart YM Register for Winter 3.30 Session Session activity & outings Session 6 Session 8 YM School – Children & Ecumenism - no activities at Open JYF/Child & Interfaith/ The Friends’ Space Protection Safe School Quaker Community 3.00 – 3.30 3.30 – Afternoon Tea No afternoon tea Afternoon tea Afternoon 4.00 Penn Friends is served tea (Monday) Wednesday 4.00 – 4.45 3.30 – 4.00 – Prep Prep Outings or free Share & Tell Share & Parents & 5pm 5.30 Session Session time AFFH AGM/ Tell Children or Winter QSA BL RM Officers Other RM Pastoral School – Feedback meetings- Meetings - Carers* or Open and BL Clerks, M & O, Nom Cttee* Space Cttee Treasurers; Newsletter 4.45 – 5.30 Editors, First Timers * Marriage or Elders* Celebrants 5.45- 6.45 Dinner 5.45 – Dinner No dinner is 6.45 available at Friends’ School on Wednesday Formal Formal 7.00 – Backhouse FWCC, Outings or free The Friends’ Concert Session 1 Session 2 8.30 Lecture Peru, time School/Silver (public) AWPS - no activities at Wattle Visitor The Friends’ Quaker School Centre Epilogue Epilogue 8.30 – Supper Epilogue Epilogue Epilogue 9.00

* Closed sessions are for AFFH AGM, Backhouse Lecture Committee, Elders, Marriage Celebrants, Pastoral Carers, and all sessions of AYM Nominations Committee

General information to prepare for Yearly Meeting One purpose of Yearly Meeting is the reaching of decisions on AYM policy and conduct. Other reasons for Yearly Meeting are the enriching of fellowship between Friends, mutual support in spiritual growth and the discussion of current issues. (Handbook of Practice & Procedure 6.1) Come to meeting for worship with heart and mind prepared. (AYM Advices and Queries 10): Yearly Meeting sessions are held in a spirit of worship. This section offers you information to help you come to Yearly Meeting ‘with hearts and minds prepared’. As well, make sure you consult the Yearly Meeting Timetable on the previous page, look at the noticeboards, and ask at the Help Desk to find out what is happening each day. Yearly Meeting is an intense time. If you try to attend everything you may be overwhelmed. Take time for rests and relaxation for your peace and wellbeing. Parents with children at Yearly Meeting are encouraged to attend the Parents and Children’s Meeting at 4.00pm – 4.45pm on Saturday to discuss the care of the children during Yearly Meeting, and if you or your children are first timers, there is a First Timers’ session at 4.45pm on Saturday.

First Timers at Yearly Meeting

First Timers at Yearly Meeting are invited to meet with the Presiding Clerk, the AYM Secretary, and a representative of the Yearly Meeting Planning Committee on Saturday, the first day of Yearly Meeting, from 4.45pm to 5.30pm, for a brief introduction to Yearly Meeting and question time. First Timers are also invited to have dinner together on Tuesday, 6 January at 5.45pm, at a designated table in the dining room arranged by the host Regional Meeting. This will provide an opportunity to share your experiences of Yearly Meeting and to ask questions. Pastoral care for First Timers: If problems arise, or Yearly Meeting seems overwhelming, pastoral carers from each Regional Meeting are available to listen in confidence and to support you. The Help Desk is staffed by local Friends who can provide information about the day-to-day needs of Friends at Yearly Meeting — where the nearest bank, chemist or bus stops are, how to get something photocopied or where to check emails.

Pastoral care at Yearly Meeting

Pastoral carers are available during Yearly Meeting. They are introduced during an early Formal Session and usually wear nametags that indicate they may be approached for pastoral care. If you don’t know how to find a pastoral carer, ask at the Help Desk. For pastoral carers The pastoral carer(s) from the host Regional Meeting convene meetings of pastoral carers during Yearly Meeting. At the first meeting on Saturday, 4.00pm – 4.45pm, a time and place to meet daily is agreed upon. Brief guidelines for those appointed to the Pastoral Care Committee at Yearly Meeting are available from the AYM Secretary on request.

Elders at Yearly Meeting

The appointment of Elders for the duration of Yearly Meeting contributes to a deeper spiritual atmosphere in YM preparatory and business sessions. The YM15 Epistle stated: ‘Introducing an Elders’ role formally into Yearly Meeting sessions is grounding us in worshipful discernment’. At the first formal business session, each Elder is named individually, stands and is introduced to the Yearly Meeting gathering. The elders’ role is different from the Pastoral Carers. Elders’ responsibilities are: • Nurturing the spiritual life of the Yearly Meeting Community

• Supporting the YM Office Bearers • Fostering respect for correct Quaker process in all Quaker Meetings • Being present at each MfW, especially the 8.30am Meeting each day, and the Meeting at the closing of YM. It is suggested that at least two Elders are rostered for each Meeting to arrive ten minutes early to ‘hold’ the Meeting in silent worship. • In addition to ‘holding’ each Meeting, these Elders should speak if the need arises to remind Friends gently but firmly of the need to speak only when moved to do so in the spirit of worship • Other Elders present may assist the rostered Elders if moved to do so • Fulfilling a similar role at the Formal Sessions, and perhaps at the Prep Sessions, so that the deliberations and decisions of these Meetings are made under the discernment of the spirit. Elders may sometimes have to let go of their own concerns so that they can help focus the Meeting • Addressing any undercurrent and expectation of the final MfW before it is held • Assisting individual Friends who have concerns of a spiritual nature • Assisting Friends who are unsure of correct Quaker process • Working with the Children's Committee to explore meaningful ways for children to be included in our Meeting for Worship. For those appointed as elders The host YM Planning committee will assign a room for the Elders to meet and arrange for the name badges of Elders to be marked by an identifying dot. • Those appointed as Elders for Yearly Meeting should, as far as possible, be free from other roles during Yearly Meeting. • A roster system will assign two Elders for each Meeting for Worship, Formal Session, and • Preparatory Session. • The rostered Elders to arrive and sit in silent worship 10 minutes before the start of • each session • The rostered Elders should introduce themselves to the Clerk at the start of each Preparatory Session. Their role may not exactly fit the ‘holding the silence’ model, but those Elders rostered for the Preparatory Sessions find that their quiet presence is valued.

Business Sessions at Yearly Meeting

The Yearly Meeting is primarily a Meeting for Business, and is conducted in a spirit of worship. If you wish to speak on an issue, please stand and wait to be recognised by the Clerk of the Session. When you have the microphone, first identify yourself by name and Meeting. As with other Quaker business meetings, Friends normally speak once only on an issue and do not speak just to agree with earlier speakers. Many reports in Documents in Advance are first heard and considered during a Preparatory Session, where the work of the committee or working group is outlined and where further background information may be offered. Friends who wish to have significant input are encouraged to do so at the Preparatory Session. The Committee or Working Group will ask experienced Friends to clerk and scribe their Preparatory Session. The Preparatory Session Clerk will ensure that the Preparatory Session includes: • worship • presentation of the report • the hearing of Regional Meeting responses • clarification of issues; questions; open discussion and • preparation of any matters for the consideration of Yearly Meeting including, if discerned, a proposed minute for consideration at the Formal Session. The Clerk of the Session will prepare a report, if possible on the same day as the Preparatory Session. The report will include • the RM responses, highlighting points of agreement and disagreement.

• any ‘matters for the consideration of Yearly Meeting’. These ‘matters for consideration’ will then come to a Formal Session. The Clerk of the Preparatory Session will then be responsible for doing three things: 1. Emailing a copy of the Session report to the AYM Secretary ([email protected]) 2. Emailing a copy to [email protected]. Reports will then be uploaded to the designated electronic noticeboards for Friends to read and comment; and 3. If time allows, consulting with the Presiding Clerk so s/he has a good understanding of matters for consideration before the Formal Session in which the report is to be considered. The Friend appointed to present the report at the Formal Session will briefly summarise the first part of the report and present any ‘matters for consideration by Yearly Meeting’. The Presiding Clerk will then guide the Meeting forward. This process enables the Formal Session to proceed more smoothly and efficiently and there may be no need for further contributions. Nevertheless, you may find yourself moved to contribute during the Formal Session on the ‘matters for consideration’ and there is nothing to prevent this. Friends are reminded that it is customary to speak only once, and there is no need to repeat or second comments already made.

Abbreviations, Terms and Definitions

AF: The Australian Friend, , the journal of Australia Yearly Meeting, is published online and in print in March, June, September and December. The editorial committee is under the care of a Regional Meeting. AFFH: Australian Friends Fellowship of Healing, a national group interested in healing, whose members are Friends, but which is a separately incorporated body. AVP: Alternatives to Violence Project, begun by Friends, is now a separate organisation. AYM: Australia Yearly Meeting/YM Yearly Meeting. Australia Yearly Meeting is generally used as the abbreviated name of Australia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Australia Incorporated. The words ‘Yearly Meeting’ are used to describe the annual meeting of Australian Friends. Regional Meetings host this meeting, on a rotating basis. AYM Committees and Working Groups: A list of all AYM Committees and Working Groups, with the names of all Committee members, is printed in Documents in Advance, and updated in Documents in Retrospect, and at http://www.quakers.org.au in the Members section. BL: James Backhouse Lecture. This is an annual lecture, which aims to bring fresh insights into truth, often with reference to the needs and aspirations of Australian Quakerism. It is usually presented at the time of Yearly Meeting, and is named after an English Quaker who travelled extensively in Australia from 1832 to 1837. The printed form of the lecture goes on sale at Yearly Meeting immediately after the delivery of the Backhouse Lecture and is available during Yearly Meeting and afterwards from Interactive Publications http://ipoz.biz/Titles/Quakers.htm. DAQB: The Dictionary of Australian Quaker Biography includes Testimonies to the Grace of God in the lives of many Australian Friends. An annual supplement includes Testimonies to those who have died in the past year, and additional information received on those already listed. Regional Meeting and a number of other libraries hold copies of the DAQB. The web page for Australian Quaker Biographies, www.bios.quakers.org.au, provides online access to all DAQB entries, together with biographies of prominent Quakers from around the world. FNPCC: The First Nations Peoples Concerns Committee was formerly called the Indigenous Concerns Committee. Formal Sessions of Yearly Meeting: The Presiding Clerk conducts the Formal Sessions according to the usual Quaker business method. Reports from the Preparatory Sessions are considered and minutes made. The Presiding Clerk can grant permission for those who are not AYM Members to attend and fully participate in YM sessions, on the recommendation in advance of the Elders of the appropriate Meeting. FPT: Friends Peace Teams.

The Friends’ School: The Friends’ School, Hobart, is the only Quaker school in Australia. FWCC: Friends World Committee for Consultation is a worldwide body comprised of affiliated Yearly Meetings, Monthly Meetings and Worship Groups. It meets periodically to promote links between the different Quaker traditions. Australia Yearly Meeting is part of the Asia-West Pacific Section of FWCC. Handbook of Practice and Procedure: The Handbook sets out the guidelines within which Meetings normally operate within Australia. The Handbook is continually revised in line with YM decisions. The current 6th edition was published in 2011, and is available on www.quakers.org.au. JYFs: Junior Young Friends are aged 12 to 17 years. Meeting for Learning is a one-year program that begins and ends with a retreat week, usually held in September-October, under the care of the Quaker Learning Australia (QLA) Committee. Ministry and Oversight: Sometimes known as M & O, or Elders & Overseers, or Ministry & Care. These Local or Regional Meeting committees, either separately or combined, are responsible for the spiritual and pastoral care of members. NCCA: National Council of Churches in Australia, of which AYM is a member. Pastoral Care Committee: This committee is set up for the period of Yearly Meeting and consists of Friends nominated by their Regional Meeting for the purpose of assisting people at Yearly Meeting. Penn Friends: Penn Friends (after William Penn) are ‘written correspondence friendships’ between older Friends and children (often now by email), who may live in another Meeting. Penn Friends find one another at the Penn Friends’ afternoon tea during Yearly Meeting. Preparatory Sessions: Preparatory Sessions are designed to give background information, and raise the awareness of Friends to the work of a particular committee. A report from the Preparatory Session, including any issues for decision, is brought to a Formal Session. QEN: Quaker Education Network is based in West Australia Regional Meeting. QLA: Quaker Learning Australia is an umbrella organisation offering a number of programs, and seeking to develop further resources for deepening Friends’ spiritual lives. QPLC: The Quaker Peace & Legislation Committee, based in Canberra, lobbies government, provides a space for peace and social justice discussions, and posts on our website ‘Action Alerts’, ‘Watching Briefs’ and Discussion Papers on current issues for Friends. QSA: Quaker Service Australia is the development aid agency of Australia Yearly Meeting. It is presently under the care of NSWRM, and is based at Devonshire Street Meeting House, 119 Devonshire Street, Surry Hills, NSW 2010. RM: Regional Meetings in Australia are Canberra (CRM), New South Wales (NSWRM), Queensland (QRM), South Australia Northern Territory (SANTRM), Tasmania (TRM), Victoria (VRM), and West Australia (WARM). These organisational bodies of the Society are individually incorporated associations. Regional Meetings are responsible for matters of membership and business within their area, as set out in the Handbook of Practice and Procedure. The Sanctuary is the name of a house and grounds in Sydney that was part of the Lemberg Bequest to Australia Yearly Meeting. The property is behind the Wahroonga Meeting House, and has been leased as a residence awaiting a suitable proposal for its future. SC: Standing Committee, a body with two representatives from each Regional Meeting, and from Young Friends, meets usually in January and mid-year, to conduct business on matters which must be addressed before the next Yearly Meeting. The Presiding Clerk, Secretary, Treasurer, the Immediate Past Presiding Clerk, and the Incoming Presiding Clerk are ex-officio members of Standing Committee. SWQC or Silver Wattle: Silver Wattle Quaker Centre is a centre in Australia for spiritual development and learning about Quaker faith, based at Silver Wattle, 1063 Lake Road, Bungendore, New South Wales. See http://silverwattle.org.au. YFs: Young Friends are 18 – 30 year olds who may be Members or Attenders. Young Friends have an Easter camp and a camp before Yearly Meeting. Young Friends have representatives on most AYM committees, including Standing Committee.

Australia Yearly Meeting appointments

Please note: • Email addresses for these Committees are in the right hand column in italics; add @quakers.org.au • Appointments are as known in May 2016. This list is updated on the Members Page of http://www.quakers.org.au through the year. • All appointments are to the end of the Yearly Meeting in the listed year. AYM Officers Role Names To Email * Presiding Clerk Julian Robertson, TRM 2016 Ymclerk Incoming Presiding Clerk Jo Jordan, SANTRM 2019 Private email Acting Secretary Judith Pembleton, QRM 2016 ymsecretary Treasurer Roger Sawkins, QRM 2018 ymtreasurer Committees and Working Groups Committee Names To Email * The Australian Friend, Committee Garry Duncan, Rae Litting, Wies Schuiringa (convener), David Swain. 2018 AustFriend NSWRM ‘Know One Another’ coordinators: Pamela Leach & Julie Walpole, TRM. AYM Secretary’s Advisory Duncan Frewin, Judith Pembleton, Roger Sawkins, Bevan Wiltshire 2017 Committee, QRM Backhouse Lecture Committee Hannah Chapman-Searle, Young Friends 2017 bl Elizabeth Kwan, SANTRM 2017 Garry Duncan, NSWRM 2018 Sue Parritt, VRM 2021 Dawn Joyce, QRM 2019 David Tehr, WARM 2021 David Purnell, CRM (convener) 2019 Child Protection Committee Tania Aveling, WARM; Val Boyd, TRM; Ronis Chapman, CRM; Ian 2016 Emerson, CRM; Dorothy Scott, VRM; Sue Walkom, TRM; Angela Were, VRM; AYM Clerk and AYM Secretary, ex officio. Child Protection Contact Friends: CRM: Stewart Betts & Kerrie Smyth; NSW RM: Helen (Bee) Beeby (2017); Alison Irving (2018); QRM: Rhoda Dorrell; SANTRM: Gillian McCarthy (Lewis); TRM: Val Boyd & Julian Robertson; VRM: Dorothy Scott & Kevin Spratt ; WARM: Tania Aveling & Margaret Woodward Children & Junior Young Friends David Albrecht, & Justine Shelton (co-conveners), Susan Albrecht, 2017 children Committee, VRM Emily Bray, Kyrstie Crane Children & JYF Coordinator: Jenny Turton, VRM Children & JYF Coordinator Support Group: Stephanie Farrall, TRM; Geoff Greeves, SANTRM; Beverley Polzin, VRM RM correspondents: Raina Emerson, CRM; Jo Jordan, SANTRM; Helen Chuter, TRM; Jasmine Payget, NSWRM; Monica Sharwood, QRM; Beth Harcourt & Cathryn Reid, WARM. Communications (formerly Margaret Bywater, TRM; Brian Harlech-Jones, CRM; Judith 2018 communicatio Publications) Committee Pembleton, QRM (convener); Jenny Stock, SANTRM; AYM Secretary, ns ex officio Earthcare Committee, WARM Adrian Glamorgan & Brenda Roy (co-conveners) 2018 Finance Committee Jane Drexler, NSWRM; David Lowry, Roger Sawkins (Treasurer), 2018 finance Helen Webb, QRM. First Nations Peoples Concerns Sharee Harper, Chris Hughes, VRM (convener); John McMahon, 2018 Committee VRM; David Carline, QRM; Elspeth Hull, NSWRM; Anthea Nicolls, (formerly Indigenous Concerns SANTRM Committee) RM correspondents: Margaret Evans, CRM; tba, NSWRM; Sitara Gare, QRM; Jackie Perkins, QSA; John Duguid; Harald Ehmann, SANTRM; Sally Gale, TRM; tba, VRM; Clare O’Leary, WARM; Ruth Primrose, Central Australia Friends in Stitches; Australian Cathy Davies, NSWRM & Tessa Spratt, VRM (co-conveners); Garry 2017 tapestry Quaker Narrative Embroidery, Duncan, NSWRM

NSWRM Friends in Stitches RM contacts: Catherine Dabron, CRM; Cathy Davies, NSWRM; Ruth Raward, TRM; Elizabeth Kwan, SANTRM; Robin Sinclair, SANTRM; Tessa Spratt, VRM; Mary Grbavac, QRM; Patricia Wood, WARM. The Friends’ School Board Siobhan Harpur, TRM, Presiding Member, Board of Governors 2019 (Appointments until May in listed Lyndsay Farrall & Craig Stephens, TRM, Deputy Presiding Members 2019 year) Ron Martin, TRM and Sally McGushin, TRM 2017 Board nominees James Cretan, Presiding Member of Executive Committee 2018 Craig Stephens, Natalia Urosevic 2019 Karen Davis, Louise Giudici, Staff nominee, Robert Pennicott 2017 Elaine Stratford, TRM 2018 Ex officio: Presiding Clerk Julian Robertson, TRM, and Principal Nelson File, TRM Quaker Values Committee: Garry Duncan, NSWRM; Lyndsay Farrall, TRM (convener); Nelson File, TRM (Principal, ex officio); Siobhan Harpur, TRM; Helen Irvine, VRM; Jo Jordan, SANTRM; Allan Knight, WARM; Ron Martin, TRM; Julian Robertson, TRM (Presiding Clerk, ex officio); Michael Searle, CRM; Maddy Walker, TRM (Quaker Community Coordinator, The Friends’ School); Bevan Wiltshire, QRM. Friends World Committee for Madeleine Ball, TRM (convener), Dale Hess, VRM, Rowe Morrow, 2019 fwcc Consultation (FWCC) Committee NSW RM, Marian James, QRM Connor Chaffey, Young Friends, Adrian Glamorgan, WARM. 2016 Oliver Greeves, SANTRM 2018 Ronis Chapman, CRM 2017 Ex officio AWPS Secretary Ronis Chapman; 2018 AWPS Treasurer Harold Wilkinson 2017 Handbook entry on ‘hosted Pamela Leach, TRM; Wies Schuiringa, NSWRM; Lorraine Thomson, 2016 committees’: Review Committee CRM Information Technology Committee Judith Pembleton, Roger Sawkins, Michael Searle 2018 Morrow Bequest Committee Clare O’Leary, Brenda Roy, Margaret Woodward Nominations Committee Julie Walpole, TRM (convener); David Purnell, CRM, Charles 2018 nominations Stevenson, SANTRM, Andrew Bray, VRM, Ann Zubrick, WARM Jackie Perkins, NSWRM; Valerie Joy, QRM; Connor Chaffey, YF 2016 Peace & Social Justice Fund Dale Hess & Chris Hughes (co-conveners), Sieneke Martin, Jim 2016 psjfund Committee, VRM Palmer, Dorothy Scott Presiding Clerk’s Support Lyndsay Farrall, Stephanie Farrall, Pat Firkin, Peter Jones, Jess Lund, 2016 Committee, TRM Katherine Purnell Quaker Learning Australia, TRM Siobhan Harpur (convener), Stephanie Farrall, Alison Imbriotis, 2017 Qla Pamela Leach, Robin McLean, Jen Newton, Katherine Purnell, Felicity Rose, Jenny Seaton QLA Meeting for Learning Fiona Gardner, VRM; Catherine Heywood, VRM; Jenny Spinks, CRM; facilitators (appointed by QLA) Sue Wilson, QRM Quaker Peace & Legislation Harold Wilkinson (convener), Margaret Bearlin, Jeane Bicket, Ronis 2016 Qplc Committee (QPLC), CRM Chapman, Margaret Clark, Shelini Harris, Gareth Knapman, Greg Parkhurst, David Purnell. RM Correspondents: Greg Parkhurst, CRM; Martin Moore, NSWRM; Margid Bryn-Burns, QRM; Peri Coleman, SANTRM; Gill Paxton, TRM; Beverley Polzin, VRM; Ed Garrison, WARM Quaker Service Australia (QSA) Garry Duncan (Convenor), John Dundas (Treasurer), Tom Dundas, 2016 Qsa Management Committee, NSWRM Jackie Perkins, Audrey Wilson. AYM Presiding Clerk & AYM Secretary (ex officio) Michael Morrissey (Public Officer) Rules of Association Subcommittee: John Dundas, Michael Morrissey, Jackie Perkins, NSWRM; Barbara Wilde, TRM. QSA Regional Meeting Helen Irvine, VRM; Marian James, QRM; Priscilla Jordan, SANTRM; 2015 appointments Henry Esbenshade, WARM; Mardi Naulty, CRM; Glyn Naunton, NSWRM; Barbara Wilde, TRM. Safe Quaker Meetings Committee David Purnell & Susan Rockliff, CRM; Elizabeth Mitchell & Jerome 2017 Safe (consists of Contact Friends from Fink, NSWRM; Judith Pembleton, QRM; Harold Ehmann, SANTRM; each RM) Robin McLean (convener); Julian Robertson & Chris Schokman, TRM; Susan Nelson, (to YM18); Cliff Picton, VRM; Beth Harcourt & Lili Bowes, WARM; Connor Chaffey & Mielikki Spratt, YFs. The Sanctuary Management Miriam Goodwin (convener), Ruth Haig 2016 Sanctuary Committee, NSWRM Bill Brennan 2017

Thanksgiving Fund, SANTRM Bronte and Chris Collins (conveners); Fleurieu Peninsula Meeting, 2019 Thanksgiving support: Jo Jordan (plus two more members tba) Yearly Meeting Planning Support Nelson File, TRM; Jenny Madeline, NSWRM; Michael Searle, 2016 Planningsupp Committee CRM; Emily Walpole, YF; Julie Walpole, TRM; Anna Wilkinson, ort VRM; Harold Wilkinson, CRM Australia Yearly Meeting Representatives Role Names To Aotearoa/New Zealand Yearly Meeting 2016 Peri Coleman Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) David Purnell, CRM Australian Religious Response to Climate Change (ARRCC) Alan Clayton, VRM 2018 Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility (ACCR) David Shorthouse, CRM 2018 Friends Peace Teams Council Maxine Cooper, VRM Independent & Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) David Purnell, CRM NCCA Heads of Churches meetings Presiding Clerk 2016 Presiding Clerk NCCA Executive Committee members Rae Litting, NSWRM, Drew Thomas, (to 2016) alternate 2019 to PC NCCA ACT for Peace Commission Heather Saville, NSW RM 2019 NCCA Faith and Unity Commission Beverley Polzin, VRM 2016 NCCA Safe Churches Network Ronis Chapman, CRM 2018 NCCA Social Justice Network Wies Schuiringa, NSWRM, Callista Barritt, NSW RM 2016 Silver Wattle Quaker Centre Advisory Committee AYM Nominee: Kerry O’Regan, SANTRM (2016) 201 Young Friends’ Appointments Role Names To Email Clerk Larissa Barritt, CRM 2017 yfclerk Treasurer Mielikki Spratt, VRM 2016 yftreasurer Communications Eddy Greeves, SANTRM 2017 Nominations Gabbie Paananen, NSWRM 2017 yfnominations Callista Barritt, NSWRM 2016 yfnominations Larissa Barritt, CRM 2016 Alex Brosnan, TRM 2017 A/NZ exchange Callista Barritt, NSWRM 2016 YF Liaison with Silver Wattle Quaker Centre Tba YF Safe Quaker Community Contact Friends Connor Chaffey, VRM; Mielikki Spratt, VRM YF Pastoral Care Persons Callista Barritt, NSRM; Mielikki Spratt, VRM Associated bodies (Not appointed by Australia Yearly Meeting) Role Names To Alternatives to Violence Rollo Brett, CRM; Richard Dening, QRM; tba, SANTRM; Katherine Smith, N/A Project NSWRM; Rosemary Epps, TRM; Beverley Polzin, VRM; Jim Thom, WARM. Ruth Haig, NSWRM (Coordinator); Barbara True, SANTRM (Wholeness editor); Australian Friends Ivanka Belic, QRM, AFFH rep on SWQC Advisory Committee). Fellowship of Healing Local Conveners: Lesli Grant, WARM; Heather Herbert, CRM; Mary Pollard, (AFFH) NSWRM; Barbara True, SANTRM; Maggi Storr, TRM; Ivanka Belic, QRM; Kaye Wright, VRM AFFH Charitable Trust Trustees: Peter G Wilde, TRM; Margaret Woodward, WARM Marion Sullivan, QRM, Clerk; Jan de Voogd, NSWRM, Asst Clerk; Valerie Joy, Friends Peace Teams QRM, Secretary; Jasmine Payget, NSWRM, Treasurer; Jim Palmer, VRM, Asia West Pacific Section Membership Secretary FWCC Asia West Pacific Ronis Chapman (AWPS Secretary) to 2018; Harold Wilkinson (AWPS Treasurer)

Section to 2017; tba (QUNO New York) Silver Wattle Quaker SWQC Ltd Board: Maxine Cooper (Clerk), Mark Lockwood-Porter, Bev Polzin, Ray

Centre Ltd Brindle, Tracy Bourne (director, ex-officio). Silver Wattle Quaker Judy Henderson (NSW RM) Convenor; John Baker (NSW RM), Moira Darling Centre Ltd Advisory (VRM), Ivanka Belic (AFFH representative); Peter Morris, NSW RM and the AYM Committee * Nominee, Kerry O’Regan (2016) Werona Users Group Anne-Maree Johnston (Secretary, Werona Management Committee) kangaroovalley * Other SWQC Committee appointments are not listed as they are not appointed by AYM.

Statement of Membership of AYM

for 18 months ending on 30 March 2016

Children Regional Meeting Total Members Adults Attenders Girls Boys Total Total Women Men 2015-16 2014* Diff. 2015-16 2014 Diff 2015-16 2015-16 2015-16 2014 Diff Canberra 93 51 144 138 +6 105 105 7 11 13 24 31 - 7

NSW 142 77 219 216 + 3 191 197 -6 34 58 -24

Qld 53 43 96 105 -9 80 75 +5 5 13 18 20 - 2

SA 73 40 113 116 -3 94 104 - 10 24 21 + 3

Tas 93 51 144 138 +6 105 111 -6 11 13 24 48 0

Victoria 109 59 168 182 -16 140 152 - 12 40 49 - 9

WA 54 27 81 82 - 1 97 95 +2 8 8 16 20 -4

Overseas 30 20 50 27 30 57 9 6 15

TOTAL 2015-16 647 368 1015 +29 839 -2 185 - 67

TOTAL 2014 626 375 986 44 841 252

Notes and explanation of the above table: • These figures come from each RM membership secretary rather than the database. • This year, Australia Yearly Meeting moved our Yearly Meeting gathering to July; consequently, these figures are for 18 months rather than 12 months. • This is the first time for some years that Regional Meeting Memberships Secretaries have been asked to prepare these reports. Most have reported that these figures are the best they have but there may be some discrepancies with numbers of attenders and children. From previous years: • In the past 10 years, our membership has varied between 992 and 942 as follows: in 2014 it was 986; 2013, 942; 2012, 946; in 2011, 965; 2010, 965; 2009, 992; 2008, 974; 2007, 983; 2006, 982; and 2005, 947.

AYM Officers’ Reports

Presiding Clerk’s Report for YM16

This report covers nearly 18 months since the last YM report, which marks the change of the annual cycle for Australia Yearly Meeting to a three-year experimental period of holding Yearly Meeting in July rather than January. The decision to change the month of Yearly Meeting followed concerns expressed by Regional Meetings that January is the hottest, most fire- and flood-prone month of the year. The changes will be reviewed at YM19 in Hobart. The Right Holding of Yearly Meeting Work Group considered the concerns expressed through Regional Meetings about time and venue of Yearly Meetings, observed practices at other Quaker Yearly Meetings, particularly Aotearoa/New Zealand, and offered proposals that were accepted at YM14 and YM15 (YM14.34 and YM15.27). The Right Holding of Yearly Meeting Working Group was laid down at the end of 2015, and consideration needs to be given to the establishment of a new working group to consider future arrangements for holding Yearly Meetings post-YM19. It has been an active eighteen months for the Presiding Clerk. One of the highlights of this role is to visit Quaker communities in other parts of Australia, I did hope to visit more. However, since YM15 I have been amongst Friends in Perth, Denmark and Albany WA (including a weekend gathering in Margaret River), and of course, Canberra, Sydney and at Silver Wattle. Rae Litting and I have continued to attend NCCA Executive meetings. Following a Quaker-led peace pilgrimage to West Papua, concerns about the mistreatment of indigenous West Papuans by Indonesian government security agencies have been adopted by the NCCA. A delegation that included Jason MacLeod, Dale Hess and myself visited parliament in September 2015 and met with some parliamentarians and senior departmental executives. Another visit to Papua that includes Pacific Island members of Pacific Island churches is planned for 2017 The convening and minute recording of the Child Protection Committee has continued to be undertaken by myself and the Secretary. We are fortunate to have a committee of experts in this important area of the Society’s legal requirements and expectations and the committed responses of Regional Meeting members. The work needed to ensure compliance can be burdensome, but we can take heart that Friends are meeting society’s legal requirements for the protection of their children and young people. I have continued to be an active member of the Friends’ School Board, and I have participated with the Quaker Service Australia management committee at its annual weekend gathering. Both these organizations have, over the last three years, changed their management structure, recognizing that interstate members of the board/management committee are not able to fully participate in the running of the organisation and should not be legally responsible for possible Occupational Health and Safety breaches as are other board/committee members. Both organizations have included interstate representatives in their respective Incorporated Associations through sub-committees; The Friends School through the Quaker Values Committee and QSA through the Quaker Linkages Committee, and both will continue the annual weekend gathering of interstate representatives. My term as Presiding Clerk will finish at the end of YM16. As I reflect on my term of service in this role, I am very conscious of my dependence on the AYM Secretary for all their contributions of organizational skills in which I am deficient, the personal support they have provided, the minute taking at meetings, and the strong sense of team work that it has been my privilege to be part of. For most of my tenure, Susan Addison has fulfilled this role, until her unexpected and very sad death in November 2015. I had such appreciation of Susan’s work. How fortunate it was that Judith Pembleton, the previous AYM Secretary, kindly stepped back into this role and added her own talents, such as starting up a Quaker Facebook page, and it has been a pleasure working with her. I also feel very appreciative of my Support group, Stephanie and Lyndsay Farrall, Peter Jones, Katherine Purnell , Jess Dundas and Pat Firkin. We have met most months, and their listening to my thoughts and concerns, their advice and simply knowing that they are giving their support in a variety of ways has been deeply helpful.

I have often felt that, in my role as Presiding Clerk, I am being held by individuals in the community. As Quakers we all have our moments of darkness, but I have been conscious of a level of generosity of spirit that I find quite affirming. It is best described for me in the last two lines of the first of Kenneth Boulding’s Nayler Sonnets: As I, a member of creation, sing The burning oneness binding everything PART B: FOR CONSIDERATION 1. Should AYM set up another Right Holding of Yearly Meeting working group that will assess the responses from RMs regarding the three-year trial of July Yearly Meetings and holding YM every third year in Hobart, and recommend future arrangements at YM19? 2. If so, what would be the terms of reference of this group? Julian Robertson, Presiding Clerk

Secretary’s Report

On November 10, 2015, Susan Addison’s term as AYM Secretary came to a sudden and premature end with her unexpected death following a stroke. Stepping in to continue work that Susan had begun presented challenges as so much was unknown. I have been ignorant not only about of what needed to be done when but also how it is done now, and yet it could have been more difficult for someone who had never done this job at all. Many Friends have thanked me for stepping back into this role. However, the rewards of this job are many. I can echo parts of Susan’s report to YM15 in describing the past six months in the AYM office: I find the job of AYM Secretary stimulating and interesting. I have enjoyed a fruitful and cooperative working relationship with the Presiding Clerk Julian Robertson and I am well supported by our bookkeeper Sarah Olsen and by Meryl Moscrop in IT matters. Julian, Jo Jordan and I have met weekly via Skype to discuss the work of AYM, plan, and report back to one another. Julian and I also developed an efficient working relationship when we worked together for the first time at Standing Committee and the AGM. My neighbour, Sarah Olsen, has recorded AYM’s incomings and outgoings for the past 11 years and when the AYM office moves, she will be sad to lay down that work. Meryl has had a more than usually heavy workload as I’ve been checking and updating website content and the email forwarders and asking for changes. I have not formally sought support from the Secretary’s Advisory Committee, but have been faithfully and diligently supported by Roger Sawkins, who worked closely with Susan and has answered so many of my questions. I’m grateful for Friends’ patience and kind responses when I’ve had to plead ignorance about many queries and issues. Now, my memory is the custodian of many ‘in train’ events and organizational details, and I am keenly aware of what that means for the next person – there are things you record, but then there are details that you know simply because you were part of a discussion or meeting. I had been thinking after last year’s July Standing Committee: ‘I am so glad I am not Secretary now, to have to deal with the consequences of having Standing Committee in February and Yearly Meeting in July’. And yet, here I am, trying to work out new deadlines and procedures with the goodwill and support of Friends around Australia. We are all working our way through this new experiment and learning more about our Quaker business cycles. My focus has been to keep the day-to-day work going while simultaneously preparing the AYM office files and equipment for relocation within a few months. It took time to gain access to the bank account and to redirect the telephone and to notify people and organisations of the change of name and address, each time knowing that all this would need to be done again very soon. In the past six months, I have created a Quakers Australia Facebook page for enquirers (outreach) and a closed Facebook group for Friends to share news and views (community building). I am grateful to Garry Duncan and Mark Lockwood-Porter from NSW RM, my co-administrators, for their considered and quick

responses to many of the queries generated on these pages. The statistics from the outreach page shows thousands of people have received information about Quakers and hundreds of these are viewing and responding to information about the Quaker way. Judith Pembleton, Acting AYM Secretary

AYM Secretary Appointment Committee

At SC February 2016 in Adelaide the following minute was recorded in relation to the appointment of a new Australia Yearly Meeting Secretary to succeed Judith Pembleton who has been acting in the position following the death of Susan Addison.

SC16.2.2 Search Committee for new AYM Secretary We note the membership of the Search Committee and ratify the process by which this Committee was established and the timeline to which they are working. In consideration of the need to undertake this process within a relatively short time, we agree that the Appointment Committee should comprise three members of Standing Committee who will consider the recommendation of the Search Committee on behalf of Yearly meeting. We agree that the names of the Appointment Committee are Ann Zubrick, WARM, Garry Duncan, NSWRM, and Larissa Barritt, YF. The Committee will also review the proposed Contract of Employment, to be prepared by the AYM Presiding Clerk, Acting Secretary, and Treasurer. Once finalised, the Committee will arrange for the Contract to be signed by the appointee and the YM Clerk on behalf of AYM. In accord with this minute, an Appointment Committee consisting of Ann Zubrick, the Committee Convenor, Garry Duncan, the Clerk of NSW RM, and Larissa Barritt, YF, was established when the Search Committee had made a recommendation for a person to be appointed. The members of the Appointment Committee then agreed a final draft of the Secretary’s contract with the selected candidate, Jacqueline Schultze (NSW RM) ,and signed the contract on behalf of Australia Yearly Meeting. The contract is for a four-year term beginning on 1 July 2016 and may be renewed for a further three year term following a performance review by a committee to be appointed by YM 2019 on the recommendation of the Yearly Meeting Nominations Committee. Ann Zubrick, Convenor

AYM Treasurer’s Report & Budget 2016 – 2017

Note: The Budget cannot be presented until Yearly Meeting as the draft budget will go to Standing Committee only the day before Yearly Meeting begins and may change in some way. The Treasurer will make his report and present the budget at Yearly meeting.

Regional Meeting Annual Reports

Canberra Regional Meeting Report

Canberra Regional Meeting has had a year experiencing joy and excitement, much care for each other, sometimes sadness, and constant striving for spiritual growth. We meet together for common worship, for the pastoral care of our membership, for needful administration, for unhurried deliberation on matters of common concern, for testing personal concerns that are brought before us and to get to know one another in things that are eternal as in things that are temporal. (Quaker Faith and Practice, 3.02) We meet together For common worship: Canberra Regional Meeting encompasses six Worship Meetings located in Canberra, Bega Valley, Wagga Wagga, Batemans Bay and Goulburn, and Meeting for Worship is central to the lives of these Meetings. For the pastoral care of our membership: Pastoral Care and Oversight Committee developed a transport roster to enable anyone with mobility problems to come to Meeting for Worship, and also organised a Buddy System to encourage deeper friendships between people in the Meeting. In addition, PC&O produced a pamphlet clarifying the difference between enquirers, attenders and members. For the care of our community, a Visitor/Companion has been appointed, and we have asked PC&O to consider how we can better care for our members who undertake difficult Quaker work. Sadly, Friends Miriam Benn, Phillip Toyne and Jane Donnelly died. Simple and touching Memorial Meetings were held in the Meeting House for Phillip and Jane who are sorely missed, and remembered with love and respect. With joy we welcomed Geraldine Martin and Jeanne Klovdahl into Membership. We have also welcomed a number of new enquirers around the region. We were blessed to have Jenny Turton, AYM Children and Junior Young Friends Coordinator, give a day -long workshop to encourage us in integrating children and JYFs into our Meeting. The number of children at our Children’s Meeting increases, and both JYFs and children are a vital part of our Meeting. For needful administration: We are keenly aware of our legal and Quaker responsibilities, and now have an Elder at each Business Meeting to ensure that it is held right ordering. Two F/friends from Canberra led a session in Bega on Quaker decision making. One expression of our Testimony on Community has been in making our Meeting House available to a growing number of outside organisations, with priority given to those that are not for profit. Meetings for Worship for Business experienced the leading of the spirit in their discernment on a wide range of issues including new policies for the use of the Meeting House, reviewed Role Descriptions for committees and reviewed financial policies. We continue to be financially viable, have instituted a monthly charity collection, and have gratefully received a bequest from the estate of Nancy Shelley for travel to Quaker activities. For unhurried deliberation on matters of common concern: We appointed a Committee Structure Review Working Group, and deliberated on its report and recommendations. We formed a Learning Coordination Group to coordinate an annual program of learning and outreach activities, an outcome of which has been the appointment of two people to coordinate and publicise our activities. We discerned that we would re-appoint an Outreach Committee, which now includes a focus on peace, social justice and Earthcare activities. For testing personal concerns that are brought before us: We saw the fruit of earlier deliberations when Meeting supported the role of a chaplain at ANU, though this role has now concluded. We also held a series of deliberations, including a threshing meeting, over the leading of one Friend to start a drop-in centre at the Meeting House, although ultimately this did not proceed.

To get to know one another in things that are eternal as in things that are temporal: A rich selection of evening, afternoon or day-long deepening sessions has enriched our spiritual lives. These included, among others, How We Understand the Divine, Non-traditional Quaker Beliefs, the UK Kindlers program and a series of weekly sessions on Advices and Queries. Other learning activities have been viewing and discussing Pink Dandelion’s Swarthmore Lecture ‘Open for Transformation: Being Quaker’ and the ‘Hearts and Minds Prepared’ course. This year we are concentrating our learning activities on ‘Through the Prism of Earthcare’. With the visit of Zelie and Philip Gross from the UK the spirit moved amongst us as Zelie led sessions on deepening our spiritual lives and caring for each other, focussing on training for facilitation of Quaker learning groups, and Appreciative Inquiry. Similarly deepening both our spiritual lives and our community bonds, this year’s Residential Weekend at Silver Wattle was on ‘Strengthening our Spirit of Friendship’. We held a number of Friends’ Fridays on issues of concern within the Meeting and a very special evening with poet Philip Gross. Individually, F/friends gather in Spiritual Nurture Groups or Spiritual Friendships supporting, encouraging, guiding and caring for each other. In what other ways has the spirit been moving amongst us? The Committee on Racial Equality, started by Quakers, is strongly supported by the Meeting and various people in it. In September 2015 CORE held the first of ‘Listening Space’ series of public meetings to hear the stories of Aboriginals, starting with barrister George Villaflor. CORE has now held three Sharing Stories events, the other two being Murrumu, a Yidinji man who has declared sovereignty over his country, and Samia Goudie, a Bundjalung woman and one of the stolen generation, who is now Senior Lecturer in Aboriginal Health at the ANU Medical School. Quaker Peace and Legislation Committee, an AYM Committee hosted by Canberra Regional Meeting, has been busy. In 2015 the Committee held a series of four public meetings entitled ANZAC Conversations. Also, the Committee brought to Canberra the inspiring World War I exhibition. It was a delight to welcome to Canberra Gretchen Castle, General Secretary of Friends World Committee for Consultation. The Meeting supports FWCC and its work, and the Meeting commits to working with Ronis Chapman as Secretary of Asia West Pacific Section to find the most effective ways to support her in her work. We organised a vigil outside the Indonesian Embassy in support of two young people facing the death penalty in Indonesia and in support of the abolition of the death penalty. We participated in Palm Sunday Rallies, rallies about the environment, refugees and against the detention of asylum seekers on Manus Island, and the Freedom Day rally and walk organised by the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. A touching event in which we participated was WILPF’s Hiroshima Day Commemoration outside the ACT Legislative Assembly, during which our Clerk read out a moving poem on Hiroshima, written by Member of our Meeting Jane Donnelly. A Greens Assembly member later read the poem in the Assembly. In conjunction with the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris we held an open-air Meeting for Worship on the lawn facing Parliament House. Another aspect of our concern for the environment was the $1,000 donation we made to FWCC to support a reduction in the environmental impact of the Peru World Gathering. A significant decision has been our offering the Meeting House as a place of sanctuary for asylum seekers facing return to Nauru. We have been accepted to receive these people and have set aside specific rooms in the Meeting House for them; offers of help have been received from within the Meeting as well as from sympathisers. Some of us have undertaken training in non-violent activism, and in legal issues around sanctuary. We have been offered pro bono legal help from a barrister with family connections to the Society if we are prosecuted for our non-violent activities. We now wait to see what transpires, and we go forward together in faith. Kay de Vogel, Clerk, Lorraine Thomson, Assistant Clerk, 2015, Peter Williams, Assistant Clerk 2016

New South Wales Regional Meeting Report

A new clerking team of Mark Macleod, and Garry Duncan (as co-clerks) along with Acey Teasdale (as assistant clerk) embarked on a new adventure in long distance clerking during 2015 and now into 2016. Each based in a different locality across the state and each brought different skills, abilities and expectations into the mix. In right ordering, we began by displaying L-plates at our first business meeting but can no longer claim inexperience for our mishaps. NSW RM continues to host QSA, The Australian Friend, and, in part, the Australian Quaker Narrative Embroidery (Friends in Stitches) project. The Quaker Response to the WW1 exhibition that was instigated in NSW RM now travels the country having been displayed in nearly every state at the time of writing this report. Our local meetings for worship are diverse; small in size but full of energy. Recently we welcomed the Moderator of the Uniting Church in Australia, NSW & ACT Synod, Myung-Hwa Park at our NSW Regional Meeting for Business as she was keen to see Quaker decision making in practice. With amazement she remarked ‘Who are these people, they are doing so many things!’ as she listened to the range of reports and actions. She heard about Quakers running AVP workshops, setting up an ongoing peace prize amongst the 10 Blue Mountains Schools, the funding of peace and social justice work from the Nancy Shelly Bequest Fund, helping Love Makes A Way for Asylum Seekers and stepping up to offer Sanctuary in our Meeting Houses for the 267 Australian-based detainees threatened with return to Nauru. Peace and Social Justice work has been a highlight of the past year. NSW RM donated $20 000 from its own funds to the House of Welcome to provide revolving housing bonds to allow refugees to get into the rental housing market. Wahroonga meeting has provided regular ongoing assistance to the House of Welcome in bringing much needed donated supplies on a regular basis. The NSW Quaker Service monthly stall at Devonshire Street continues to support QSA and other causes. We were enriched by a visit from the Principal of the Friends School, Nelson File, who visited to explain the vision of William Penn's educational philosophy. We tended to the care of our own spiritual education with Quaker Learnings, times of Living Experimentally, and a monthly book club. We have begun to reach out to the community with open days in our Meeting House and plan to have a regular online Meeting for Learning for remote attenders and Friends. We even held a Quaker picnic at the Quaker section of Rookwood cemetery as we visited to learn of Friends buried there. Hunter Valley Friends relocated to a new place of worship; Central Coast Friends did as well and considered meeting more regularly on a trial basis. Sadly, we lost members through death, disagreement, resignation and moving away. We reconsidered how best to support each other in a caring way. We welcomed new attenders and members to our meetings and tended to what love can do amongst us. Garry Duncan and Mark MacLeod (Co-clerks), and Acey Teasdale (Asst Clerk)

Queensland Regional Meeting Report

‘Worship is our response to our awareness of God. We can worship alone, but when we join with others in expectant waiting we may discover a deeper sense of God’s presence. We seek a gathered stillness in our Meetings for Worship so that all may feel the power of God’s love drawing us together and leading us.’(Advices and Queries 10) Many members of the Queensland Quaker community share the Kelvin Grove’s Meeting House beautiful environment. We celebrate the gift of the natural beauty during the Meetings for Worship, and other programs such as meetings for worship for healing, worship sharing, discussions on peace and social justice and other activities. Some Friends have worked hard to make the garden a beautiful and safe place for not only the Quaker community but also other organisations who use the Meeting House facility and its newly installed Wi-Fi booster . We note a pattern of fewer people joining as members, even though they are prepared to take on the

responsibilities of membership. We miss the contributions of some valued Friends who have died, and we are grateful for the contributions of those who have stepped up to take on serious responsibilities in our meeting. Not many children and young Friends attend the Kelvin Grove Meeting but the Children’s Committee Members have done planning and overseeing care of children, including visitors. The Committee has organised a picnic for children and adults following Meeting for Worship. The workshop conducted by Jenny Turton was attended by seven Friends who found the workshop worthwhile in establishing confidence in our readiness to care for children and JYF and encouragement in looking to the future in our roles. Three Junior Young Friends who attended 2016 Summer JYF Gathering at Silver Wattle. In a State like Queensland, some Friends are far away from the Kelvin Grove Meeting or even from small local worshipping groups. (Redlands, Western Suburbs, Gold Coast, Darling Downs, North QLD-Atherton Tablelands, Townsville) Most of these groups have a small number of members and meet for worship only once a month or as arranged. The Sunshine Coast Recognised Meeting has been laid down its meetings because only few members are well enough to attend. QRM Elders and members of the M&O work continuously caring, contacting and supporting isolated Friends. The QRM annual weekend retreat in June 2015 at Springbrook was well attended, and a number of friends shared their experience, talents and skills. It was a good opportunity to get to know each other better and share our spiritual journey. About seven Friends continue to hold monthly Peace Vigil in King George Square in Brisbane City on the first Friday from 4:30 – 6 pm. We continue to notify the Queensland Police and the City Malls Department. Friends of Darling Downs Meeting have studied many Kindlers booklets during 2015. We were encouraged by a visiting British Friend Margaret Calvert. Another small study group of Friends have been meeting on the third Mondays at Brisbane City Library to study ‘Being Quaker, Doing Quaker’ and in 2016 studying Kindlers booklets, starting with ‘Answering that of God’. Six Kindlers titles were received as gifts from a member of the Kindlers group in Britain. Members of QSA Queensland sub-committee have been working to inform QRM community the work of QSA. Funds are raised through the sale of greeting cards of the Meeting House grounds, jams, chutneys, and fruits or plants. This year, Brisbane Meeting House’s Open Garden was postponed due to continuing maintenance work. QRM hosted Meeting for Learning in 2015. Eight Queensland Friends found the experience spiritually rewarding. The African Great Lakes Refugee Project supports the unique work of Abel Siboniyo in supporting refugee families both new arrivals and more established families. Abel’s work includes pastoral care, interpreting language and culture, advocacy with community and government agencies, mediation, peace building within the between communities, and practical support. The situations he faces range all the way to crisis. We seek to assist Abel by ensuring he has reliable transport and communication, and collecting goods to supplement what people are eligible for. We are grateful for the generous support of three Friends Funds and individuals. A member of our Meeting supports a group of asylum seekers from Bangladesh who have been living for three years in her home town of Kilcoy. QRM has written to the Minister of Immigration asking that they be allowed to remain permanently in Australia. The Regional Meeting acknowledges that the land where we meet and where we live is Aboriginal land. We offer double the Council charges on our Meeting House as rent and many individual Friends also contribute. The funds are distributed to Aboriginal individuals or Aboriginal-controlled organisations in Queensland – our landlords. We do not ask our landlords to account for how it is used. Paying the rent has built good relationships of trust with several groups and individuals. Recently the committee established relationship with two additional groups and held a workshop on the theme ‘Revisiting Coming Right Way’.

A number of Friends have attended different workshops at the Silver Wattle Quaker Centre: gathering for healing, stitchers workshop, JYF Summer Gathering, and other programs. They have shared their joy and gains with us. QRM has allocated a separate fund to assist Friends. We celebrated the World Quaker Day on the first Sunday in October. The Clerk of QRM attended FWCC World gathering in Peru d early this year as one of two AYM representatives. In ecumenical matters, we continue to support Queensland Churches Together as best as we can. In Interfaith matters, Darling Downs Friends have presented two prayers rugs to the Toowoomba Mosque Community as gifts after two arson attacks. Different members of QRM are active in different areas, with other than Quaker communities. Some of them are Australian Religious Response to Climate Change (ARRCC), Talisman Sabre Peace Convergence, Toowoomba Interfaith Working Group, Believing Women of a Culture of Peace, AVP and Toowoomba local radio programmes ‘Voices of faith’ sponsored by Toowoomba Pure Land Learning College. None of us can carry out our duties or accomplish what we have done without the strong support of many other Friends and attenders who pray and act for the meeting. We thank Friends for this loving support. Taisoo Kim Watson (Clerk), Duncan Frewin (Assistant Clerk)

South Australia & Northern Territory Regional Meeting Report

Our Regional Meeting has had a good year, although we are accustomed to doubting that truth in South Australia, with continual stories about our factories closing, our economy shrinking, and so on. And yet we live in beautiful country that runs from the Torres Strait in the North, and the humid tropics, down to Bass Strait, and cooler temperate climates. We had a satisfying time at our annual get-together at Longwood, in the Adelaide Hills. Our theme last year was children in the Meeting, and we invited Jenny Turton to spend the weekend with us, share in discussions and offer her experiences of nurturing children and young people across the Meeting. Our young people from the wider Regional Meeting enjoyed the chance to be together for an extended time and seemed to welcome the focused attention, with everyone’s attention on their place in the Meeting. We enjoyed the shared all-ages Meeting for worship, and the meaning that had for everyone, as well as Jenny’s faith & story session, which intrigued us and got us thinking about the potential to tell stories in new ways. Eastern Suburbs Local Meeting (ESLM) hosts all the children in our Meeting, and they have been enriched by the contributions of these young people this year. All-ages Meetings for Worship allow for different ways of being together, including singing, and this year have focused on our senses; sight, touch, taste and hearing. We also had other guests, including Olga and Christie, who helped lead our wildflower walk with insights into what we were seeing, as well as not seeing. Some of the differences between the native and non-native versions of particular plants can be hard to discern, much like some of our decisions at business meetings. We also appreciated the presence of Kerry’s sister Ann who, as a Sister of Mercy, offered us some thought about her own faith journey and the connections she sees with Quakers. This helps us to value what is good in our Meeting rather than worry only about our advancing age. Does this help us to see ourselves as a beautiful old growth forest, rather than a young plantation? A number of our JYFs, Joelle, Melissa and Lachlan were able to attend the summer camp run at Silver Wattle, giving them a chance to connect with young people and adults beyond our Regional Meeting. As well as the fun of billycarts and ice-skating, there was time to engage in more serious Quaker business, and to grow into a sense of independent engagement with other Meetings and new responsibilities, such as volunteering at the Quaker shop. The Quaker shop continues to flourish, and the staff and volunteers get to show a more talkative side to the broader Quaker community than we do with our Meetings. As part of our ongoing stewardship of the shop site, we have recently completed a renovation. This managed to do many things, including increasing the selling area of the shop and improving the sorting and storage areas to

make them safer and more manageable for volunteers. This was completed during a longer-than- usual closure over summer, reopening on 8th February. We hosted Standing Committee in February at the North Adelaide Meeting house, and welcomed the extra chances to share each other’s cooking and exchange tales of the kitchen. It was great to see the place buzzing with activity. Since then we have re-organised the library and children’s room to make it a more welcoming space, and this is now used more frequently after Meetings for Worship. Our fellowship in SANTRM, and our perspectives on the world, have been widened in the last year, with some extended family of the Bucumi/Nininahaswe clan receiving long-awaited visas to come to Australia, as well as our connection with a migrant family who we have been able to assist in finding their feet in Adelaide. We have been holding additional Meetings for Worship across our fellowship, including a midweek Meeting for Worship, and one at the Lutheran Home, as well as ‘Friendly Gatherings’ and picnics organised by ESLM. It has been nice to hear comments from our newcomers about our Meeting feeling like a ‘coming home’ – a reminder of one of our most important activities, reflecting the Divine, that we often take for granted. We have nurtured our faith through activities like our monthly book group, which has a mix of experienced Friends and newcomers, and through ongoing discussions over the value of using Advices and Queries during our Meetings for Worship. As this is being written, we are about to host our regular event for the History Festival where we prove that Quakers survived beyond the era of the ‘wideawake’ hat and that we care deeply about the future. We have joined with other Friends and religious groups in finding ways to oppose Australia’s corrosive asylum seeker policies, such as offering support to our local ‘sanctuary’, and both proactive and reactive letter-writing. Yarrow Andrew, SANTRM Clerk

Tasmania Regional Meeting Report

Considering ‘How the Truth Prospers’: Tasmania Regional Meeting As of March 2016, we are a community of 144 members, 84 attenders, 13 YFs; 11 JYFs and 21 Children. Since YM15 we have gained 10 new members (4 transfers), and lost 7 members with 4 deaths and 3 adults and 4 children transferring. Overall our numbers remain steady. Meeting for Worship is held weekly in Hobart, Devonport and The Friends School during term; twice monthly in Launceston, and monthly in Kingborough and the Huon. Outreach through worship in small groups connect some f/Friends unable to attend larger Meetings or valuing this format. With triennial changeovers for Ministry and Care in February ’15, we are happy that northern Friends are well represented. This provides a constant source of fresh ideas and enthusiasm, helping Tasmanian Friends to be not too Hobart centric and a more cohesive whole. Liaison visits to and from different parts of the state are much welcomed. The Ministry Committee recently held a valuable Retreat day from which several leadings emerged. This committee continues to provide a number of learning opportunities: from Quaker Basics sessions to monthly reflections on Advices and Queries, to organising a retreat weekend south of Dover on the theme ‘Open to Transformation’ by Ben Pink Dandelion. 5th Sunday shared lunches and speakers have been organised in conjunction with the Care Committee allowing us to explore issues such as Joss Brooks’ work in southern India, a Home of Healing, ‘Communities: from Outer to Inner’, and care for refugees in Tasmania. A generous gift this year received from the Nancy Shelley Bequest is already funding an educational request to attend Silver Wattle. Launceston Worshipping Group together with Friends from Devonport, took part in the ecumenical Peace Fayre in Launceston last year. Devonport Recognised Meeting is flourishing and growing in spiritual strength, currently encouraged by study of Zelie Gross’s book, With a Tender Hand. The Care Committee is always mindful of Friends in need, and indeed of all Friends and attenders. With regular checks of our membership lists, it remains connected to many f/Friends we do not see often. The Committee also provides extra opportunities to socialise such as a National Park trip and picnic at historic Friends’ Park. A first aid course they organised also proved a delightful opportunity

for young and older Friends to hone their skills together. Practical matters involve organising car parking and Meeting Room seating more efficiently. The Children have a weekly meeting in Hobart while the younger JYFs meet twice a month. Both groups share something about their time together with the meeting after each session. Older JYFs also spend time together and conduct their own Business Meetings. Many of our older JYFS serve on different committees and contribute significantly to the life of the community. Two JYFs greatly valued the opportunity to attend JYF summer camp at Silver Wattle. Steps to ensure child protection are now an important consideration. Despite measures taken to improve our accounting efficiency, the 2015-16 Financial Year has been a difficult one and we may need to use our investment funds to meet our liabilities. More positively, the Building and Maintenance Committee, with generous support and organisation from the Friends School plus a bequest and TRM funds, has been able to install laminated 'comfort' glass in the Hobart Meeting House windows. A further generous gift from a Meeting family, has allowed the installation of a 16-panel solar power system generating 4 kw/hr on the Meeting House roof. This has improved energy sustainability and reduced energy costs. Improvements to the Boa Vista room with new storage benches along with regular art displays, have helped to make this a more attractive and functional space. In collaboration with the ‘Garden Girls’, there have also been continuing improvements to make the Meeting House Peace Garden more wheelchair accessible. Much effort has gone into the Library to make this a more useable and inspiring resource. All books are being catalogued into a Library Thing and books of interest to Quakers are displayed on new shelves and encourage readership. We also appreciate now having a computer. We greatly value our Tasmanian Quaker Newsletter which is published monthly by an editorial and production team from around the state. Launceston Friends handle printing and distribution. We continue to improve our website and storage of information electronically. The Tasmanian Fellowship of Healing meets monthly and ensures that Friends needing our prayerful concern are ‘held in the light’ as requested. The Australian Narrative Quaker Embroidery (Tapestry) Group are working on a panel depicting Frances Cotton recording Aboriginal legends as told by East Coast Indigenous people. There is much sharing of ideas with the Friends School group whose tapestry projects are drawn from Friends School history. Meanwhile one Devonport Friend is working on a panel entitled ‘60 years of sanctuary and hope for women ex-prisoners.’ Our Hobart Hospitality Committee handle this important task with great efficiency and care. TRM Hospitality and Organising committees for Standing Committee in July 15 and YM in July 16 have ably risen to this challenge. Their efforts greatly contribute to the smooth running of these events, with benefits from the ‘Faith into Action’ sessions flowing to the wider AYM community. The Peace and Justice Committee have been busy responding to QPNL issues; a Peace vigil marking 70 years since Hiroshima; other peace vigils and rallies; the treatment of asylum seekers; financial and other support for indigenous issues such as the ‘Recognise’ campaign; support for Scott Ludlum’s anti-war stand; support for wrongful imprisonment by promoting a petition for legislative change; as well as prison visits, vigils and fundraisers for Sue Neill-Fraser; and concern about the amount of money being spent on commemorating World War 1. A highlight was having the World War 1 Quaker exhibition (from NSW) showing at the Friends School. A return visit has been organised for YM and to exhibit more widely in Tasmania. A dedicated Quaker Service Tasmania team continues to raise money from a trade table after Meeting; stalls held regularly in two community venues; an open garden event and the sale of Christmas cards. These activities provide outreach and give a public face to Quaker Service. The Hobart Local Meeting and The Friends’ School continue to have a strong relationship with shared resources, planning of events and many family ties. The Quaker Community Coordinator helps facilitate Gatherings, speaks to classes and other groups about Quaker ideas, and organises Friends in Residence. These have recently included: Lloyd Godman, Gina Price, Zélie Gross and Jackie Perkins whose visits have been inspiring to all.

While Nominations have observed the demographic need for Committees to rely upon many retired Friends, we feel blessed that the Spirit continues to work amongst and through us. We discover anew that we ‘grow our gifts’ through service, and that this is of mutual benefit. We cherish the many efforts put into everyday tasks that collectively sustain Friends in Tasmania. As Martin Kelley notes: ‘Community for it’s own sake can’t be the glue that holds a religious body together … Obedience to God is. We build our institutions to help us gather as a great people who together can discern the will of God and follow it through whatever hardships the world throws our way.’ http://www.quakerranter.org/2004/02/testimonies_for_twentiethfirst/ Rosemary Epps, TRM Clerk

Victoria Regional Meeting Report

2015 The 12th Quaker Heritage Series was held between February and April 2015, focusing on Quakers and Money. It looked at William Penn and the Holy Experiment, John Woolman, the rise of Quaker benevolence, why Quakers succeeded in business, Quakers in science and industry, slavery, war, John Greenleaf Whittier, Walt Whitman, empire, colonialism, Horace Alexander, Reginald Reynolds, and Kenneth Boulding, nominated at different times for Nobel Prizes in both peace and economics. The second of four ANZAC Coalition Peace Forums was organized by Victoria Regional Meeting. It focused on the period from Federation to the Aftermath of World War I and sought to tell the untold, forgotten and sometimes hidden stories – those which give breadth to our shared history and related the efforts of Australians to create peaceful alternatives to conflict. The search for a new Friends’ Centre was ongoing. The search sat within a vision of how the Friends Centre would best enable us to carry on our Quaker work. After missing out on a property on Peel Street, near the Victoria Market, we discovered there was another property for sale or lease nearby at 484 William Street, West Melbourne, two blocks away. After investigating the property, the Meeting approved offering the asking price and the co-Clerks signed the purchase contract on Friday 11 September. Our long search was over. We took possession on 11 November. An Open Day was held on 21 November and a Day to Explore Our Visions for the Centre was held on 12 December. Library cataloguing continues. We have 2,050 books catalogued on LibraryThing and have approximately 3,500 left to go. Maxine Cooper and Bev Polzin enjoyed telling Friends of their recent experiences in Nepal, as part of a Friends Peace Team initiative. They were invited to support Nepalese facilitators in offering Alternative to Violence Program workshops to mainly schoolteachers in villages outside Pokhara and in Kathmandu. Friends showed great interest in hearing of their experiences, both of the workshops themselves and the earthquake experienced on April 25, and its aftermath. The VRM Mid-Year Gathering in July 2015 included screening Ben Pink Dandelion’s 2014 Swarthmore Lecture and a Skype conversation with him, and sessions on Earthcare, on Using Our Resources, inter-generational sessions of Worship and on Living Our Testimonies Adventurously. Helen Bayes, Jim Palmer and Dale Hess reported to Friends in Toorak on the Quaker-led Peace Pilgrimage to West Papua. Chris Hughes and Dale Hess held a reporting session on the West Papuan Peace Pilgrimage at the Mid-Year gathering. Helen Bayes and Greg Rolles of Victoria Regional Meeting, together with Dawn Joyce (Queensland Regional Meeting) and Jo Vallentine (Western Australia Regional Meeting) engaged in acts of non- violent witness against the Talisman Sabre Military Training exercise at the Shoalwater Bay Training Area in northern Queensland in mid-July 2015. We agreed to twin with Bohol Meeting in the Philippines as a contribution by Victoria Regional Meeting to World Quaker Day on 4 October 2015. Unfortunately, our planned Skype conversation was not successful but we remain in contact with Bohol Meeting. Led by Gerry Fahey, 30 plus Friends/ friends and family joined 50,000 others at the Melbourne People’s Climate March on Friday 27 November 2015.

2016. The 13th Quaker Heritage Series ran between February and April 2016, focusing on Quakers in Africa and 18th and 19th Century Quaker women in the USA and Britain and the role Progressive Friends played in the Religious Society of Friends in the USA. In 2016, due to the new timing of AYM, the VRM Gathering was held in March, with the theme of Quaker Community. We explored the essence of what binds us in community absorbing and being enriched by our diversity. One activity culminated in Friends threading a bead onto a gold thread, which was then formed into a circle. The beads represented our diverse lives while the gold thread represented the Spirit which is present in all of us and which binds us together. The VRM Library has been selected to be one of only two libraries in the world to trial Tiny-Cat, a simplified interface for library patrons Extensive consultations have been carried out with Friends and with our architect, culminating in a shared plan for remodeling the Victorian Friends’ Centre, making it compliant with current building regulations and providing disability access. We are now in the tendering phase and expect building works to begin in late May or early June, with an occupation date of before Christmas this year. Meetings for worship have been held at the new Victorian Friends’ Centre each fortnight throughout January, February, March and April but these will of course be suspended once building works begin as it will then be a building site and we will not have access. We anticipate that our new Centre will have some impact upon our current local and registered meetings and worshipping groups with a period of flux while Friends adjust and decide their principal place of worship. Our new Centre will provide us with renewed opportunities for outreach and opens an exciting chapter in the life of VRM. Friends participated in the Palm Sunday Peace March – Justice for Refugees- where our banner was carried by young Iranian refugees. Sanctuary: At our April RM we recorded the following minute: Victoria Regional Meeting agrees to offer sanctuary to the asylum seekers currently under threat of removal to Nauru, with the understanding that if the offer is taken up the asylum seekers would be accommodated at Tess and Lloyd’s home. The Co-Clerks will inform the Australian Churches Refugee Taskforce. Support has been offered by those present at the Diamond Valley Meeting for Worship, but additional support from members of Victoria Regional Meeting would be welcome. There is also need to support other churches involved in the Sanctuary Movement. The following Friends and Attenders personally wish to be named as supporting this minute: Dale Hess (Co-Clerk), Lorel Thomas (Co-Clerk), Helen Bayes, Jim Palmer, Patricia Fitzgerald, Tessa Spratt, Bev Polzin, Aileen Britten, Gerry Fahey, Ray Brindle, David Buller, Leo Cullen, Bruce Henry, Tibor Szakacs, France Newell, Jill Parris, Sue Parritt. Dale Hess & Lorel Thomas, VRM Co-clerks

West Australia Regional Meeting Report

In the State of the Society Address to AYM January 2015, Helen Bayes posed some important questions. We have included some responses to her questions in this 2015 WARM report. Helen noted that our official roles and core committees form the foundations of our community life and witness. It not merely that these tasks are done; rather it is HOW they are done—how Friends are upheld, encouraged and comforted by the Meeting. Within our WARM committees, groups and teams we do attempt to uphold, encourage and comfort one another. Our small group gatherings are important times for sharing and knowing one another more deeply. However, we need to consider ways in which we might do better within WARM as a whole. Much of our spiritual life and growth remains contained within our meetings for worship, dispersed worshipping groups and committees.

Clerking Team: We have been working with a model of a Clerking Team with 3 members being the core of the group and other members willing to act occasionally in a clerking capacity. To this end, we have tried to establish a set time and place for a clerking team meeting to be held each month, to prepare the agenda for the forthcoming business meeting and tie loose ends that may need attention. We find that the presence of an Elder can enrich and sustain the clerking team. Agenda for Meetings for Worship for Business usually deal with pressing matters, either related to Australia Yearly Meeting business, our own management of affairs, or correspondence. A review of our archives has shown us that sometimes this might mean the Meeting – particularly in reflecting years later – misses out on important opportunities to record our spiritual concerns. On April 25th Peter Fry invited people in his life to join in reflection at Reconciliation Park on the banks of the Swan River. A number of Friends attended, and the style of the gathering was much like a worship sharing. In our May 2015 Meeting for Business we invited F’friends to share how they had spent the Centenary of Anzac Day and experiencing the media and commemorations. The WARM minute records ‘This we can say’ about our actions and reflections on peace on April 25 2015. In September 2015 we embarked on a one-year trial of a change of time for business meeting and hope that it may encourage more F’friends to attend. As Clerks we hope the new format will encourage discipline of preparation and contribution among F’friends, while still being mindful of our Business Meeting being conducted in a worshipful manner. We hope too that alternating the venue between Fremantle and Mt Lawley will draw our two meetings even closer together. Ministry and Oversight: It is now some years since WARM had a designated Ministry and Oversight committee. In recent years ministry and oversight has largely, but not exclusively, fallen to Elders and some oversight matters to a Membership Committee. In our small meetings and worshipping groups we nonetheless may remain unaware of individuals who need both practical support and holding in the Light. We are aware of the need to provide more opportunities outside of Meeting for Worship on Sunday to really know each other, and to know about each other. Outreach: The Outreach committee was formally laid down this year. We do not have enough F’friends called to serve on this Committee at this time. Several Friends undertook to staff the WWI Quaker exhibition to be displayed in the Perth Town Hall in 2-7 November, and also in the various venues used for the exhibition on the South Coast. Care of Children and JYFs: A great deal of time and attention went into ensuring that all our Child Protection policies and procedures met legislative and other requirements. With so few children in our Meeting, having two adults with sometimes a single child requires a greater level of commitment to providing a children's programme from a small group of faithful F’friends. We need to be mindful of nurturing the nurturers. We are delighted that some of our few JYFs remain actively engaged with other JYFs within YM. Finance: while WARM is a small meeting, we are grateful for contributions coming almost equally from attenders as well as members which support AYM, QSA, SWQC, and maintain the Meeting House. We value the diligence and stewardship of the finance committee. Property and Hospitality Committee: from time to time there is discussion about the costs incurred and wisdom in retaining a Meeting House. Members of this WARM committee work together in creative and supportive ways to provide accommodation and welcome to visitors, plant edibles and flowers to grace our shared meals and Meetings for Worship, and support one another in many practical ways during the regular Friday and occasional weekend working bee. We also report that the accessibility bathroom at the WARM Meeting House has been completed. WARM weekend away Margaret River: On the last weekend in September 2015, fifteen Friends met at Tingrith, a retreat centre outside Margaret River, for a time of fellowship. We were grateful that several friends joined us from Denmark, South Coast Meeting. We enjoyed spending time together, walking the huge lavender labyrinth, reflecting on Earthcare, some inspiring stories of Earthcarers and what it meant to us. Julian Robertson shared some insights into his time as Presiding Clerk and Quaker support for West Papuans working for justice and independence. We learnt more about the Quaker tapestry, some of us stitching. It was, as always, a

time of deepening our connections and giving thanks for the beautiful, fragile world we share. We also spent time reflecting on how the proliferation of nuclear weapons was, and could, impact on Earthcare. Stitchery Group: Friends in Stitches continue to meet monthly, stitching panels for the Australian tapestry project, some talented people designing more panels, the earnest faithful few diligently practising on samples to learn how to do some of the stitching styles required for the main panels. For people learning, the convenors of the group and some members are generous and patient in sharing their skills and knowledge so there are many learning opportunities. YM Earthcare Committee: WARM has accepted responsibility for this committee. Several F’friends have responded enthusiastically and look forward to engaging other Meetings in the challenges of living this Testimony. Group meetings are held at different points of Derbarl Yerrigan (Swan River) and are designed to follow it progressively from the mouth at Fremantle to its inland source. In November 2015, the Committee planned to invite Julie Bishop to join them in a silent Meeting for Worship in the park adjacent to her Electoral Office. WARM F’friends are involved in many different ways to daily live out Quaker testimonies—through indigenous concerns, Mayors for Peace, earth care, in anti-nuclear and climate protests, support for those seeking refuge and asylum, teaching and spiritual care, support for interfaith meetings, and much other work that promotes justice and tolerance. While our numbers and Meetings may be small, we have among us people blessed with courage and capacity to work for justice —freedom to take a stance, to speak truth to power, to defy injustice peacefully and witness to the power of compassion. Peace and social justice matters: WARM has agreed to offer sanctuary to asylum seekers, and to support other churches in this endeavour. WARM Friend Adrian Glamorgan from travelled to Nagasaki, Japan, to witness the gifting of a sculpture done by Australian Indigenous people from the Anangu communities of Yalata and Oak Valley /Maralinga in South Australia. The gift is from City of Fremantle in collaboration with Anangu communities of Yalata and Oak Valley /Maralinga, Mayors for Peace Australia, the City of Cockburn and the City of Subiaco. Adrian attended on behalf of the Mayors for Peace Australia working group and was supported by Friends. Other matters: WARM has undertaken a review of its constitution as a result of changes to the WA Incorporations Act. This review is ongoing. Allan Knight, Margaret Woodward, Ann Zubrick, WARM clerking team

Reports from AYM committees, working groups and associated bodies

The Australian Friend Committee

Achievements/Activities/Events • The Committee has published four issues a year, online as well as the printed issue. • Friends around Australia have submitted sufficient articles to publish each issue. At times several articles have been held over for the next issue. • The online issue has mostly published the same articles as the printed issue. • Friends have written articles that focused on the theme of an issue such as peace or education. • Each article that is received has a surprise factor for the editorial panel and it has been a delight to have first-hand experience of the depth of experience, knowledge and writing talent among us. • David Swain has mastered the Wordpress website sufficiently to overcome most obscurities. Issues/Analysis The Wordpress expert who set up the online version of The Australian Friend, and has solved problems with the site, has advised for some time that The Australian Friend, is in need of new programming for its site as Wordpress has significantly updated its web programming. If the site were to crash, some, most, or all of its data may not be able to be retrieved. The Wordpress expert has expanded his business in different directions and was not available to do this work for us. He recommended a business based on the Gold Coast. This business has now been contracted and is in the process to build a new website for The Australian Friend. PART B: RECOMMENDATIONS • We hope that Friends around Australia will continue to be thoughtful writers about their spiritual journey, reflecting on study, experience and action. Committee members: Wies Schuiringa, Garry Duncan, Rae Litting and David Swain.

Australian Friends Fellowship of Healing

The members of AFFH at our Gathering at Silver Wattle October 2014 had felt the need to support YM 2015 with focused holding and each morning of YM we held a quiet time in our special Healing Room. This complemented the Elders holding of all YM sessions. The Healing Room allocated by Melbourne Friends was particularly central and easy of access and was a place of outreach and healing. A second gathering was held at Silver Wattle in October 2015. These well-attended gatherings have included F/friends from all Regional meetings and transport has been assisted from Thanksgiving Fund. We have considered how we can support the Olaf Hodgkin Healing Unit at Silver Wattle when it is up and running and have contributed to its planning. The Trustees of The AFFH Charitable Trust, which is working with Silver Wattle towards the Unit, are Peter Wilde, Alison Imbriotis and Margaret Woodward. As our responsibilities will change we will consider our aims and objectives at our next Gathering at Silver Wattle in September 2016. Ray Brindle and Mark Lockwood are working on coordinating the complex arrangements for the OHHU. The AFFH is a Fellowship of Friends wider than those who have the opportunity to meet in regular healing meetings. ‘Wholeness’, produced 3 times a year, is edited and produced by Barbara True of SANTRM. Ruth Haig of NSWRM has been coordinator and will be replaced at YM 2016 by Elspeth Hull of NSWRM and our appointee to the Advisory Committee of Silver Wattle was Moira Darling of VRM, now replaced by Ivanka Belic of QRM.

Healing Groups meet in Hobart, Melbourne, Canberra, Devonshire St, Blue Mountains and Brisbane. Our AGM will be held at YM in July. Ruth Haig, Convener

Australian Quaker Narrative Embroidery: Friends in Stitches

Since our last Documents in Advance report, Friends in Stitches have visited New Zealand on behalf of Australia Yearly Meeting. A report on this highly successful visit was in The Australian Friend, as well as in the Secretary’s Newsletter. Our visit was extremely well received. The nine Meetings where we presented invited their local Embroidery Guilds to come along and this was a valuable form of Outreach. Since then Tessa has been sick for months with an infected knee with blood poisoning. She has had a slow recovery and is now considerably better. The embroiderers however did not stop and we have now a total of ten completed panels and expect to have possibly four more completed for Friends to see at Yearly Meeting. It is obvious that keenness to work on them is growing as more and more embroidery groups hope to begin their own. Delays, as always, occur as there are not enough panels ready to begin. A number of subjects have been suggested, but designers, i.e. creative artists, are not available and we continue to search for those who are prepared to produce designs. We are also interested in topic suggestions; the latest is on ‘Permaculture’. We are very interested in suggestions of all sorts. We have been fortunate that Julie Webb of South Australia, a talented photographer, has been prepared to create cards from her photographs of our panels for us to sell. These have been extremely popular with those we have shown them to and have brought in revenue for us to use for the many things that we need. For a number of years both Tessa and Cathy have visited Regional Meetings to run workshops and introduce the Meetings to the concept of Friends in Stitches, taking with us a number of panels. This March we ran a workshop at Silver Wattle which attracted eighteen people, many coming for one or two days, with a base of ten staying for a week. Workshops produce great enthusiasm from those who come. However, we feel that it is better value if Tessa and Cathy go to Regional Meetings rather than the Meetings coming to us, and hope in future to once again make visits. We have used mostly our own finances for these visits, but we now intend to approach the Thanksgiving Fund for funding for this. Last Yearly Meeting, AYM approved the publication of a book and this is a work is in progress. COMMITTEE MEMBERS: Cathy Davies, NSW RM, Tessa Spratt, Vic RM. (Co coordinators), Garry Duncan NSW RM

Backhouse Lecture Committee

Achievements/Activities/Events Membership of the Committee was strengthened by the addition of David Tehr (WA) and Sue Parritt (Vic) at YM 2015. The committee meets mainly via Skype. The Committee was pleased with the positive reception for Sally Herzfeld’s Lecture in January 2015 on AVP. All printed copies were sold, and on-line demand has continued. The 2016 Lecture is to be given by Margery Post Abbott (USA) on ‘Everyday Prophets’. The preparation process has been very smooth, and we appreciate the assistance of editor Sheelagh Wegman once again. Marjorie and her husband Carl will also visit several RMs after Yearly Meeting. The committee felt led to invite David Carline (QRM) and Cheryl Buchanan to present an Indigenous perspective in the 2017 Lecture, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Referendum on Indigenous inclusion. The committee will work with them in the preparation process.

PART B: FOR CONSIDERATION Nominations for future lecturers are welcome – to David Purnell as convener [email protected] David Purnell (convener), Hannah Chapman-Searle, Garry Duncan, Dawn Joyce, Elizabeth Kwan, David Tehr

Child Protection Committee

In 2015, the AYM Child Protection Committee considered Young Friends and Junior Young Friends camps and who can attend in terms of the various state and territory requirements for adult presence and having the Working with Children card or its jurisdictional equivalent. The following recommendation was accepted by Standing Committee in July 2015 and is now brought to Yearly Meeting 2016 for approval: SC7.15.12: Child Protection Committee (a) Participation of 16 and 17 year olds in Young Friends Standing Committee accepts the recommendations of the AYM Child Protection Committee: o that 16 and 17 year olds (legally known as ‘minors’) no longer be included in Young Friends camps; and o that the definition of Young Friends be changed to ‘18 years and over’. We have done so with awareness that, as a Society, we wish to discharge our moral duty of care as well as our legal and financial responsibilities. We thank the Child Protection Committee for their work, and Young Friends for their deep consideration of this issue and their willingness to meet the requirements of the ‘Checklist for organisers of Young Friends camps involving minors’. We strongly encourage the Children and JYFs Committee to offer more scope for 16 and 17 year olds to participate in planning the format of and taking part in the leadership of JYF camps, and provide them with skills to transition effectively to the greater autonomy of YF camps. We are aware that this decision will be disappointing to 16 and 17 year olds who have already experienced YF camps, and to Young Friends as well. We hope that the opportunity for 16 and 17 year olds to participate in planning the format of JYF and children’s camps will somewhat compensate for the sense of loss they may feel. We note that 16 and 17 year olds have opportunities to participate in YF activities, other than camps; for example, Facebook. We hope that Young Friends will be invited to be among the ‘Approved Child Carers’ at children and JYF camps and provide spiritual leadership in the children and JYF programs. We regard the visit to YM16 of Alyssa Nelson, Youth Worker from Pacific Yearly Meeting, USA, as an opportunity to further explore ways forward for the transition of 16 and 17 year olds in the Australian Quaker setting. We acknowledge that, as a Society, we have not fully met the developmental needs of JYFs. (b) Checklist for Quaker activities including minors Standing Committee asks that the checklist (below), prepared by the AYM Child Protection Committee for Young Friends, be adapted for use in all Quaker activities, when an activity is auspiced by the Religious Society of Friends and involves the participation of minors. Checklist for organisers of Young Friends camps Child Protection requirements At least two Approved Child Carers, in accordance with the AYM Child Protection Policy and Procedures, must be present at camps in which minors are involved. One of the Approved Child

Carers must have a current Working with Children check or equivalent in the state or territory in which the camp is taking place. In Tasmania any adult (by definition person over the age of 18) staying overnight must have a Working with Children Card. • Other adults without a Working with Children card can visit during the day, for not more than 3 days in any 4-week period and for not more than 7 days in any calendar year, as long as there is an approved carer present who also has a Working with Children card, issued by the Justice Department Tasmania and as per the Tasmanian Justice Department rules. Adults without a Working with Children card need to keep track of days spent and log dates. • Note that in Tasmania, Interstate Friends who hold a card from their own state but without a Tasmanian WWC Card, who are working with children during an activity organized under the auspices of Friends in Tasmania, may only do so for a maximum of 28 days in any calendar year. Friends need to keep track of days spent and log dates. See the website: http://www.justice.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/284362/Exemptions_from_ Registration.pdf The camp organiser must keep a record of who is present each day. This is an essential requirement for our Child Protection Policy. It is also vital in case of emergencies such as fire or flood. The record must be sent to the AYM Secretary following the camp. It will then be kept for insurance purposes. The camp organiser must receive, at least one week before the camp, notice that a minor intends to participate, along with a letter of permission to attend the camp signed by the minor’s parents/guardians that gives emergency contact information, and information about the minor’s medication/allergies/health needs. [A template for this document is available from the AYM Secretary.] Those attending the camp must agree to behaviours that include a ‘no alcohol or drugs’ rule. A suggested model is that participants agree to say and do things that are legal, safe, fair and respectful. Additional requirements that apply to all YF activities Organisers of YF activities must undertake a risk management assessment of the proposed activity/ies, as required by Occupational Health and Safety regulations. The assessment will identify potential hazards and actions that can be taken to reduce the risk of injury. [See risk management template from The Friends’ School and ‘Preparing a Risk Evaluation’]. The organiser will send the risk management assessment document to the AYM Secretary at least one week before the planned activity/camp. Organisers of YF activities must have in place a Critical Incident Plan, with contact details of those who need to be notified. Participants in YF activities must agree on and adequately signpost a meeting place in case of an emergency such as fire. The success of the JYF Camp held at Silver Wattle in January 2016 suggests this offers a welcome opportunity for a national camp for 16 and 17 year olds. AYM Child Protection Committee also considered legal obligations on Young Friends over 18 who might attend camps with younger Friends. In this regard, Young Friends are like any other adult caring for children and would need to be approved by their Regional Meeting for a child caring role. Alternately, they can be a ‘child helper’ under the supervision of an approved child carer (see above for Tasmanian rules for adult helpers without a card). The Child Protection Committee was asked about offering Sanctuary to asylum seeker families with children, and the Committee provides the following advice:

• Where unaccompanied minors are involved, there may be other churches that would find it easier than our Meeting Houses to take unaccompanied minors because they have appropriate arrangements in place. • Many churches are involved in the Australian Churches Refugee Taskforce http://www.acrt.com.au/, and are keeping one another informed. They also have Child Protection policies, and though they may not be the same as ours, these churches may still be useful sources of information. • It needs to be clear when parents cease to be the carers for children for a specific time, e.g. when parents need to go to an appointment and Friends are caring for the children in the parent’s absence. In this case, the Religious Society of Friends is in loco parentis and carers need to act in conformity with our CPP Policy. Anyone (Friend or other person) present while children are being cared for other than by their parents needs to be an Approved Child Carer or a ‘helper’ working under the direct supervision of, and in the line of vision of, an Approved Child Carer at all times, in order to conform with the YM Child Protection Policy and Procedures. Regional Meetings were asked to undertake the second annual audit of Friends who are on their RM register of approved child carers, and to return the results of the audit to the AYM Office by 1 June 2016. A template for this audit has been distributed to RMs. In mid-2015, the Committee employed a barrister to advise regarding any changes in the States and Territories in the past 12 months to child protection, working with children, or criminal legislation, which were of relevance to the statutory obligations of Regional Meetings and Australia Yearly Meeting event organisers. It was agreed that such consultation be sought periodically. Dorothy Scott, Victoria RM, advises that the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is likely to make recommendations for nationally consistent requirements for religious bodies and other organisations providing care or activities for minors.. At this stage AYM needs only to be mindful of this and remain informed. Two members of the Committee, Angie Were and Ronis Chapman attended the biennial conference of the National Council of Churches ‘Safe As Churches?’ in September 2015 at St Barnabas Anglican Church, Broadway, Sydney. Its focus was the prevention of abuse or misconduct in the churches. Of particular value were: • Discussion of ways of developing a culture of openness and safety • The willingness of larger churches to advise re investigation and recovery • An interim report from the Commissioner of the Royal Commission into Institutional Abuse of children. Part B: For consideration o We ask that Yearly Meeting accept the recommendations of Standing Committee that the age range for Young Friends and for Young Friends activities will be over 18 - 30 years, and the age range for Junior Young Friends will be 12 -17 years. o If accepted, we ask that this change be made in the Handbook of Practice and Procedure in Australia. AYM Presiding Clerk Julian Robertson, Acting AYM Secretary Judith Pembleton, Ronis Chapman & Ian Emerson (CRM), Sue Walkom & Val Boyd (TRM), Dorothy Scott & Angela Were (VRM) , Tanya Aveling (WARM)

Children & Junior Young Friends Committee

Achievements/Activities/Events The committee has continued to support the Children and JYF Coordinator, Jenny Turton. Justine and David and meet regularly with Jenny (usually by Skype). We are very grateful for all the work, ideas, and commitment that Jenny has brought to the role. Jenny Turton and Justine Shelton attended a 3-day training workshop in Melbourne on Godly Play in September 2015. Since then it has been used in CRM, QRM, SANTRM, and VRM.

In January 2016 there was a very successful Summer JYF Gathering at Silver Wattle. Several JYFs took a leading role in planning the event and organising activities. We are very grateful for Silver Wattle and the Canberra meeting for their assistance in the running this camp, and for Jenny Turton, Gina Price and other members of the committee for all the work they did in organising it. Jenny Turton has organised a visit by Alyssa Nelson, Youth Programs Coordinator for the Pacific Yearly Meeting in the USA. Alyssa will attend AYM in July 2016 and run workshops in some Regional Meetings (VRM, WARM, CRM, TRM). In July 2016, Jenny Turton will step down from her role as Children and JYF Coordinator and we are currently looking for a replacement. Jenny’s energy, dedication and commitment in the role will be greatly missed. Issues/Analysis One of the main issues that was considered in 2015 was the appropriate ages for JYFs and YFs, and the how we could support the transition of JYFs to YFs. Another issue was the timing of YM. Many JYFs felt that they would be unable to attend a winter YM due to their schoolwork and their preparation for exams. As a response in 2016 a JYF Summer gathering was held at Silver Wattle. In 2017 VRM and the current committee members hope to lay down the Committee and we hope to that another RM and group of Friends will take up this important work. PART B: RECOMMENDATIONS • To hold a JYF Summer camp in 2016/17 to continue to support the JYFs, particularly the older JYFs. • Friends are asked to consider whether the Children and JYF Coordinator should be funded from the AYM budget. Standing Committee in February agreed that if the position continues beyond July 2017, this would be considered. • Seek another RM or interested Friends to take over the Children and JYF Committee in 2017. Committee members: Justine Shelton (Co-Convenor), David Albrecht (Co-Convenor), Kyrstie Crane, Emily Bray, Susan Albrecht

Children & JYF Coordinator’s Report

PART A: Achievements, activities, events Major activities, achievements and events over the past year and a half have been: • Helping to plan and run the Children’s Program at YM 2015 in Melbourne • Running workshops for CRM and QRM on engaging with young people, and participating in the SANTRM residential weekend • Beinge part of th Organising Committee for the inaugural Summer JYF Camp held at Silver Wattle in January 2015 • Planning the visit of Alyssa Nelson, Youth Coordinator for Pacific Yearly Meeting in the USA, to Australia for YM 2016 and to a number of RMs (VRM, TRM, CRM, WARM) • Being part of the Organising Committee for VRM Gatherings in 2015 and 2016, and leading a number of sessions • Participating in a 3 day Godly Play core training workshop in Melbourne • Participating in the Easter Family Gathering with my family in 2015 • Attending the half day ‘Reimagining Faith Formation’ Seminar • Developing a response to the issue of 16 and 17 year olds attending Young Friend events • Participating in the Diamond Valley Friendly Weekend with my family Apart from these major activities, a significant proportion of my work involves researching and sharing relevant resources; responding to phone and email contact and linking Friends to

information they are seeking or to the relevant contact person; providing input on how to support local children’s meetings; providing information to Friends about events of relevance to families and young people; keeping abreast of Child Protection requirements and providing input on this as required. As the national Children and Youth Coordinator I am in a position to bring together concerns, successes and priorities around supporting young people at local, regional and national level and discern with the AYM Children and JYF Committee the way forward to build on successes and address priorities and concerns. Bev Polzin, Stephanie Farrall, Geoff Greeves and Dorothy Scott are my support group, with whom I have Skype/phone sessions or face to face meetings as required. I have Skype sessions with the Children and JYF Committee Co-Convenors every month. Issues/Analysis Some issues which have become apparent over the past year and a half are:

• * Holding Yearly Meeting in July makes it difficult for young people and their families to take part due to study and school requirements, particularly for older teens undertaking VCE. • * Also, it is difficult financially and time-wise for families to participate in more thane one of th major family-focused or family-friendly events when so many of these are in the first half of the year. These include Summer JYF Gathering, Easter Family Gathering, and varying RM gatherings that have been rescheduled so they don’t clash with YM. • * The barriers to young people and families attending YM make it even more important to continue to support older JYFS by continuing to provide annual opportunities for them to come together over summer and to build on the increased autonomy of JYF programs. Part B: Recommendations I would recommend that Australia Yearly Meeting: • Support an annual JYF Gathering in Summer 2017 (which will require financial support as well as committed Friends to plan and run the event) • Consider the impact of the timing of YM on the ability of young people and families to be involved in a number of important events (EFG, Summer JYF Camp, RM Gatherings, YM) Jenny Turton, AYM Children & JYF Coordinator

Communications Committee

We meet via Skype quarterly. With one member in Cambodia, one in Queensland, one in Canberra and one in Adelaide, there are few chances for us to meet face-to-face. At YM15, this Committee’s name was changed from Publications Committee to Communications Committee. The members of this Committee would prefer a return to the name Publications Committee, which covers both print and electronic publications and which more accurately describes the way we envisage our role. The Committee sees its role as an advisory body rather than as authors of new material. We see our role more as a coordinator for major tasks such as rewriting and updating AYM material, with a 'task force' specifically appointed for each of these projects comprising mainly non-committee members who would like to undertake that specific task, but coordinated by one or more committee members. This year, the Committee was asked to do the following: 1. Update AYM pamphlets The AYM pamphlets produced by the Publications Committee in Tasmania need updating to take into account changes as a result of recent decisions by Yearly Meeting re same-sex marriage and new testimonies. We have also been approached to produce new pamphlets to expand the range of information.

• About Quakers • Membership • Clearness Meetings • Quakers and Marriage • Gay and Lesbian Friends in Australia Yearly Meeting So far no pamphlets have been completed. The following Friends in Adelaide have undertaken to work on this project: • Jenny Stock has offered to coordinate a small group in Adelaide to work on updating the AYM pamphlets over time. • Yarrow Andrew has offered to re-write the pamphlet on Quakers and marriage, and will keep us posted on his progress. 2. Assist publication about the Australian Narrative Embroidery Project We were approached by Friends in Stitches to discuss their plan to produce a printed record of this project. Brian Harlech-Jones and Jude Pembleton met with the tapestry group at Silver Wattle to discuss their progress towards a publication. Their timeline is for a launch at YM2017 and there is a lot to be done before that. Garry Duncan has agreed to edit the material collated so far, Charles Stevenson is assisting with Quaker history, and Julie Webb has assisted with photography. Before quotes can be developed for the print publication, layout considerations need to be settled, and Brian and Judith recommended two professional editors with layout experience to the Friends in Stitches Committee. We await further updates. Judith Pembleton, with support from Brian Harlech-Jones, will continue to liaise with the Friends in Stitches Committee. 3. Facebook outreach As Acting AYM Secretary, the convener has established a Quakers Australia Facebook page for outreach and a Quakers Australia Facebook group for community building. The outreach page has attracted a great deal of interest. Items that attract a hundred or more ‘visits’ have been ‘boosted’ by paying Facebook to post this item onto the Facebook pages of members and attenders and their friends. When boosted in this way, we average close to 1500 people looking at these items, many of whom visit our page or our website and comment on different items that they see. The cost for this has been about $28/week. The Communications Committee agrees that these payments for outreach come from the Publications Fund. Part B: For consideration We ask Yearly Meeting to consider the following proposals: • that Yearly Meeting consider our new role description, including the need for names of writers to focus on specific tasks • that Yearly Meeting agree to a return to the name Publications Committee • that Yearly Meeting consider appointing a Revision Committee to revise the whole of the Handbook of Practice and Procedure in Australia and to be responsible for ongoing updating of this publication rather than this being part of the AYM Secretary’s responsibility. • That Yearly Meeting consider whether we need to appoint a committee to begin collecting material for a new edition of This We Can Say. Committee: Judith Pembleton (Convener), Margaret Bywater, TRM; Brian Harlech-Jones, CRM; Jenny Stock, SANTRM

Earthcare

Our emerging approach In mid-2015 West Australian Regional Meeting offered to take responsibility for the AYM Quaker Earthcare Committee. We undertook then, and continue now, a process of discernment about our committee membership, method and ultimate purpose. At the heart of this is the ongoing recognition that creating a nourishing activity will sustain us in our committee work, as well as inspiring others. We take this approach knowing we cannot be responsible for everything ecological – and nor have we been asked to do so. We know that many Friends are already active in their own lives, meetings, and communities pursuing sustainability in local, regional and international ways. In a world with so many environmental campaigns, and so much social media, we assume that Friends join, if not initiate, causes both near and far from where they live. For us to try and keep pace with all this work might miss the opportunity we have as a committee to make a unique exploration about how we care for the Earth. So we began our journey asking what could we do that would both nourish ourselves and help us in the process of ongoing discernment? The vision began with wondering how we might meet, and it came with two important elements: 1. We meet once every two months at the river, aiming for those times to be unrushed and nourishing. We needed to have meetings that made us feel stronger for having attended. We are gathering progressively from the mouth of the Swan River (technically the Narlak Beeliar, including the freshwater stretch Derbal Yerrigan), to points of interest along the Swan (upriver known as the Avon), working our way upstream, to eventually hold a meeting (in a few years) at the town of Beverley in the wheatbelt, where there is an outpost of Quakers near the source of the river. When we meet in places along the river, this process helps us make friends with our environment. We share stories about what sites have meant to us personally and our families, the changes to the river, and we connect with the Aboriginal and Quaker insights from the past. 2. In between river gatherings we have taken up short, facilitated committee meetings at Mt Lawley Meeting House where we focus on communication with WARM and AYM and actions which arise from our time at the river. Reflection In our research we found resonance with the approach of Aboriginal anthropologist Deborah Bird Rose, who wrote Nourishing Terrains: Australian Aboriginal Views of Landscape and Wilderness (1996, Australian Heritage Commission – available as a pdf online). She is trying to explore what country means to Aboriginal people and asks us to: ‘Do the ceremony properly for your homeland and for yourself’; and ‘Understand the land and everything on it so you can manage it properly.’ Our journey upriver pays homage to our homeland as an enquiry, a wish to connect, and an intuition of its value. Our meeting together, experiencing the bush and river, perceiving (and hearing about) the layers of Aboriginal occupation and European encounter, experiencing our locality, brings stories and weaves them into the living environment. In order to share with words, but also beyond words, during our meetings we have done art works – either on paper, through photography, or by creating temporary ‘environmental art.’ These are talking points, but also opportunities to share beyond words. They are ceremony. They help us understand the land so that we can begin to hear how it might be managed properly. We have picked the living river of our city because it has meant so much to Aboriginal people here (and perhaps much further away), and also because it goes right through our city, and is the very reason Europeans settled here. We could have chosen the wetlands that run north-south through our city, and define the Swan Coastal Plain. It may not matter what route we are taking, though there is a logic to starting at the entrance to our land, and imitating European ancestors by going upriver.

We are meeting in this way as an experiment. Could this be a model for other Friends in other places? We think it might. When we make mention of it to Friends elsewhere, they seem quickened by how it might be transposed to where they live. We experience the benefits of the five meetings we have had so far in this way. Our first meeting at Bathers Beach, Fremantle, began at the landing point for the British invasion of the Swan River. From lunchtime on a Saturday we joined together in story, history, and art work, and finished by setting sail a couple of ‘environmental art boats’ as the evening approached. Our next meeting took us to Monument Hill, between the ocean and the river. We could see the port, and the river, and the ocean, and we could remember the fires of Aboriginal women along the coast, giving comfort to their imprisoned men on Rottnest, and we could look around and see the roofs across what had once been pristine banksia woodland. Next we met at Point Walter – Jenalup –where the freshwater meets the saltwater at an extended sandbar. A few of us could remember family times at this popular tourist spot and shared what we knew about the Aboriginal meetings and ceremonies that happened. We were given a remarkable display of an evening storm as we shared our stories. Our fourth river meeting at Chidley Point was midst the racket of motor boats and family picnics witnessing the encroachment of modern affluent lifestyle, yet we found moments of timeless connection: an aboriginal family heading to a quieter fishing spot along the rocky river edge, and our own deep listening to the place through time, with the accumulating experience of belonging to the river. The committee’s fifth and most recent river experience was at Freshwater Bay around from the site of AYM in 2012, at a peaceful rainy spot looking back towards our start at the river mouth of Fremantle. We welcome other meetings experimenting with this method of getting to know their local natural environment and hope they would let our committee know about what they are learning. The Earthcare Invite We have published three Earthcare Invites, currently on the AYM website www.quakers.org.au under Quaker Action/Earthcare. The title, Invite, avoids anxiety: we want to give hope and inspiration and know Friends are already busy. There are four parts: Pray, Read, Act, and Celebrate. They aim to deepen Friends’ spiritual and environmental practices. Faith in Action Our journey upriver is not the sole task of our Quaker Earthcare committee, it is also a method of investigation to feed us in our other work too. This has led us to a new element of our concerns about WARM’s engagement with local Aboriginal groups in support for the Aboriginal Heritage Action Alliance which is challenging the Aboriginal Heritage Amendment Act, a bill currently before the state government. With Paris climate talks happening last December, and the Foreign Minister Julie Bishop holding a western suburbs WA seat, the Earthcare Committee wrote to her and offered to meet in the manner of Friends. Julie Bishop declined this, but a meeting for worship was held in any case at the adjacent park. We hand-delivered sunflowers and a card recognising that this was a rare opportunity for global cooperation, and that ‘there are people across the country holding you and your team in their hearts and minds. As you represent Australia we trust you will be a clear and compassionate voice for all life on earth’. We were contacted by a community paper in the Braidwood-Michelago district of NSW and an article was published which reported on Quaker Earthcare. We are writing to the Minister for Tourism about the disregard for Indigenous culture and environmental awareness in the public commentary on the Swan River boat trip between Perth and Fremantle. Committee members: Adrian Glamorgan, Brenda Roy and Jo Vallentine (Co-convenors), Elizabeth PO’, Clare O’Leary, Helene Fisher, Lizzie Nicholas, Margaret Woodward, Gina Price. * Please refer to the Standing Committee Agenda February 2016 for photos and further information.

Ecumenism and Interfaith Reports

Report on Quaker participation in the National Council of Churches of Australia, January 2015 to July 2016 The Religious Society of Friends (Australia) Inc was a founding member of the NCCA, which brings together in an ecumenical movement 19 of the Christian churches in Australia. It includes the mainstream Protestant churches, the Catholics, most of the Orthodox churches, and a few smaller churches like the Quakers. The Executive of the NCCA meets three times a year, and over the last 18 months Rae Litting and myself have attended on behalf of Quakers. Within the NCCA have grown smaller organizations that focus on particular issues: the aid agency, Act for Peace, the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel, the Australian Churches refugee Taskforce, the Social Justice Network, the Safe as Churches program, and others. Friend Sieneke Martin has been the Quaker representative on the Act for Peace commission, and is now the chair, and Heather Saville has become the Quaker representative. Wies Schiuring is closely involved with the Social Justice Network, Bev Polzin has been on the Faith and Unity Commission, and Ronis Chapman is on the Safe Church Network. Over the last 18 months the Executive has addressed many issues, internal and external to the organisation. One of these was a report on the Quaker led peace pilgrimage to West Papua in January/February 2015. The NCCA responded with a proposal for a parliamentary delegation to publicise the plight of indigenous West Papuans and Australian involvement in their suppression. The delegation took place in September 15, and included three Quakers, (Jason Mcloud, Dale Hess, myself), a Catholic, Peter Arndt, and a member of the Salvation Army, Alley, who arranged and led the delegation. The NCCA is also planning a second peacemaking delegation to West Papua that will include members of Pacific Island churches. Another major issue for the NCCA over the last 18 months has been a re-writing of the constitution that reflects the structure of the organization today, has clear lines of accountability and authority and complies with changes in legislation. It has been quite a task to gain agreement between the19 churches, the legal advisors and gain acceptance of the new constitution from the various NCCA committees. Sister Elizabeth Delaney, the General Secretary, has nursed the process through with great patience. But as Rae Litting commented in her report on the March 16 Executive Committee: It was a great relief to find that the new constitution is almost ready to be presented to the next Forum to be voted on, so for once we spent very little time on it. Instead we spent some time considering what our focus should be for the next 3 years. How far should we concentrate on inter-church dialogue, and how far should our focus be on action for social justice? In July I will lay down my Quaker representation as ‘Head of Church’ (a phrase that does not sit comfortably with me!) at the NCCA. It has been most interesting to meet with other leaders of Christian churches in Australia, and I have learned much, particularly in getting to know them as people. Bringing people from different expressions of Christianity together is at the heart of the ecumenical movement, and Australia has come a long way since the days of my youth, when the division between Protestants and Catholics was not just theological, but could also be perceived as racial. The NCCA may be frustratingly slow in its deliberations, but, like other ecumenical organizations, it has a strong peacemaking role within Australia and overseas. In my view, Quakers continue to have a small but significant role in this process. Julian Robertson, Presiding Clerk

First Nations Peoples Concerns Committee

PART A: THE REPORT The committee continues to see its role as a national clearing house of information, to provide assistance and support to the State and Territorial Regional Meeting correspondents and First

Nations Peoples (FNP) on related activities engaged by them and others within their Local and Regional Meetings and to correspond with outside bodies on behalf of the Committee on FNP matters. It conducts a Skype facilitated hook up with committee members and Regional Meeting correspondents every two months. The meetings are designed to • exchange information, • provide support and assistance to Regional Meetings, Local Meetings and individual Friends in relation to FNP matters, • distribute donated funds from Regional Meetings and individual Friends, • liaise with outside organisations in relation to FNP matters and • write letters on behalf of the committee to relevant organisations or persons in relation to FNP matters when requested to do so by FNP friends and organisations. Activities the committee has been involved in since last Yearly Meeting The Committee has established electronic mailing lists for those F/friends wanting to be kept informed on the Committee’s activities and receive information about key issues affecting FNP in Australia. Friends wishing to be placed on the list can contact Chris Hughes. The Committee has written to the relevant Premiers and ministerial representatives on matters including • the forced closures eof Remot Aboriginal Communities in WA, • the use of paperless arrests in the Northern Territory, • the appointment of Administrators to communities in the APY) lands of South Australia. [APY stands for Anangu Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara, which is a large Aboriginal local government area located in the remote north west of South Australia which was incorporated by the 1981 Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Land Rights Act of South Australia] and • the continuing push by the Queensland Government to open a coal mine contrary to the wishes of the traditional owners. Building Relationships We continue to work with other organisations and people with a shared vision of coming into right relationship with Australia’s First Nations Peoples. These include prompting and supporting the work of CORE (Committee on Racial Equality) in Canberra for reconciliation and equality between Australia’s FNPs and non FNP. We continue to promote the excellent work and publications around the NT Intervention by Concerned Australians. We have maintained our connection with the Dumbartung Aboriginal Corporation (DAC). Robert & Selina Eggington, the Directors of DAC have spent many years maintaining a Cultural Heritage museum at DAC and assisting their community - the Nyoongah community of WA to survive the pain and trauma of suicide resulting from occupation and the institutional racism embedded in it. They have developed and delivered suicide prevention programs for the local Nyoongah community and hope to take their learning to other FNP communities as well. The Committee wrote to the WA Premier requesting on-going government funding for the crucial work that DAC provides to the Nyoongah community. The Committee also donated $1000 towards the second suicide prevention conference coordinated and held at DAC by Robert and Selina. The Committee is also involved in discussions with Ken Lechleitner (CEO of Twoilpa Aboriginal Corporation, Alice Springs) about the development of a project proposed by him around a Tjukjurpa regarding alcohol. Tjukjurpa refers to the creation period when ancestral beings created the world. From this came Anangu religious heritage, explaining their existence and guiding daily life. For Anangu, Tjukjurpa provides answers to important questions, the rules for behaviour and for living together.

The Committee worked closely with David Johnson in assisting him with his concern about Friends engaging with both the FNP and Settler communities on Aboriginal sovereignty resulting in the interfaith Sovereignty Gathering held at the Silver Wattle Quaker Centre between March 4-7th 2016. Interfaith Sovereignty Gathering At this Gathering 13 First Peoples and 14 newcomers, held and nurtured by the land began our work to come into right relationship with the land and each other. We discussed the prevailing history and legal basis on which the Australian State claims sole sovereignty over the continent of Australia. We were informed the basis upon which the Australian State claims sovereignty was transferred from First Peoples to the British Crown was contestable under British and International Law both at that time and still is. We were provided the relevant legal arguments to support the position that sovereignty and allodial title to the land was never ceded by First Peoples to the British Crown and thus First Peoples still have sovereignty over their traditional lands and rights to practice customary Law. Sovereign Union is an excellent source of the numerous articles outlining the legal case that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Sovereignty was not relinquished or ceded under international or British law nor Crown decree during or post invasion and colonization. See http://www.sovereignunion.mobi Henry Reynolds’s books; The Forgotten War and Aboriginal Sovereignty: reflections on race, state and nation, Allan & Unwin 1996 ISBN 1 86373 969 6 are also excellent reads in relation to the true history of Colonial expansion within Australia and the issues around aboriginal sovereignty from a Historical perspective. We explored the devastation brought on by colonialisation. The humanitarian crisis in this country for many First Peoples; incarceration, poverty, forced child removals, the physical and psychological health issues caused by dispossession, poverty and racism and the continuing theft of resources owned by First Peoples. These are not past history but presently lived realities for many First People. We heard young people are dying and / or becoming separated from their Land, Law and Culture. Forced assimilation under other guises is still being enacted upon First People by Australian Governments with devastating results. We heard of the devastating effects of the Intervention in in 2007 and the on-going deprivations brought on by the Stronger Futures Report. First People have and continue to offer a way forward for newcomers to come into right relationship with the land; to belong to the land as First People are connected; to remove the stain and guilt of being intruders; to atone for past and current brutalities and forge a new future to obtain legitimacy on this ancient land; and together to create with her First Peoples a new Australia. To decolonise Australia in both mind and action. While a range of proposed ways in which First Nation Sovereignty could be exercised were explored and discussed at the Gathering there was no agreed consensus at what First Peoples sovereignty would look like and its relationship to the current Australian Sovereign State among those in attendance. The Self-Declared Nations representatives at the gathering stated their Nations were at the time of invasion and are still Sovereign States in their own right. They also said their Nation is a political, custodial and geographic entity not one based upon ethnicity and that existing property rights for newcomers would be maintained and they would be welcomed to become residents / citizens of the First Peoples Nation they currently reside on if they so choose. There was agreement that • First Peoples had never ceded their sovereignty and this should be acknowledged. Constitutional Recognition is not sufficient. Discussions about how sovereignty will be exercisede into th future should begin between First Peoples and newcomers and within their respective communities. • First Nations People can speak only for their own Nation and those other Nations that have given their agreement to do so. Friends have shown in the past and continue to show they can play a positive role in this process by creating inclusive safe spaces for people to come together to discuss their differences and work towards a peaceful, inclusive and just future.

Those in attendance hope that Friends will continue this work as we work towards an inclusive post-colonial future. While at the Gathering, the Committee received a request by Traditional Elders for financial assistance to help Michael Anderson provide pro bono expert legal advice to them, in a meeting with the relevant Government Minister around the proposed changes to the APY Act by the SA Government. The Committee agreed to provide $750 towards Michael’s travel costs The Committee would like to thank and acknowledge all those Friends and others that have passed on, who have contributed to coming into right relationships with Australia’s First Peoples, including Phillip Toyne who made extensive contributions in this matter. We would also like to thank and acknowledge all those Friends and others that have worked and continue to work to bring us all into right relationship with Australia’s Land and its Peoples. We also wish to acknowledge particularly those Committee members and correspondents that have laid down their involvement in the Committee this year; Margaret Spong (Vic RM), Aletia Dundas (NSW RM), Anthea Nicolls (SA&NT RM), Malcolm Firth (WARM), and Sue Doessel (QLDRM) and welcome those that have joined us; Sitara Gare (QLDRM), Margaret Evans (CRM), Sally Margaret Gale (TAS), Elspeth Hull (NSW RM) and Clare O’Leary (WARM). The Committee would welcome any Friends so moved to contact the committee via the co-conveners to join the Committee as a member, correspondent or to be listed on our activist email list. We encourage F/friends to support financially the continuing work of the committee into the future. Issues/Analysis The Committee is still of the view that we must tackle the difficult issues of sovereignty both spiritual and temporal, the acknowledgement of past behaviours and the case for reparations. A new covenant with Australia’s First Nations People (FNP) as equals on this continent is required, for anything else will not create the equal and just society we seek. The on-going trauma felt by FNP as a result of past and continuing policies and attitudes of Australian Governments and many non FNP Australians will be felt for generations to come and will take time and a great deal of support to assist in the healing of all involved. Forced assimilation has not worked and will not work. Real reconciliation between Australia’s FNPs and non FNPs can only truly happen when we engage in real compassionate listening, acknowledge past wrongs and work together to create a new process where real self-determination is acknowledged and respected by the non FNPs community, governments and statutory Authorities. Trust, respect and community are created by individual people at the local level engaging with each other and learning from each other. We ask Friends to reflect on what we are doing as individuals to promote and engage in reconciliation at our local level, to build community with our FNP brothers and sisters and seek to inform ourselves of our own local history. Our beloved Friends Susannah Brindle and Waratah Rose Gillespie have spoken and written eloquently over many years about the spiritual and temporal dimensions of coming right way into relationship with the Land and its First Peoples and their deep belief in the role Quaker Witness can play in bringing this about. We would highly recommend Friends read Susannah Brindles Coming Right Way ‘doing justly, loving mercy and walking humbly in Australia’ (Emu Feathers booklet), and her 2000 Backhouse lecture; To learn a new song. A Quaker contribution to real reconciliation with the earth and its peoples and Waratah Rose Gillespie’s book About Aboriginal Sovereignty: Sending a message seeking new pathways, (Emu Feathers 2005) which provides an excellent resource for Friends to understand what sovereignty is, and why Friends should support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Sovereignty. Friends should however realise that the journey to coming into right relationship is not an easy one. Past hurts and present conditions resulting from the scourge of colonialism means the journey can

be fraught with frustration, hurt, pain and confusion. However those that have and continue to make that journey also speak of great joy, humour, laughter and a sense of living their faith. The Committee has decided that one way Quakers can support FNPs is to provide them respite and recuperation at Silver Wattle, free of charge. FNP that have stayed at Silver Wattle have commented on its healing properties. We believe this would be a concrete way of paying the rent and assisting those FNPs who carry a great burden as a result of our inability as settlers to come into right relationship with the Land and its People. The Committee has chosen to use some of its funds for this purpose but believe the long term sustainability of this support and witness needs to be under the care of AYM. This Committee would like AYM to consider at Yearly Meeting 2016 whether this support is best achieved by funds being raised through RM Schedules, or being donated by individuals or Regional Meetings and administered by this Committee or by Silver Wattle, or allocation from AYM consolidated funds. Aboriginal sovereignty The Committee has decided to focus on sovereignty as its main focus in 2016. The issue of Aboriginal sovereignty rather than going away has been gaining momentum within the FNP communities. We have seen the self-declaration of Sovereign Aboriginal Nations since 2013 and a growing call among FNP leaders for Aboriginal / Torres Strait Islander sovereignty over their traditional Country to be recognized by the Australian Government and people. Sovereignty is the ultimate power, authority and/or jurisdiction over a people and a territory. No other person, group, tribe or state can tell a sovereign entity what to do with its land and/or people. A sovereign entity can decide and administer its own laws, can determine the use of its land and can do pretty much as it pleases, free of external influence (within the limitations of international law). Patrick Macklem argues sovereignty can be conceptualised as the ‘legal expression of collective difference’. Conquered people that yearn to rid themselves of their colonial past seek sovereignty as a vehicle for and expression of this desire and they seek to be free to express their collective identity. Similarly a conquering nation values its sovereignty because sovereignty permits the domestic and international expression of its collective identity, as well as the continued projection and enforcement of that identity against those it has conquered… each side cherishes its own collective difference and values sovereignty as a way of expressing that difference and protecting it from the encroaching views of the other. the value of sovereignty lies in the legal space it establishes for a community to construct, protect, and transform its collective identity.(Macklem 2001 page 41 Pratt, Angela M, ‘Indigenous sovereignty-never ceded’: sovereignty, nationhood and whiteness in Australia, PhD thesis, Faculty of Arts, University of Wollongong, 2003). Land rights, native title and self-determination policies have not provided Australia’s First People with the political, cultural, religious, legal and economic autonomy to have agency over their collective rights in relation to the Australian settler Sovereign State. It is the failure of countless Australian Governments since Federation to protect the human rights of its Aboriginal and Torres Straits peoples both collectively and individually and their failure to consult and dialogue with them as equals that have sown the seed that legally recognized sovereignty through treaty is the only way these rights can be protected and implemented. The call for a treaty process to enable sovereignty to be recognized is gaining momentum within FNP Communities, recommended by the United Nations UN Special Rapporteur Professor James Anaya and publicly called for by former Prime Minister Paul Keating. What this treaty process provides is yet to be determined. This may be • self-determination rights within the Australian Sovereign State or • shared domestic sovereignty as the current Federal State Government model does, or • First Nations as separate Sovereign States under international Law. It would seem flexibility would be required to deal the complexity and diversity of First Nations Peoples from those still living on Country to those dwelling in townships and urban areas but the conversations need to start now if we are to deal with the complexities of sovereignty.

What we learned from the Sovereignty gathering is a need for further discussions and processes among and between the Nations of Australia as we work together towards a shared future. A denial of our true past has prevented this up to now. The opportunity to come to terms with the past, provide reparation and build a new inclusive just future offered through a treaty process should be seized by all Australians. It is ironic the fear of losing one’s property, culture, law and economic independence is the greatest barrier to working with those that have experienced this. The need to start this process to provide both domestic and international certainty and legitimacy is gaining momentum and we believe Friends have a role to play in this process; to bring Light rather than heat to the process and provide nonviolent conflict resolution methods based upon deep listening. We would hope Friends may corporately want to support the request by those at the gathering to continue to assist in providing opportunities for people to come together to share and learn from each other as we make this journey into the future together. PART B: FOR CONSIDERATION This Committee recommends and requests that AYM support the focus of Aboriginal sovereignty by the following actions: 1. That AYM agree to establish a fund to assist First Nations People in having access to periods of respite at Silver Wattle Quaker Centre by providing transport, accommodation and board assistance The process of how funds are to be sought and administered should be discerned at YM 2016. 2. That Regional and Local Meetings continue to explore the following: o to promote and engage in reconciliation at a local level, o to build community with our FNP brothers and sisters o to seek to inform ourselves of our own local history and o to hold meetings to discuss the issues around sovereignty so as to educate ourselves and others once appropriate material has been sourced. Committee members: Chris Hughes and Sharee Harper (Co-Conveners) (VRM), John McMahon (VRM), David Carline (QLDRM), Correspondents: Clare O’Leary (WARM), John Duguid (NT), Sitara Gare (QLDRM) Elspeth Hull (NSWRM) Margaret Evans (ACTRM), Harald Ehmann (SARM), Ruth Primrose (Central Australia), Sally Margaret Gale, (TASRM), Jackie Perkins (QSA), Gedda Fortey CORE (Committee on Racial Equality)

Friends Peace Teams Report

ACHIEVEMENTS/ACTIVITIES/EVENTS Legal Status: Friends Peace Teams-Australia was de-Incorporated in February 2015. Friends Peace Teams-Asia West Pacific, established as an Initiative of Friends Peace Teams in 2007, was incorporated in Australia in March 2015. The Friends Peace Teams-Asia West Pacific Working Group meets monthly by Skype with regular members attending from AYM and Yearly Meetings in the USA, as well as members in Indonesia, Nepal and the Philippines. It holds a bank account, which is administered by Treasurer Jane Drexler (NSW RM), which means that bank fees for international transfers are considerably lessened. FPT Council Representation: Maxine Cooper has served as AYM representative on the FPT Council since January 2014. The Council oversees the work of all three regions- Asia West Pacific, Africa Great Lakes and Peacebuilding en Las Americas. Maxine will lay down this role and YM Nominations is abreast of this to seek another AYM representative. The YM Treasurer has indicated that our representative may claim up to $2,000 towards the costs of attendance at one meeting p.a.- usually their AGM. John Michaelis continues to serve on the FPT Council, as the representative of FPT-AWP. All other meetings are held by Skype.

The Work for Peace: • Indonesia: The longest established projects are in Peace Place, Pati, which is near Semarang in Central Java. Additionally FPT-AWP is established in Northern Sumatra and Aceh. Regular AVP workshops are held in these places and Australian Friends have been involved with this work since 2012. Additionally pre-schools, after-school lessons and parenting education based on AVP have developed in all these locations. A plan to purchase adjacent land to Peace Place will allow this work to expand. Accommodation is available for peace workers on retreat and sojourning Friends with a concern for peace. • The generosity of an Australian Friend allowed two West Papuan leaders to attend the International Peace Training at Peace Place in Pati, Central Java, which takes place in January each year Ibu Welly and Freddy both hope to follow up with Peace Place to bring the training and the educational programs to West Papua. • Nepal: For several years, AVP has developed in several areas of this country, including Kathmandu, Pokhara and Surkat. Australian Friends Maxine Cooper, Bev Polzin and John Michaelis were in Kathmandu when the 2015 earthquake struck. No AVPer was injured and the financial relief that was sent from Australian Friends, Friends in the US, New Zealand and other countries made a large impact in the recovery efforts. AFSC, Britain Yearly Meeting, Seoul Monthly Meeting, AVP Australia and AVP International also sent generous donations. Relief funds were administered based on a discernment model that impressed many of the Nepalese, who expressed great interest and appreciation for learning more about discernment and how to operate based on discernment. • The Philippines: Sally Herzfeld and Valerie Joy visited the Philippines in 2015 and ran 7 workshops in major cities and one country location- together with local facilitators. One Filipino facilitator has assisted Nadine Hoover with the International training in Indonesia both in 2015 and 2016. • South Korea: Nadine Hoover has visited Seoul and Daejon to run advanced AVP training in those places on trauma resiliency and discernment. She was the first Quaker to give an address and sermon at Hanshin University. They are very interested in exchanges with Quaker universities. • Water Filters: SHEEP Indonesia has refined ceramic water filters to take clean water to the areas in which we are working. They will begin small scale production, up to 500 filters per month, in 2016. • ‘The Power of Goodness’ a collection of stories from war torn countries and illustrated by local children mainly in Chechnya, Russia as well as around the world is another project of FPT-AWP and at USD 25, is a wonderful addition to Quaker libraries everywhere. ISSUES/ANALYSIS Fund Raising: AYM contributes $1,000 per year towards the administrative costs of the organisation, which has one part time Communications worker in the US and also puts out a regular publication Peaceways. Individual Friends are invited to contribute money, either as ‘Sustainers’ (an ongoing commitment of $500 p.a.), or to engage in fund raising in their Meetings and contribute what they can. If more could be raised it would go towards the costs of expanding the AVP training, overcoming religious intolerance, reaching out to West Papua and Mindanao, college scholarships for preschool teachers and our other contributions to local communities. For further information please see our website www.FPT-AWP.org. PART B: RECOMMENDATIONS • That Regional Meetings and Individual Quakers be mindful of the opportunities for supporting this work in Asia, in co-operation with Friends from other parts of the world. Committee members: Jane Drexler, Valerie Joy, Jim Palmer, John Michaelis, Bev Polzin (AYM); Nadine Hoover, Fenna Mandalong, Tom Martin, Gay Howard, Margie Hunter, Deb Wood, Nick Rozard, Josh Albertson and others are from Yearly Meetings in USA; Ludwig Bon Quirog Philippines; Subhash Kattel Nepal, Petrus Kuelson Indonesia.

The Friends’ School, Hobart

The Friends’ School, Hobart, report for October 2014 – April 2016 The Friends’ School continues to be a vibrant learning community serving approximately 1300 students and their families. As a learning environment, teachers nurture ‘that of God’ within each

student in order for each student to develop as best they can, providing for a range of interests. Additionally, it is hoped that students learn to embrace personal responsibility to engage in their learning and development to nurture ‘that of God’ within themselves. The Board of Governors, through reflection and discernment at their annual planning session in February 2016, modified the School’s Purpose and Concerns. The modifications to the Purpose and Concerns are: • to add the word 'emotional' in the second paragraph; and • to amend the third paragraph to '...develop as people' (replacing ‘…into men and women…’) Please see below the revised Purpose and Concerns. The Friends’ School is a coeducational Quaker school based on fundamental values such as the intrinsic worth of each person, the recognition of ‘that of God’ in everyone, the desirability of simplicity and the need to establish peace and justice. As a learning community, we are concerned for the academic, cultural, physical, social, emotional and spiritual development of each person in our care. We seek to help our students develop as people who will think clearly, act with integrity, make decisions for themselves, be sensitive to the needs of otherse and th environment, be strong in service and hold a global perspective. We believe that these aims can best be achieved with the active support of all members of our School community. The Board of Governors understands that the School staff is already concerned for the emotional well being of each person at School. Deep learning cannot occur unless students feel they are emotionally secure. Being concerned for the emotional well being of staff is also already well embedded. The other modification to the statement was predicated on making it less gender specific. Putting the Purpose and Concerns into practice remains the focus of the School. At Morris (Years Kinder to Year 6) building upon student spiritual and emotional well-being and using Quaker processes has been a focus. Maddy Walker, the Quaker Community Coordinator, and two of the School’s Quaker staff – Jess Lund and Emily Chapman-Searle – are helping to guide these efforts. The High School has added a unit exploring historical information of the Society of Friends to the Year 7 Connections Program. Additionally, the Year 7 Film Festival developed at the end of each year continues to use the Testimonies as its focus. At Clemes (Years 11 and 12) Gatherings have been shifted to a weekly event instead of a bi-weekly one. Approximately 330 students and staff gather in The Farrall Centre in silence and reflection. In order to continue outreach to the School’s parent community, there has been an increase in Quaker information sessions targeted at Morris. Maddy also maintains frequent visits to Morris classrooms to discuss connections between their units of study and how they intersect with Quakerism. The Quaker in Residence program continues at The Friends’ School. In 2015 the School had three Quakers in Residence who shared their varied expertise and fellowship. The first, Lloyd Godman from Victoria, expressed his passion for the environment while sharing his artistic expertise, culminating in a living plant sculpture being co-created with the Year 10 Art class. Lloyd’s passion for our links with the Earth and how this connects to his being a Quaker inspired staff and students alike. Gina Price came from WA and she shared beautiful stories of her work with Auroras as a physicist with the youngest Kinder children all the way through to the High School student Gatherings. She also worked with a range of Physics and Physical Science classes, sharing her knowledge and experience. As important as her technical skills were, her expression of the sense of awe she felt in her work with Auroras and how this has informed her experience of being a Friend were invaluable. She also shared her facilitation skills with leadership groups throughout the school. Our final Quaker in Residence for 2015 was Zélie Gross from Britain Yearly Meeting. Zélie was visiting Australia in the wake of her recent book With a Tender Hand about eldership and oversight in Quaker Meetings. She had a gentle presence that she shared through speaking in the Meeting

House, visiting classes (especially Art classes as Art teaching was once her profession) and speaking with individuals and small groups. In her words: ‘I was especially struck by the Quaker ethos as such an evident feature of school life. And yet I knew that a small minority of staff were Friends and very few students came from Quaker backgrounds. By Quaker ethos I mean the ways people relate to one another (staff and students alike) and a culture that clearly expresses Quaker testimonies.’ She also noted that the, ‘…teachers – mostly not Quakers – were putting into practice the principle of meeting 'that of God' in the other and therefore teaching practice and principle at the same time.’ Zélie also joined a Year 9 camp at Far South about which she was very impressed. This year, 2016, the School hopes to host Alyssa Nelson from Pacific Yearly Meeting in the United States, Tracy Bourne (if she can spare the time) and one other Friend yet to be decided. The Friends’ School Hobart continues to strive to put the Purpose and Concerns into practice on a daily basis. The result of these actions, we hope, is to help develop a more ‘just and virtuous’ society. As William Penn said in the 1680s: If we amend the World, we should teach our Children to be, not what we are, but what they should be. Nelson File, Principal

Friends World Committee for Consultation Committee (FWCC)

Part A: REPORT Achievements/Activities/Events: The AYM FWCC committee has continued to meet via Skype every 2-3 months during 2015 and the first part of 2016. The committee includes a representative from each Regional Meeting; the current Canberra representative is also the FWCC Asia West Pacific Section (AWPS) Secretary and the AWPS treasurer is ex-officio member. The NSW representative resigned in mid 2015 and we have just received another nomination from NSW. Sieneke Martin, who was the QUNO representative, finished her term in September 2015. The QUNO office was active in preparations for the Paris Climate Change talks in 2015. Attendance at international meetings: In January 2015 a small AWPS meeting (the 10th) was held in Hong Kong. Madeleine Ball attended as AYM representative. Ronis Chapman was the organiser and Michael Searle also attended from Australia. A report was included in The Australian Friend, of September 2015. Ronis Chapman attended the FWCC Central Executive Meeting at Woodbrooke, U.K. in June 2015, and then the European and Middle East Section annual meeting, with the theme of pilgrimages. The ogathering was held in Piscae, Peru in Jan 2016. Jo Jordan (incoming Presiding Clerk) and Taisoo Kim Watson attended as AYM nominees. Both will speak briefly of their experiences at the FWCC session at AYM. Ronis Chapman and Harold Wilkinson attended as AWPS Secretary and treasurer respectively. Connor Chaffey (YF) and Anna Wilkinson also attended. We understand the constitution has been changed to require less frequent world gatherings. A minute on sustainability was produced, and it is hoped that this will be discussed in every RM and practical actions considered. There was an AWPS Section Business meeting during this Gathering. The AWPS FWCC visitor to Hobart AYM is Lee Jonghui from Daejon meeting in South Korea. She will be accompanied by her husband. They will be in Australia for three weeks, and visit NSW prior to YM and Victoria and Queensland after YM. We will appreciate the assistance of Friends who speak Korean or German (their second language) during their visit. In September there was a special edition of The Australian Friend, focussing on FWCC. We thank Marion Sullivan for her work in coordinating this initiative. https://australianfriend.org

The AWPS website is slowly being reconstructed. Newsletters etc. can be found at http://fwccawps.org Ronis Chapman and Madeleine Ball met with the Quaker Learning Australia team in Hobart and are pleased that QLA is keen to put material on their website that may be of use to FWCC members overseas. A number of activities were held on World Quaker Day (4th Oct in 2015) and these can be viewed under http://www.worldquakerday.org/index.html Committee members have discussed a range of contacts from their meetings or from individual meeting members. We are keen to promote these and increase the number of contacts within FWCC and the wider Quaker community. Several Regional Meetings have supported the Bhaktapur Quaker Church in Nepal after the earthquake there and are keen to keep in contact with them. PART B: FOR CONSIDERATION • There may be an AWPS meeting in 2017. Some funding is likely to be required for 1 or 2 representatives to attend this meeting (tentatively suggest 2x $1500). Details, location and timing are currently undecided. Standing Committee was asked to consider this request for the 2016-17 budget. • The AWPS visitor for AYM 2017 in Adelaide would be requested from the Philippines if we follow the current rotating schedule. • We would like members to consider activities for World Quaker Day in 2016, and RMs to consider becoming companion Friends with other meetings in AWPS. • The minute on Sustainability from FWCC (Jan 2016) should be considered by RMs and YM and actions initiated where possible. We seek clarification if this is to be included in the Earthcare session at AYM. • Nomination Committees for NSW, Queensland and SA/NT are forwarding their FWCC committee nominations to AYM. We understand Canberra RM will be seeking a new nomination. Committee: Madeleine Ball, Convener, AYM FWCC Committee, Dale Hess, David Evans (till YM 2016), Adrian Glamorgan, Marian James, Oliver Greeves, Ronis Chapman, Harold Wilkinson (ex- officio).

Handbook Revision: Expert Committee on Hosted Committees

ACHIEVEMENTS/ACTIVITIES/EVENTS The committee drafted amendments to the 'Hosted committees' section of the Handbook, and presented these to mid-year Standing Committee 2015. These were recommended for submission to Yearly Meeting. The committee suggested that other parts of 'Section 5.3 AYM Committees' need revision, partly as a result of the proposed amendment, but also because some committees have little or no description, no number or are outdated. Standing Committee suggested that this be done. A new draft Section 5.3 was presented to Standing Committee in February 2016 but there was not time to consider it in detail. Friends were asked to send comments to the Expert Committee. The Committee has received a few comments but would appreciate further feedback. The full draft of Section 5.3. has not therefore been sufficiently seasoned to come to Yearly Meeting 2016. ISSUES/ANALYSIS If the redrafting of Section 5.3 AYM Committees is to proceed, as suggested by Standing Committee, the committee would appreciate guidance as to: • whether the overall draft revised structure is acceptable to Friends • whether Yearly Meeting would like the Handbook Committee to consult with all appropriate YM committees to obtain updated descriptions of their responsibilities, and how these are carried out

PART B: RECOMMENDATIONS 1. The committee recommends that Yearly Meeting amend the Handbook section on 'Hosted committees' to read as follows. Is there unity to make this change?

Hosted Committees (draft Section 5.3.9) An AYM hosted committee is the result of a Concern (1.4.5) presented to Yearly Meeting, usually by members of a particular Regional Meeting. Some hosted committees are ongoing and are hosted by Regional Meetings in turn. A Regional Meeting writes a minute of support to host an AYM committee and this minute is accepted by Yearly Meeting. The host Regional Meeting brings forward the names of the committee members through its normal nominations process and, if known, its convener to mid-year Standing Committee or to Yearly Meeting for appointment. The committee may co-opt other members whose names should be submitted to their Regional Meeting for approval and appropriate record keeping. Replacement or new members are also appointed by mid-year Standing Committee or Yearly Meeting. Correspondents from other Regional Meetings can be appointed informally or by mid-year Standing Committee or by Yearly Meeting. The role and responsibilities of the correspondents are documented. The terms of reference for the committee are initiated by Yearly Meeting or mid-year Standing Committee or are developed within a Regional Meeting and accepted by mid-year Standing Committee or by Yearly Meeting. Recommendations to change the terms of reference can be brought to mid-year Standing Committee or to Yearly Meeting by the hosted committee or by a Regional Meeting. The committee reports on its deliberations to Standing Committee as necessary and to Yearly Meeting each year by means of Documents in Advance (5.5.5). The committee is supported by its host Regional Meeting and keeps the Regional Meeting informed about its functioning. The Regional Meeting is responsible for supporting the effective functioning of the committee and wellbeing of members (the committee’s processes), not for their methods of fulfilling its terms of reference (the content of the committee’s work), which is the responsibility of Yearly Meeting. Concerns about the work of the committee can be taken to the convener of the committee, the host RM Clerk or the Presiding Clerk. At times it may be difficult to distinguish if the committee’s processes or the content of its work is at issue when a committee has difficulty functioning or when concerns are raised by committee members, the host Regional Meeting or elsewhere in Australia Yearly Meeting (e.g. reasons why committee members have left the committee, the direction the work of the committee is taking or decisions made by the committee). Open communication between the hosted committee, the host Regional Meeting and Australia Yearly Meeting is the best way to discern and decide how to proceed when difficulties are raised. Hosted committees are appointed usually for a three-year term and the committee can offer to continue for a second term of three years. If no other Regional Meeting offers to continue the work of the committee, the committee may remain hosted by the Regional Meeting for a set period of time. The work of the committee can also be laid down. 2. Does Yearly Meeting wish the Expert Committee to revise and update the rest of Section 5.3? If so, we recommend that the name of the Committee be changed to Committee for Handbook Review on AYM Committees 3. If YM agrees to the revision of Section 5.3 AYM Committees, is the following structure acceptable as a framework for this revision: S. 5.3.1. General (Why and how a committee comes into being) S. 5.3.2. Membership of committees (ex-officio, role of first named and convener, additional members) S. 5.3.3. Publications from committees S. 5.3.4. Laying down of committees S. 5.3.5. Finances and employing staff S. 5.3.6. Committee meetings, record keeping and accountability S. 5.3.7. Representative committees

S. 5.3.8. Expert committees S. 5.3.9. Hosted committees S. 5.3.10. Standing Committee S. 5.3.11. Nominations Committee S. 5.3.12. Respectful Relationships Committee S. 5.3.13. Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) Committee S. 5.3.14 Friends School Values Committee S. 5.3.15. Publications Committee S. 5.3. 16. Backhouse Lecture Committee S. 5.3.17. Child Protection Committee S. 5.3.18. The Australian Friend, Committee S. 5.3.19. Children and Junior Young Friends Committee S. 5.3.20 Finance Committee S. 5.3.21. First Nations Peoples Concerns Committee S. 5.3.22. The Peace and Social Justice Fund Committee S. 5.3.23. Quaker Learning Australia S. 5.3.24.The Quaker Peace & Legislation Committee (QPLC) S. 5.3.25. The Thanksgiving Fund Committee S. 5.3.26. Earthcare Committee S. 5.3.27. Quaker Service Australia (QSA) 4) Would Yearly Meeting like the Committee to consult with all appropriate AYM committees to obtain updated descriptions of their responsibilities, and how these are carried out, to be included in the revised Section 5.3.? Committee members: Lorraine Thomson (CRM), Wies Schuiringa (NSWRM), Pamela Leach (TRM)

Information Technology Committee

Since Yearly Meeting 2015 our main undertaking has been the design of a new AYM website. However, there have been other considerations as described below. Offsite backups We have encouraged all AYM Officers and Committees and Regional Meetings to ensure that their significant documents are held in more than one place for safety reasons. Where there is not a second individual who may hold the copies we have suggested the use of Dropbox as online storage. Privacy policy In considering the new website we have revisited the Privacy Policy adopted by YM in 2012 and have updated it. The principal changes relate to changes in information technology systems over the last four years. The updated version is attached to this report and we ask that YM agree to this revised version. Facebook page ,Earlier this year, the temporary AYM Secretary Jude Pembleton initiated an AYM Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/quakers.org.au) and the Communications Committee has agreed to small amounts of expenditure in promoting it. It has already drawn a large amount of interest and we are pleased with progress. ‘Live streaming’ of the Backhouse Lecture The 2015 Backhouse Lecture was available live on the internet and we are hoping this will also happen this year. However, whether this is possible at each Yearly Meeting depends on the availability of the necessary technical equipment and expertise on a voluntary basis, as arranging it through a commercial source would be too costly.

Internet meeting software We have continued to conduct meetings of the Committee by Skype. However, the arrangement with the group designing the new website has also given us experience with both GoToMeeting and BaseCamp. Each of these is useful for particular purposes, but having availed ourselves of some of the less common options in Skype we continue to prefer it for our purposes. Our attention was also drawn to Zoom as being used by some Friends but we have not tried it out. While some software may cope with meetings of more than seven participants (where Skype can become difficult), we are not aware of any which will handle large numbers (e.g. 20 members of Standing Committee). We also remain convinced that face-to-face meetings are far preferable for a number of reasons. Registration process for Yearly Meeting Alongside the development of the new database for the website mentioned below, Michael Searle and Myf White have developed a Yearly Meeting registration process. It is hoped this will serve for future YM’s as well as the current one. This has been developed in conjunction with the AYM Yearly Meeting Organising Committee Archiving of photos and videos For the purposes of the new website we have been building an online archive of photos and videos which might be used. We have asked specific people to be on the lookout for photo opportunities at YM and other Quaker gatherings and would be pleased to receive any other photos or videos which Friends might consider useful. However, we may also use other generic photos for the purposes of the new website. The new AYM website Following Yearly Meeting 2015, Paula Paananen offered to facilitate a ‘scoping project’ with Adnova, a commercial organisation with experience in that field. The scoping project was designed to analyse the present website structure and content and to make suggestions about the potential new website. We used this report to prepare extensive specifications for the new website. These were sent out to seven organisations and individuals who were qualified and who we knew had some experience of Quakers. As a result, five of them sent us submissions for building the new website. We commissioned Chris Pifer, who lives in the USA, to do the job. He designed (and runs) the Friends General Conference website in the US (http://www.fgcquaker.org/) as a part-time job. He also runs a website design business, which is the one we have contracted to build our website. Chris has two offsiders, both of whom are Friends and have worked on Quaker websites. His submission indicated that the cost of the new website could be up to $US20,000. This cost is being paid from the Communications Fund. We have decided that there will be two distinct sections to the new website. The first will be specifically designed for seekers who have little or no prior knowledge of Quakers and is intended to be attractive to them. We are expecting this part of the website to be largely up and running by the time of Yearly Meeting in July and are intending to demonstrate it for Friends’ information. The other section of the website will be more extensive, including a section accessible only by Members and Attenders who have been provided with a User ID and password. The design of this latter section of the website has three parts: 1. THE DATABASE. This is intended to be a record of all individual Friends, of Inquirers, of Meetings, of AYM Committees and of any RM Committees which are added. It forms the factual basis of the website and provides information which will be automatically entered into appropriate pages (e.g. the web page for a RM will have standard information – contacts, Meeting times and places, etc. – integrated automatically into its design.). Membership Secretaries and Web Maintainers will have primary responsibility for ensuring the information is kept up to date, but some information will be updated by other people.

2. THE VISUAL DESIGN. Colour scheme, page layouts, menu structures, etc. 3. THE CONTENT. There will be ‘public’ information such as public statements, information from AYM and RM Committees, AYM and RM minutes, etc. There will also be restricted information accessible by some or all Members and Attenders, depending on the nature of the information and the particular person’s need for access. For example a particular Friend may be able to see some information – the working papers of their RM and an AYM Committee they are on - but not other information, such as the working papers of other Committees. • A Friend’s personal information will be accessible to them and they will be able to update it. They will also be able to specify what parts of their information are available for other Friends to see. • Whilst there will be standard designs for pages for, say, Local and Regional Meetings, Committees etc., there will be scope for the relevant group to add their own content, text, images, etc. The website will be designed so that adding and editing content will be simple. The design process is quite complex. However it is progressing well and we hope to be able to make this section ‘live’ later in the year. Membership of the Committee In the second half of last year we co-opted Paula Paananen of NSW RM onto the Committee and ask that her membership be confirmed. We have sorely missed Susan Addison’s experience and knowledge since her death late last year. We ask that the new AYM Secretary be also appointed as she will be closely involved in running the new website when it is ready. Continuing members of the Committee are Roger Sawkins (Convenor), Jude Pembleton and Michael Searle. FOR CONSIDERATION: • That YM agree to the revised Privacy Policy (Appendix 2) • That Paula Paananen and the incoming AYM Secretary be confirmed as members of the Committee. Roger Sawkins, Paula Paananen, Michael Searle, Judith Pembleton

Morrow Bequest Committee

The Committee met and discussed many aspects of making this quite small amount of money be given in a useful context. It was decided to give $1,000 to an existing $3000 scholarship administered by the Mary McKillop Foundation, on behalf of the Good Shepherd Sisters here in Perth, To be eligible for the scholarship, applicants must: i. Be of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait island descent. ii. Have successfully completed one year of study towards their qualification when the 2016 year begins, iii. Be enrolled full time with a recognised Australian higher education provider, such as university, college or TAFE. The Morrow Bequest Committee: Clare O’Leary, Brenda Roy and Margaret Woodward (WARM)

Peace & Social Justice Fund Committee (P&SJFC)

ACHIEVEMENTS/ACTIVITIES/EVENTS The Peace and Social Justice Fund Committee awarded grants to (1) Love Makes a Way for support of a national team of interfaith activists which endeavours to keep drawing the national attention to the plight of children in asylum seeker detention centres; (2) Abel Sibonio of Queensland Regional Meeting to carry his concern for the African Great Lakes refugee community forward for the next two years, particularly in SE Queensland; (3) help send two facilitators from the Philippines to Indonesia for AVP International Training at Peace Place, Pati- near Jogjakarta.

ISSUES/ANALYSIS • The period of service of the present Committee will be 6 ½ years in July and we ask if another Regional Meeting would wish to take up this responsibility • While funding, short, one-off projects is important, the Peace & Social Justice Fund Committee feels that there are also valuable and important projects, based on Quaker concerns, which need funding over a longer period and possibly funding for salaries. The Committee suggests that AYM considers how it could fund such projects. PART B: RECOMMENDATIONS • We ask Yearly Meeting to consider if another Regional Meeting would wish to take up this responsibility • While funding, short, one-off projects is important, the Peace & Social Justice Fund Committee feels that there are also valuable and important projects, based on Quaker concerns, which need funding over a longer period and possibly funding for salaries. The Committee suggests that AYM considers how it could fund such projects. Committee members: Dale Hess (co-convener), Chris Hughes (co-convenor), Sieneke Martin, Dorothy Scott, Jim Palmer

Quaker Learning Australia Committee

Section A: Report Term of Office: The QLA current term is for three Years to January 2017. The TRM continues to support the members of the Committee in fulfilling their service, and are willing to serve for a further three years, if this is acceptable to Yearly Meeting. The Committee is enthusiastic and continuing to discern the best ways to proceed, to design materials for the website, and to publicise the QLA especially for those without internet. We have consolidated our progress over the course of the last eighteen months particularly in the development of resources and establishing a strong process for Meeting for Learning. One of our early decisions was to prepare a purpose statement and this is as follows: QLA hopes to: • identify, create and offer resources for learning • deepen understanding of Quaker practices and ways • encourage friendships and spiritual conversations • nurture leadings and life journeys • share insights and stories of lived experiences • open dialogue about issues of interest and concern • inform Seekers and Enquirers • connect with isolated and housebound seekers and • value those beyond our immediate communities. Meeting for Learning: The relationship with Meeting for Learning is important and the Committee works closely with the facilitators and the local organizing group as well as the participants, including those who are considering becoming a participant. We developed a leaflet to publicise Meeting for Learning that was used first in AYM and Queensland and more recently in Victoria who are hosting this year and next. There are fees to collect, and organization of the venue, and ensuring that all the needs are met for accommodation and food as well as the arrangements to get there and home again. We have

established processes for correspondence and checklists to cover all of the work involved so that the next Regional Meeting (Victoria for 2016 and 2017) doesn’t have to start from scratch. Website We have created a new website for Quaker Learning Australia and this has been established with the very welcome support from the IT Manager at the Friends’ School. The development of the website has provided the opportunity for the Committee to review and discuss the resources available to support Friends and seekers in their own journeys with the spirit. We have been able to include audio and visual works, to interview Friends on particular topics, and to share music. Some new resources have been developed and others sourced, or links have been made to them in order to share them electronically. The QLA website is accessible at: http:www.qlau.quakers.org.au/ Finances We have established a clear financial position and prepare local reports that include coverage of the financial transactions for Meeting for Learning. The finances are managed through the AYM Treasurer and we receive regular reports of transactions. We are confident of the importance and spiritual value of Meeting for Learning and concerned that the cost to participants (set at $850 for 2016 in Victoria) is inevitably going to rise. We are fortunate in having a Committee member who keeps a Committee record of the balance of our funds. We are confident in managing to maintain a balanced budget with the $3,000 annual contribution from Yearly Meeting and a supporting contribution from the Regional Meeting that hosts Meeting for Learning. The combination of each of these ensures that the costs to participants are kept to a minimum. Isolated Friends We have been in contact with Regional Meetings Clerks and membership convenors as well as with Silver Wattle seeking contacts and connections with Quakers who may be isolated geographically or because of age, disability or carer responsibilities. We have a box of books, including some that were from the Frances Thorsen Bequest. However, we are concerned that we are receivingy ha rdly an requests for them. We are aware that some RMs has appointed QLA correspondents but the QLA Committee has not had any response from its contact with them so far. The QLA Committee will host a preparative session at YM in July and provide the opportunity for Friends to find out about Meeting for Learning and to see the resources available on the Website and for loan. PART B: FOR CONSIDERATION Are Regional Meetings willing to appoint a QLA correspondent to support connections with isolated Friends and the learning materials that may assist them with their spiritual journeys? Committee: Stephanie Farrall, Siobhan Harpur (convenor), Pamela Leach, Robin McLean, Jen Newton, Katherine Purnell, Felicity Rose, Jenny Seaton, (Hobart Meeting) and Kevin Sheldon and Martha Sheldon (Devonport Meeting)

Quaker Peace & Legislation Committee (QPLC)

ACHIEVEMENTS/ACTIVITIES/EVENTS From time to time, submissions and letters are drafted for the Presiding Clerk of AYM to sign/endorse. Members of the committee represented Quakers at government events such as human rights consultations (DFAT) or the freedom of religion conference (Australian Human Rights Commission). During the year QPLC issued Watching Briefs and Action Alerts on 17 topics.

Action Alerts: Australian Citizenship; China-Australia Free Trade Agreement; Trans Pacific Partnership; Immigration Detention; Refugees and the War in Syria/Iraq, Children in Refugee Detention Watching Briefs: Australia and the UN Security Council; the Death Penalty; Sri Lanka; North Korea’s Humanitarian Crisis; ANZUS, China and Australia; Anzac Conversations (4 reports); UN Sustainable Development Goals; the United Nations at 70; the Australian Border Force, Conscientious Objection, Crime and Punishment, and the 2016 Defence White Paper. Submissions and letters to government have been prepared for the AYM Clerk on religious freedom, citizenship, and the war in Syria/Iraq. Using a grant from the Department of Veterans Affairs, the committee organised four public meetings focusing on Anzac Conversations: Lessons Learned. Invited speakers gave a range of perspectives, and attendances ranged from 25 to 40. The committee is now putting together resource materials for use by community groups and students. Reports on the public meetings have been given to CRM during the year, and placed on the AYM website. Feedback from those who attended has indicated positive support for this kind of outreach. The committee offered ongoing support to the Peace Projects it funded in 2014 – the WW1 Exhibition (NSW), Mayors for Peace (WA), and West Papua (Qld). It continued its interest in Sri Lanka, especially in view of the change of government there in January 2015. One dialogue meeting was held, and a recent meeting with the new SL High Commissioner has set the scene for further dialogue gatherings in 2016. QPLC represents AYM on the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN), and the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN). Reports on Peace & Social Justice Fund Grants including AVP in Indonesia, QRM’s African Great Lakes Project, Love Makes a Way, and the Vienna Conferences on the Humanitarian Impacts of Nuclear Weapons, and these will be available at YM16. ISSUES/ANALYSIS QPLC is evaluating the impact of funded Peace Projects to assess their value. We are giving consideration to whether QPLC should continue that process. · We are considering our response to the ongoing expansion of the Pine Gap facility. PART B: RECOMMENDATIONS • That Regional Meetings consider whether they would encourage QOLC to continue the funded Peace Project process. • That Regional Meetings consider whether to be involved with QPLC in a linked effort to promote key peace issues of concern within their State/Territory. • That Regional Meetings provide information ony the ke peace issues they are engaged with. Committee members: Harold Wilkinson (Convener), David Purnell, Margaret Bearlin, Margaret Clark, Ronis Chapman, Shelini Harris, Gareth Knapman, Jeane Bicket, Shoba Varkey

Quaker Service Australia Incorporated

Quaker Service Australia incorporated (QSA) continues to work with its partner organisations in funding projects that are making a difference in the communities that it works with. Several Friends had an opportunity to see this on the 2015 QSA study tour to India where the value of the carefully crafted QSA design principles of development work have been shared from one community to another. QSA's theory of change is embedded in all that QSA strives to do in transforming the life circumstances of the individuals and communities it helps.

Change is a constant in the world in which we live. It doesn't go away. Slowly, or at times rapidly, the legislative context in which QSA must operate within the Australian setting has moved on from when its past rules of association were first written to incorporate QSA as a separate legal entity. We find QSA is now in a situation where these rules of association are now no longer fully compliant. Current legislation uses the term constitution. Modern governance practices require all members of QSA Inc. to be actively involved in regularly attending management committee meetings. Fundraising legislation related to gift funds prohibits employees being on the management committee. Gift funds need their own separate bank accounts. Processes for winding up and dispersing funds don't meet Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade requirements. These are some of the ways in which our current rules are outdated. Over the last 12 months QSA has been busy addressing these issues trying to achieve the best balance for the organisation in how it operates in the modern context. QSA values its Quaker ethos. We have taken time with much consultation to shape the new QSA Constitution. We wish to thank Michael Morrisey, the immediate past QSA Convenor, and Chloe Mason for their many long meetings as a subcommittee and for their work with our legal advisor Graham Wheeler, an expert on the incorporation of not for profit organisations. We value the input from our interstate representatives and want to enhance this in improving those connections through the new Quaker Linkages Sub-Committee. We are enthused by the future ahead of QSA. Having the interstate representatives undertake the review of QSA will not only maintain those links but also inform a two-way communication that has needed a greater focus. Change isn't easy even when it is very necessary. When the processes of a new constitution were mentioned to the other faith based development agencies they wished QSA well knowing it would be a daunting task. They have acted as a good sounding board as QSA has looked at the various changes as have the national development sector representative body, ACFID. These friends of QSA are also keen to learn from our experience as they endeavour to face change themselves. Advice from our legal advisor, an expert in incorporation legislation, indicated that for QSA’s size and operations, incorporation as an association within a state is the most appropriate legal structure. This would allow QSA to also become an Australian Registered Body and operate in another state. That process would allow QSA to have another office in another state/s if QSA were to relocate in the future. It is far more costly and complex to operate at a federal level, especially considering QSA's size. As Regional Meetings look at the new constitution please be reassured that many eyes have already passed over the document including the full management committee at its annual gathering. We value your feedback. Contact with the QSA office will help in understanding why sections have been worded the way that they are. Please feel free to ask questions. Working together we can seek to continue the work of QSA in an effective manner that meets the needs of those we work with. Thank you Friends for your thoughtful consideration of these documents. Garry Duncan, QSA Convenor PART B: FOR CONSIDERATION 1. Draft constitution of Quaker Service Australia Incorporated (Appendix 3) 2. Draft Quaker Linkages Sub-Committee document (Appendix 3) 3. Suggested revised entry for AYM Handbook (Appendix 3)

Safe Quaker Community Committee

ACHIEVEMENTS/ACTIVITIES/EVENTS In 2015 the Committee held Skype meetings and a two-day workshop in Canberra during May. The Convenor of the Committee changed at that time, from David Barry (SANTRM) to Robin McLean (TRM).

During this workshop, significant changes were made to the current ‘Respectful Relationships Guidelines’ to a draft policy of ‘Supporting a Safe Quaker Community’, as well as the role of the Contact Friend. These changes were based on research of similar church policies. The new name is in line with Quaker and church organisations such as National Council of Churches in Australia (NCCA Safe Church Program), NZ Quakers (Respect and Safety) and UK Quakers (Safe Meeting). This draft was sent out to RM’s for comments and feedback. CRM and the AYM Secretary, Susan Addison were the only responses. Considering these comments, Robin McLean and Ronis Chapman (founder and member of NCCA Safe Church network for ten years) met in December 2015 and discussed combining the Guidelines and the draft policy. Robin McLean completed the second draft and it went to Standing Committee in February 2016. Standing Committee supported the new policy, ‘Supporting a Safe Quaker Community’. Further Standing Committee feedback included: • We suggest a change of name to Safe Quaker Community Contact Friends, and encourage Regional Meetings to clearly explain what creating a ‘safe community’ means as explained in the Policy. • We aske that th Policy be taken back to Regional Meetings for further consideration and feedback to the Committee Convenor by May 2016. • We see the benefit of a Committee of three-four members with expertise in this field. This Committee would be considered an AYM expert committee in accordance with the Handbook (5.3.1). • The Committee would aim to meet via Skype every 6 – 8 weeks. We ask YM Nominations Committee to bring names to Yearly Meeting 2016. • We ask Regional Meetings who do not have two Contact Friends to appoint another Friend in this role.’ ISSUES/ANALYSIS • Further discussion concerning the new ‘Supporting a Safe Quaker Community’ policy • Name change for Contact Friends to ‘Safe Community Contact Friends’ • Selection of 3 – 4 Contact Friends on the AYM committee • Need to fill gaps in some RM’s who do not have two Contact Friends, (preferably one male and one female) • The need to induct new Contact Friends into the role as soon as possible after they are appointed. This could be done by an experienced Contact Friend or Convenor. PART B: RECOMMENDATIONS • YM support the new policy ‘Supporting a Safe Quaker Community’. • YM support the change of title to ‘Safe Quaker Community Contact Friend’ • YM agree to change the Committee composition to 3 – 4 members who would be available to meet via Skype every 6 – 8 weeks • YM to request those RM’s who do not have two Contact Friends (SANTRM, VRM, WARM) to appoint another Friend in this role • YM support inducting new Contact Friends. Committee members: Robin McLean (Convenor) & Chris Schokman TRM Susan Rockliff, David Purnell, Ronis Chapman, (NCCA) CRM, Elizabeth Mitchell & Jerome Fink (Acey Teasdale, advisory role) NSWRM, Judith Pembleton QRM, Harald Ehmann SANTRM, Susan Nelson VRM, Beth Harcourt WARM , Connor Chaffey & Mielikki Spratt YF’s

The Sanctuary Management Committee

Achievements/Activities/Events The Sanctuary property that has belonged to AYM since the Lemberg bequest in 1998 continues to provide a stream of income for Quaker purposes and to add to the peaceful environment of the Wahroonga Meeting House in front of it.

The property is rented out. This year the rental income again allowed $20,000 to be made available for purposes to be decided by YM. This follows the process recommended by Standing Committee in 2014 (SC7.14.18), being that the Sanctuary Management Committee notifies Standing Committee that surplus funds are available for disbursement and Standing Committee recommends to YM how the surplus funds are to be applied. The Sanctuary Management Committee keeps sufficient money aside for spending on anticipated and unanticipated maintenance. The Sanctuary house is a heritage-listed property. It sits in a bush garden that is continuous with the garden of the Meeting House. This year two trained bushcare workers are being paid to remove invasive weeds that were establishing themselves at the rear of the property. The garden residents spotted during this work include a wallaby and a water dragon. Issues/Analysis Since the Committee convenor, Miriam Goodwin, moved home last October no committee member has the capacity to undertake occasional onsite or local activities during the working day. As well, Ruth Haig will be laying down her role on this Committee after many years of contributions. PART B: RECOMMENDATIONS The Committee asks that a new committee member be identified who has the capacity to undertake occasional onsite or local activities during the working day Committee members: Miriam Goodwin, Bill Brennan and Ruth Haig

Silver Wattle Quaker Centre

Silver Wattle Quaker Centre is a busy place. In 2015, we offered 14 courses and Silver Wattle events (including planning weekends, Easter family gathering, etc), two Quaker venue hires, and ten non- Quaker venue hires. In 2016 from January to June, we will be offering six courses and SW events, five Quaker venue hires, and five non-Quaker venue hires. We have also provided casual accommodation for a number of individuals; usually but not always Quakers. And we have had a number of Friends in Residence who have spent time with us serving guests and sharing community time. Guests and visitors tell us that Silver Wattle is a place where they experience healing and transformation in the context of a Quaker community. Course participants commonly use the retreat time as an opportunity to reconnect with God and reorient their lives. Meeting passes have enabled many Friends to attend who may not otherwise be able to afford it. Some meetings, such as Victoria Regional Meeting have specifically encouraged Friends from isolated meetings to take up Meeting passes. Those of us running Silver Wattle, try to balance the practical needs and spiritual priorities in all aspects including how we source food, how we manage and employ staff, and how we care for the land. I have found it a fascinating experiment in applying Quaker principles to ‘real life’ problems. Some decisions have been obvious and easy, while others have been more difficult. I have found some of my assumptions about Quaker practice really challenged – particularly in regard to money and fair payment for goods and services. Course attendance In 2015, all planned courses attracted enough participants to continue (usually at least six participants), although two courses were postponed due to the ill health of facilitators. Attracting sufficient participants had been an issue prior to 2015, so we were heartened by this increase in attendance. However in the first half of 2016, two of the courses were cancelled due to low registrations. We think this may be because we have increased the number of courses in 2016, and perhaps because of the change in date of Yearly Meeting. This may have had an impact on our ability to communicate what is on offer to Australian Friends.

Works Early in 2015, Silver Wattle received a generous bequest from the Diana Lorking estate that enabled us to undertake some much needed renovations in the kitchen and the patio outside the dining room. We will also use some of this bequest to replace doors and windows with double-glazing to improve energy efficiency. The dining room floor will also be replaced with an Australian hardwood floating floor (some of the funding for this is from an insurance claim made after an indoor flood during the kitchen renovations). The remaining majority of the bequest will be invested. Solar Project This has been a major undertaking and we have received donations totaling $18,040 at the time of writing. We have been advised that a 5KW array is best for our purposes and we will also purchase a 6.5KW hours battery. Photovoltaic panels and batteries will be added in the future when the purchasing costs are likely to decrease. We will also be improving insulation of the buildings including windows in the Woodhouse room, and under floor insulation of the cottage. Staffing Early in 2015, Silver Wattle conducted a review of the way we employed Friends in Residence including a survey sthat wa sent to all FiRs asking about their experiences. As a result of this feedback, we have simplified FiR tasks and reduced hours and responsibilities. We are expecting to have a number of longer term FiRs in the second half of 2016. Over the past 18 months, we have employed more paid staff to undertake essential roles including a paid cook for all courses and venue hires. At times when we don’t have sufficient FiRs or we have an extra large number of guests, we employ paid Kitchen Hands. In 2015, we employed a gardener for 5 hours per week and increased hours for our Cleaner. Importantly, Susan Clarke has returned as a residential House Manager and she assists with hospitality tasks, with the website and many other jobs that come up. Her work is enormously valuable and many Friends have found her a wise and warm presence. Property There have been many hundreds of native seedlings planted on the property over the past 18 months, and a number of mesh cages have been built by volunteers to protect the seedlings from rabbits and kangaroos. These protected plants are now flourishing. Self-seeded wattles and gum trees are also continuing to claim the escarpment and the landscape is totally different from the bleak hillside that was present when Quakers purchased the property. The garden has continued to produce beautiful fresh fruit and vegetables, although we need more regular volunteers to build up the capacity to feed guests and residents regularly. We have around 30 sheep on the property, including lambs, to reduce the fire risk (by eating grass) and to provide meat for guests. Future directions A future goal for Silver Wattle in the next financial year is to increase income in order to cover greater expected staffing costs: specifically to reduce the workload for future Directors. We hope to raise this income by attracting more paid venue hires, and through increased donations. A business plan is currently being drafted for Olaf Hodgkin Healing Unit. Once this is completed, an agreement between The Australian Friend, s Fellowship of Healing Trust and Silver Wattle Quaker Centre will be finalized, and a development application will be prepared for consideration by the Palerang Shire Council. Has the Truth prospered at Silver Wattle over the past 18 months? This is a question that I respond to at the end of each of my monthly Director’s reports to the Board, and it has been a useful grounding question to focus my mind on the most important work we do: that of the Spirit.

Those of us who live and work at Silver Wattle are committed to maintaining the spiritual rhythms and priorities of the place. We maintain a daily and weekly rhythm when there is a community in residence. Each course has an appointed Elder who holds the spiritual ‘space’ for participants and for Silver Wattle. Elders report that they feel deeply enriched by their experience in this role. I have found much of my work as Director quite challenging, but I have also been strengthened spiritually by my time here. In particular, my family has appreciated living in such an extraordinary landscape and being ‘held’ so closely by the family of Australian Friends. I am deeply grateful for the care and generosity that so many Friends have shown to me in small and big ways. Tracy Bourne, Director

Thanksgiving Fund Committee

Since our last report to Yearly Meeting in January15, The Thanksgiving Fund Committee has made the following grants: • To AYM’s Friends in Stitches project to enable Cathy Davies to accompany Tessa Spratt in her visit on behalf of AYM to Aotearoa/NZYM and travel in order to share the inspiration of this project with Aotearoa/NZYM Friends. $1000 • To AYM Children and Junior Young Friends Committee to support a visit to AYM and Regional Meetings by Alyssa Nelson, the Youth Programs Coordinator for Pacific Yearly Meeting. $3255 • To Friends Fellowship of Healing (via SANTRM) to help cover the costs of those attending a Friends Fellowship of Healing workshop at Silver Wattle in October 2015. $2500 • To Moira Darling of Northern Suburbs Meeting, VRM, support for travel to the Friends General Conference Gathering In North Carolina, USA in July 2015 and to meet with Elaine Emily in San Francisco en route. $1500 • To Jo Jordan of SANTRM and incoming Presiding Member of AYM to help meet expenses in attending the FWCC World Plenary Meeting in Peru as an AYM delegate. $1000 • To Taisoo Kim Watson of QRM to help meet expenses in attending the FWCC World Plenary Meeting in Peru as an AYM delegate. $1000 • To the African Great Lakes refugee project of QRM (AGLRP) to support the continued work of our Friend, Abel Sibonio in support of refugees from the Great Lakes region. $9200 The Thanksgiving Fund Committee request that recipients provide a report on their activities, and Friends may like to read reports from Jo Jordan, Taisoo Kim Watson and Moira Darling in the March edition of The Australian Friend, . Standing Committer in July 2015 (SC7.15.23) noted that Tasmania Regional Meeting wished to lay down its hosting of the Thanksgiving Fund Committee. Standing Committee in February 2016 (SC2.16.9.9) accepted the offer of SANTRM to host the Thanksgiving Fund Committee. SANTRM has advised that Fleurieu Peninsula Meeting has taken on this work, with Bronte and Chris Collins as co-conveners and with support from Jo Jordan. SANTRM will bring two more names to YM16. Lyndsay Farrall (previous convener), Sheila Given, Peter Jones, Julian Robertson, Felicity Rose, Colin Wendell-Smith

Yearly Meeting Planning Support Committee

Achievements/Activities/Events • Progress has been made on the new documentation which will replace the A-Z of Yearly Meeting Planning. This will retain the best of A-Z content, and update it to current practices. • Some assistance is being given to the current YM Planning Committee. • The YM Registration website has been developed to make it usable for YM2016 (much good work from Myf White). Following YM2016, myf and I envisage further development. The site greatly simplifies the work in handling registrations, and reduces the dependence on one person that existed previously.

Issues/Analysis The Convenor of this committee has been very busy on a range of AYM and other projects, and has not devoted enough time to keeping this committee working effectively. Regular meetings have not been held. Nonetheless, considerable work has been done on the new YM Planning Guide PART B: RECOMMENDATIONS • A new convenor of the committee could bring an improvement. One who could focus more on delivering the objectives of the committee. • It could be useful to reduce the size of the committee, and ask non-members to contribute on an ad-hoc basis. Michael Searle (convener), Kyrstie Crane, Nelson File, Jenny Madeline, Emily Walpole, Julie Walpole, Anna Wilkinson, Harold Wilkinson

Young Friends

A report of Young Friends’ activities during 2015-16 will be given at Yearly Meeting 2016. Appendices

Appendix 1: Standing Committee Minutes

-- Held on 28 February 2016 at Friends’ Meeting House, North Adelaide AYM Officers

Presiding Clerk Julian Robertson Incoming Presiding Clerk Jo Jordan AYM Treasurer Roger Sawkins Acting AYM Secretary Judith Pembleton

Standing Committee representatives

Canberra RM Kay de Vogel (RM Clerk) & Peter Williams (Asst Clerk) New South Wales RM Garry Duncan & Acey Teasdale (RM Co-clerks) Queensland RM Taisoo Kim Watson (Clerk) & Frances Long South Australia & Northern Yarrow Andrew (RM Clerk) & Judy Greeves, (Co-Clerk Adelaide LM) Territory RM Tasmania RM Madeleine Ball & Rosemary Epps (RM Clerk) Victoria RM Lorel Thomas (RM Co-clerk) & Dale Hess (RM Co-Clerk) West Australia RM Margaret Woodward & Ann Zubrick (RM Co-Clerks) Young Friends Larissa Barritt (YF Clerk) & Connor Chaffey

Section A Opening minute and AYM appointments SC2.16.1 Opening minute and acknowledgement of traditional custodians Standing Committee began with a period of Worship during which SA& NT RM Clerk Yarrow Andrew acknowledged the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet and the Presiding Clerk read the first Nayler Sonnet by Kenneth Boulding, who presented the first Backhouse Lecture for Australia Yearly Meeting (AYM): There is a spirit which I feel Can I, imprisoned, body-bounded, touch The starry robe of God, and from my soul My tiny Part, reach forth to his great Whole And spread my Little to the infinite Much, When Truth forever slips from out my clutch, And what I take indeed, I do but dole In cupfuls from a rimless ocean-bowl That holds a million million million such? And yet, some Thing that moves among the stars, And holds the cosmos in a web of law, Moves too in me: a hunger, a quick thaw Of soul that liquefies the ancient bars, As I, a member of creation, sing The burning oneness binding everything. We remembered our Friend, Susan Addison, who would have been expected to be here at this Standing Committee and is greatly missed. Friends introduced themselves by sharing a little about themselves and their Meetings. SC2.16.2 Use of urgent decision-making procedures for AYM appointments. SC16.2.1 Appointment of Acting AYM Secretary Standing Committee ratifies the appointment process of the Acting AYM Secretary. We express our appreciation of the decision of Judith Pembleton to step into the role of AYM Secretary while the search for a new Secretary is undertaken. SC16.2.2 Search Committee for new AYM Secretary We note the membership of the Search Committee and ratify the process by which this Committee was established and the timeline to which they are working.

In consideration of the need to undertake this process within a relatively short time, we agree that the Appointment Committee should comprise three members of Standing Committee who will consider the recommendation of the Search Committee on behalf of Yearly meeting. We agree that the names of the Appointment Committee are Ann Zubrick, WARM, Garry Duncan, NSWRM, and Larissa Barritt, YF. The Committee will also review the proposed Contract of Employment, to be prepared by the AYM Presiding Clerk, Acting Secretary, and Treasurer. Once finalised, the Committee will arrange for the Contract to be signed by the appointee and Ann Zubrick on behalf of the AYM Appointments Committee. SC16.2.3 AYM representative for ACCR Standing Committee affirms the appointment of David Shorthouse as our representative for the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility to 2017, and notes his report to Standing Committee on his work to date (Standing Committee Agenda 2.16.13). SC16.2.4 Selection of preferred developer for new website Standing Committee accepts the appointment of Chris Pifer and associates as the developers of a new AYM website. We hear that this is a work In progress, and it is hoped that there may be some examples to show at Yearly Meeting in July. While there is no specific timeline for the whole website to be finalised, it is likely that parts of the website will come on line as they are completed. SC2.16.9.1 Backhouse Lecture Committee recommendation for 2017 Standing Committee accepts the names of David Carline with the assistance of Cheryl Buchanan of the Kooma People as Backhouse Lecturers for 2017. We invite the Backhouse Lecture Committee to note the SANTRM concerns that the owners of this land, the Kaurna people, need to provide permission for this lecture. We understand that the Presiding Clerk has begun discussions on this issue with David Carline and will continue to explore how this might best be addressed. We hear that there will be financial support needed for David’s research and travel in preparing for the lecture and hope that this money will be provided. SC2.16.9.2 Children and JYF Committee Standing Committee hears that the present members of the Children and JYF Committee wish to lay down their roles at the end of 2016 or at YM 2017 if necessary. We note that a new Children’s and JYF Coordinator will be appointed after YM2016, and ask that the present Committee continue until the new Coordinator is established in their work. We ask the AYM Secretary to produce an information sheet on the work of the Children and JYF Committee in consultation with the present Committee. We ask other Regional Meetings to consider how this important work can be continued. SC2.16.9.3 Handbook Revision re Hosted Committees Standing Committee hears that this is an interim report and that most Regional Meetings have not yet had a chance to give careful consideration to this revision. We encourage Regional Meetings to consider this report, which may include appointing one or two individuals to examine it carefully. We note that the Handbook Revision Committee requires suggested revisions by the end of March. We understand that the Committee has received feedback on specific changes and would encourage Friends to reply directly to the Committee with any suggested changes. SC2.16.9.4 Nominations Committee Standing Committee accepts the name of Heather Saville (NSWRM) as our representative on the NCCA’s Act for Peace Commission. We ask that Heather be appointed until the end of Yearly Meeting 2019.

We accept the recommendation of Peri Coleman (SANTRM) as our representative to Aotearoa-New Zealand Yearly Meeting, to be held 15-18 July. SC2.16.9.5 Peace and Social Justice Fund Committee Standing Committee notes that the present members of the Peace and Social Justice Fund Committee have served in this role for more than six years. Dale Hess, as the co-convenor of the Committee, described the work of this five-member group. They respond to requests for funding as these come in and there can be long breaks between meetings when there are no requests. We hear that they wish to lay down their work after YM16 and ask Regional Meetings to give consideration to taking on this work. SC2.16.9.6 Quaker Learning Australia Standing Committee accepts this report and notes the enthusiasm of this Committee. We hope they will continue their work for a further three-year appointment to 2019. We endorse their financial report for 2014-15 (SC Agenda p.39). We note the increasing costs for participants for Meeting for Learning and the necessity of contributions from AYM and the host RM. We note that Meeting for Learning is looking for a host RM for 2018 and 2019. We notice that CRM is willing to consider taking on this service but requests more information on the responsibilities involved. We ask QLA to be in touch with CRM. We acknowledge that the QLA Committee will seek the renewal of QLA correspondents through Regional Meetings. We look forward to a Preparatory Session at YM16 at which we will learn more of the work and plans of this Committee. SC2.16.9.7 Sanctuary Committee SC2.16.9.7.1 Standing Committee accepts the report from Sanctuary Management Committee and notes that surplus funds from rental of the property have again reached $20,000 for disbursement for Quaker-supported activities. We agree that these funds be passed on to the Peace and Social Justice Fund Committee. We hear a request from QRM for funds for the African Great Lakes Project, and invite them to apply to the Peace and Social Justice Fund Committee. We note that the Committee’s operation would benefit from an additional member who is able to be at Wahroonga during the working day and ask that YM Nominations Committee bring forward the name of a suitable Friend to Yearly Meeting 2016. SC 2.16.9.8 Supporting a Safe Quaker Community Standing Committee supports the new policy, Supporting a Safe Quaker Community, and we appreciate the work this Committee has undertaken in balancing the legal requirements on us as a Society with our Quaker practices. We suggest a change of name to Safe Quaker Community Contact Friends, and encourage Regional Meetings to clearly explain what creating a ‘safe community’ means as explained in the Policy. We ask that the Policy be taken back to Regional Meetings for further consideration and feedback to the Committee Convenor by May 2016. We see the benefit of a Committee of three-four members with expertise in this field. This Committee would be considered an AYM expert committee in accordance with the Handbook (5.3.1). The Committee would aim to meet via Skype every 6 – 8 weeks. We ask YM Nominations Committee to bring names to Yearly Meeting 2016. We ask Regional Meetings who do not have two Contact Friends to appoint another Friend in this role.

SC2.16.9.9 Thanksgiving Fund Committee Standing Committee accepts the offer by SANTRM to host this Committee and asks that the names of the new Committee be brought to Yearly Meeting 2016.

Section D: Reports for noting Standing Committee notes the following reports and accepts them as read. SC2.16.10 Costs for replacing the AYM Secretary The AYM Treasurer has provided an estimate of the costs for finding a replacement AYM Secretary and relocating the AYM office (see SC Agenda Appendix 7). SC2.16.11 AYM representation at other events SC2.16.11.1 AYM representatives to the FWCC World Plenary Meeting Further to SC7.15.5 (a), we note that Jo Jordan (SANTRM) and Taisoo Kim Watson (QRM) were the AYM-appointed representatives at the FWCC World Plenary Meeting in Pisac, Peru, from 19 to 27 January 2016. Other Australian Friends who attended included Ronis Chapman, as the Secretary of the FWCC AWPS, Harold Wilkinson as the Treasurer of the FWCC AWPS, and Connor Chaffey and Anna Wilkinson in open places. Jo Jordan spoke about her visit and provided photos of the gathering. SC2.16.11.2 Australian Freedom Network, a Salvation Army-led response to human trafficking in Australia We note that Rae Litting of NSWRM represented AYM at the launch of the Australian Freedom Network in Canberra on 1 December. The Presiding Clerk, Julian Robertson, prepared a one-minute video response to human trafficking on behalf of Quakers in Australia. SC2.16.11.3 NCCA Faith and Unity Commission. At Yearly Meeting 2015, Beverley Polzin was appointed to this Commission, which meets twice- yearly in June and November, in Melbourne. She replaced Dale Hess, whose measured and thoughtful contribution over the years was appreciated by the other Commission members. See report by Beverley (SC Agenda SC2.16.11.3). SC2.16.11.4 Young Friend to A/NZ YM Easter Camp Callista Barritt will be the Young Friends’ representative to the Aotearoa-New Zealand Young Friends Easter Camp this year. We await details of the dates and venue for this camp and note that the A/NZ YM Clerk, Murray Short is willing to aid correspondence with A/NZ YF as email contact can be unreliable. SC2.16.12 Report on visitors to YM16 and their travels SC2.16.12.1 FWCC AWPS Visitor from Korea to YM16 We note that Jong-Hee Lee from Daejon Monthly Meeting will attend YM 16 as our FWCC AWPS visitor and will be accompanied by her husband Cho-Nyon Kim. They will be travelling as follows: • June 25 Arriving Sydney • July 2 Sydney to Hobart • July 9 Hobart - Melbourne • July 13 Melbourne to Brisbane • July 18 Brisbane to Seoul SC2.16.12.2 Backhouse Lecturer, Margery Post Abbott Margery Post Abbott, accompanied by her husband Carl, will be travelling as follows: • June 24 and 25: Perth, staying at the Mt Lawley Meeting House. • June 26 and 27: Adelaide.

• June 28 and 29: Melbourne • June 30-July 8: Hobart at the Hobart Tower Motel. • July 9-13: New South Wales, booked at Friends House for July 9. Exactly what happens on July 10-13 is yet to be decided. Helen Gould has been offering some assistance. • July 14 Fly to Auckland. SC2.16.12.3 Allyssa Nelson visit Alyssa’s itinerary is currently as follows:

1. Sacramento to Melbourne, arriving in Melbourne on Sat 25th June Rest, connecting with Children and JYF Coordinator and Children and JYF Committee, preparing for YM 2. Melbourne to Hobart on Friday 1st July Participation in YM, including Winter School, Children and JYF Committee sessions, JYF program and camp, Young Friends 3. Hobart to Canberra on Sat 9th July Time to rest and for spiritual enrichment at Silver Wattle Quaker Centre from Sat 9th to Thur 14th July. Canberra for workshop, discussion, meetings from Thur 14th to Sunday 17th July 4. Canberra to Melbourne on Monday 18th July Workshop, discussion, meetings, debrief with Children and JYF Committee and Convenor 5. Melbourne to Perth on either Monday 25th or Tue 26th July. Workshop/discussions/meetings, particularly over the weekend of Friday 29th to Sun 31st July 6. Perth to Hobart on Monday 1st August Tue, Wed and Thur at Friends School. Discussions/workshop/MforW on the weekend of Fri 5th to Sun 7th August 7. Holidaying in Tasmania 8. Hobart to Sydney in the second week of August (date to be confirmed) Holidaying. Possibility of connecting with NSWRM 9. Sydney to Sacramento in third week of August (date to be confirmed) Alyssa would be keen to connect up with NSWRM after her time with TRM, but she would require an official invitation from NSWRM to enable this. SC2.16.13 ACCR Report David Shorthouse was appointed as AYM representative to The Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility (ACCR). The Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility (ACCR) was established in 2013 to give shareholders and stakeholders a sense of their unique role in the shaping of their national and planetary futures. David reported on his experience of ACCR so far and encouraged Friends to become involved. SC2.16.14 Earthcare Committee report on new directions The Earthcare Committee hosted by West Australia Regional Meeting has provided a report outlining their new directions and their membership, for noting (see SC Agenda Appendix 8). SC2.16.15 Offering sanctuary to asylum seekers Standing Committee heard from the three Regional Meetings that have registered as being willing to offer sanctuary to asylum seekers under threat of removal to Nauru. Kay de Vogel, clerk of CRM, reported on their Meeting’s decision to offer sanctuary in their Meeting House, the publicity since then, and the issues they have considered in making this commitment. If police become involved, we note Canberra’s strong stand that no weapons be brought into their Meeting House. Kay mentioned the high proportion of mosques around Austraia that have offered sanctuary. Garry Duncan, co-clerk of New South Wales RM, reported on their decision to offer their three Meeting Houses as sanctuaries and to work collaboratively with other churches. NSW Friends from Wahroonga LM and Devonshire Street LM are undertaking Love Makes a Way training as part of their preparation.

Ann Zubrick, co-clerk of WARM, reported that Friends in WA have registered as offering sanctuary and that Friends felt whatever problems arose, they would deal with them. So far, these Friends see their role as supporting other churches in offering sanctuary. SC2.16.16 AYM Facebook page We note that there is now an AYM Facebook page set up monitored by the AYM Secretary which has allowed us to publicise issues on which we are active which has generated considerable interest. SC2.16.17 Thanks to Adelaide Friends We thank Adelaide Friends for their generosity and kindness in hosting Standing Committee. We have enjoyed delicious food and their great company.

Appendix 2: Privacy Policy for recording Friends’ personal data

Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Australia

Privacy Policy Our commitment is to protect your rights The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Australia (Australia Yearly Meeting) is committed to protecting your privacy. We request and store the minimum amount of information required to carry out our role, and this information is not made available to a third party, without consent of the individual or organisation, unless required by law. We are bound by the National Privacy Principles as set out in Schedule 3 of The Privacy Act 1988 as amended. We take all reasonable steps to ensure: o All information provided to us will remain confidential and protected. o We protect the personal information we hold from misuse and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. o Personal information will not be passed on to non-Quaker organisations. o We destroy or permanently de-identify personal information if we no longer need it for any purpose. o Your information will be used only as outlined below. Whose information do we collect? o Members of Australia Yearly Meeting (AYM) o Attenders at Australian Regional Meetings o Members of overseas meetings who are living in Australia o Children aged under 16 of these members and attenders o People who have been in one of the categories above but are now inactive e.g. because they’ve resigned, died, moved and transferred overseas. o Enquirers who want to receive newsletters, Quaker notices, etc. o Subscribers to The Australian Friend, o Australian Quaker organisations such as worship meetings o Other organisations if there’s a good reason for having them on a mailing list; e.g. if we send them The Australian Friend, . What information do we collect? Your Regional Meeting membership secretary typically asks you for the following information: o Contact information (name, address, telephone number(s), email address) o Personal details such as gender, family relationships o The names and dates of birth of your children under 16 o Quaker details such as your main Meeting, positions held and particular areas of interest. o Many Meetings ask visitors to leave their names, addresses and phone numbers if they wish to receive future invitations in a Visitors’ Book. Such Visitors’ Books are kept out of sight except during Meetings for Worship or Quaker outreach events. For Yearly Meeting registration purposes, we will also ask for the following information: o Your dietary and accommodation preferences o Credit card numbers and/or bank account details where appropriate for payment It is your choice how much of this information you provide. All information is held securely. How do we use this information? We collect this information to:

o Produce lists of Members, Attenders and children o Process payments and donations and provide receipts o Maintain accurate details of our membership; e.g. to generate the statistics for our annual Statement of Membership published in Documents in Advance o Keep our members informed about decisions, events and news that may be relevant o Allow Clerks, newsletter editors, and members of other Meetings to contact you on Quaker business. How is this information stored? o On your ‘profile’ in the AYM online database o On the AYM Membership Secretary’s personal computer o On your Regional Meeting Membership Secretary’s personal computer o On printed lists, for Quaker use only. Members’ and regular attenders’ information is kept on one central database accessible via the website, www.quakers.org.au. This information is accessible only to people with access to the Members Only section of the Quakers Australia website, and is limited by what individual members permit to be displayed. The information in this database can be used to create the printed lists in Australian Quaker Meetings, Office-holders, Members, Attenders and Children. This printed publication is produced every few years. Printed lists will be kept away from public sight at your Meeting place, but can be accessed on request to the librarian, clerk or correspondent. Members and regular attenders may purchase a copy. Regional Meetings may also from time to time produce local lists for use within their Regional Meeting. Previous editions of the publication Australian Quaker Meetings, Office- holders, Members, Attenders and Children are kept for historical and archival purposes. Regional Meeting Membership Secretaries provide details of changes of contact details and/or change of membership status for Regional Meeting newsletters. Regional Meeting newsletters are emailed or posted to Friends’ homes. Copies of these magazines are also sent to Quaker and other libraries. If you do not wish your details to be published in this way, please contact your Regional Meeting Membership Secretary. As we have a large number of recipients of our publications, at times we use external providers to help us produce our communications and mail out newsletters and quarterly magazine. We require these providers to sign an agreement to keep your personal information confidential and secure. We use Google Analytics to track visits to our website. We use this information to track the effectiveness of our website. Types of data collected include visits, length of visit, viewed pages and the technical capabilities of our visitors. These statistics will not identify you as an individual. For more information read Google's Privacy Policy. Please note, in some areas of our website links to other sites can be found. These sites are not controlled by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Australia and therefore we cannot take responsibility for their content, claims of offer, or privacy practices. Giving you control o All members and attenders of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Australia for whom we have details recorded have the right to ask for a copy of their own details at any time. o Australia Yearly Meeting takes reasonable steps to ensure the personal information we collect, use or disclose is accurate, complete and up-to-date. o Members and attenders who are included in their Regional Meeting list of Members and Attenders by their Regional Meeting Membership Secretary also have the right to update and/or alter their details at any time. Friends can manage their personal details and edit their ‘profile’ by contacting their RM Membership Secretary, or online by logging on to www.quakers.org.au. o The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Australia will provide you with the opportunity to opt out of receiving future communications from us. Contact your RM Clerk and the AYM Secretary to advise of your decision.

o Should you have any issues in relation to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Australia and your privacy, you can raise this with the AYM Secretary who will address your concerns promptly and advise you of your rights. When contacting us, please provide the following information: o Name o Address o Email address o Telephone number o Local Meeting or Worshipping Group and Regional Meeting Maintaining your information To access or change your details logon to www.quakers.org.au and update your details instantly online. To obtain a log on and password, click on ‘Forgotten your logon’ and ‘Forgotten your password’ beside the logon details. Your logon details will then be emailed to you. If you receive no response, contact the AYM Secretary (see contact details below). Alternatively contact your Regional Meeting Membership Secretary to ensure that you are listed as a Member or Attender. If you are unsure of the name of your Membership Secretary, consult the clerk or correspondent for your Local Meeting or Worshipping Group. If this is not possible — o Mail us at the AYM Office, PO Box 556, Kenmore Q4069 o Email us at [email protected] o Phone 07 3374 3450. Questions about privacy For further information about the privacy statement contact our AYM Secretary: o Mail us at the AYM Office, PO Box 556, Kenmore Q4069 o Email us at [email protected] o Phone 07 374 3450. Complaints To register an issue in relation to the way the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Australia has dealt with your privacy please speak in the first instance to your Regional Meeting Clerk. If that is not possible: o Mail us at the AYM Office, PO Box 556, Kenmore Q4069 o Email us at [email protected] o Phone 07 3374 3450.

Appendix 3: QSA Appendices

Quaker Service Australia Incorporated - Draft Handbook entry Quaker Service Australia Incorporated (QSA) was established out of a concern of Australia Yearly Meeting for addressing social injustices and continues to express these concerns in its work. QSA is a member of the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) and is compliant to the ACFID Code of Conduct. QSA is a non-government, non-profit, service and overseas development/aid organisation established in January 1959. Its purpose is to express in a practical way the Concern of Australian Quakers for the building of a more peaceful, equitable, just and compassionate world. To this end, QSA works with communities in need, to improve their quality of life by means of projects that are culturally sensitive as well as being economically and environmentally appropriate and sustainable. QSA works with project partners on projects that have been initiated by the local communities themselves through community based organisations. QSA works with Aboriginal groups within Australia on a range of initiatives, and with community groups in other countries where the focus currently is on food and water security, environmental sustainability, poverty alleviation and capacity building. The aim is for QSA’s project partners, and their associated communities, to become self-sufficient and determine their own future. Currently QSA is hosted by NSW RM and is an independent organisation, incorporated as an association under the Associations Incorporation Act 2009 (NSW). Whilst QSA Inc. remains independent it has close ties to AYM, such that the QSA Inc. Constitution provides for AYM to confirm the appointment of the members of QSA Inc. The membership of QSA represents Friends across Australia, and includes the Presiding Clerk and AYM Secretary as ex-officio members. The Constitution of QSA Inc. is an important document because it sets out how members of QSA Inc. are appointed and the formation and function of the Management Committee of QSA Inc. To maintain its links to AYM, QSA reports to Australian Friends by a variety of means including • Annually to Yearly Meeting in Documents in Advance; • during QSA sessions held during AYM at which QSA’s Statement of Purpose, Multi-year plan and project selection criteria are submitted for endorsement; • funding representatives from each Regional Meeting and ex-officio members to enable attendance during its Annual General Meeting ; and • frequent articles in newsletters such as QSA Notes included in The Australian Friend, , QSA Newsletters and other documents made available on request, and via its website www.qsa.org.au The finance for projects comes from both Quaker and non-Quaker sources, including overseas-aid funds made available to QSA through the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). Donations of $2 or more made to QSA’s Deductible Gift Recipient Funds, ie the QSA Overseas Aid Fund and its Aboriginal Concerns Fund, can be claimed as tax-deductible donations. The financial year ends on 30 September each year and audited accounts are presented at QSA’s AGM. They are subsequently available from the QSA office and on the QSA website. QSA currently has full accreditation from DFAT, rigorously reviewed every five years. This accreditation is subject to an on-going program of review. QSA is a signatory to the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) Code of Conduct and adheres to its requirements. QSA is a Public Benevolent Institution, is endorsed as a tax-deductible gift recipient (for its two tax-deductible funds) and endorsed as an income tax- exempt charity. A special resolution of QSA Inc is required to relocate QSA to the care of another Regional Meeting should this be required. In moving QSA Inc. from one Host RM to another RM, care is necessary to ensure ethat th change process includes consideration of reassurance with Project Partners, consideration under tax law or any other law, or with bodies such as ACFID, DFAT and its own insurers.

QUAKER SERVICE AUSTRALIA INCORPORATED

119 Devonshire Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010 Quaker Linkages Sub-Committee 1. Introduction Quaker Service Australia Incorporated (QSA) is the development service agency of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Australia. Its Statement of Purpose is to express in a practical way the concern of Australian Quakers for the building of a more peaceful, equitable, just and compassionate world. To this end, QSA works with communities in need to improve their quality of life with projects which are culturally sensitive, as well as being economically and environmentally appropriate and sustainable. 2. Purpose and Duties The Quaker Linkages Sub-Committee is a sub-committee appointed by the QSA Management Committee. The sub-committee will: • Provide advice on how to maintain links between Regional Meetings and the Management Committee; • Assist the QSA Management Committee in maintaining and developing links between Regional Meetings and the sub-committee; • Receive from the QSA office the Annual Report with full audited financial statement and reports on projects; • Support, fund raise for, and promote the work of QSA within their Regional Meeting and the wider community through information sharing and interactive engagement; • Work with the Management Committee to determine and implement the Terms of Reference for a QSA review and conduct elements of the review on a cyclical basis. • Participate in an appropriate level of development sector training provided by the QSA office. • The Sub-Committee will determine its own convenor from within its membership and the term of this appointment. 3. Membership The term of membership of appointed members is for a period of four years from the date of appointment by the Regional Meeting. All appointed members must have a break of at least one year from the end of their appointment, prior to being eligible for re-appointment. The sub-committee will include a representative of the: • NSW Regional Meeting; • Canberra Regional Meeting; • Tasmania Regional Meeting; • Queensland Regional Meeting; • Victoria Regional Meeting; • South Australia and Northern Territory Regional Meeting; and • Western Australia Regional Meeting. The sub-committee will also include as ex-officio members the: • QSA Convenor • AYM Presiding Clerk • AYM Secretary

4. Meetings Meetings occur in person at the time of the Annual QSA Gathering, and as a teleconference at other times in the lead up to the Annual QSA gathering. A quorum will be six members. Additional meetings may be convened as required and determined by the Quaker Linkages Sub- Committee Convenor at the request of at least two other members of the committee. 5. Record keeping The Sub-Committee Convenor is required to prepare an agenda for the meetings and to record and retain minutes at each Committee Meeting and circulate these to all members of QSA Inc in a timely manner. 6. Reporting and Disclosure New members will receive an orientation package containing information about QSA, its work and development issues generally provided by the QSA office. The sub-committee will have access to review documents on an internal part of the QSA website. 7. Conduct of members Committee Meetings will be held in the manner of Friends. New members are to promptly supply personal details to the QSA office for registration with ACNC and other regulatory bodies. Members will be supplied by the QSA office with details of QSA’s Code of Conduct and are expected dto sign an return it and to adhere to its principles.

70 CONSTITUTION OF QUAKER SERVICE AUSTRALIA INCORPORATED

1. Name 2. Defined terms and interpretation 3. Objects 4. Membership 5. Members’ liability 6. Disciplining of member 7. Disputes between members & complaints handling 8. QSA Management Committee 9. General meetings 10. Office bearers 11. Finances 12. Special resolutions 13. Public Officer 14. Wind up clause 15. Gift Fund 16. Miscellaneous

Draft QSA Constitution 2016, version 16 Page 1

1) Name

The name of the association is Quaker Service Australia Incorporated (referred to in this constitution as (‘QSA Inc.’).

2) Defined terms and interpretation

In this Constitution:

Australia Yearly Meeting (‘AYM’) – The term Australia Yearly Meeting has two meanings. It refers to the annual national gathering of Quakers in Australia and also the organisational structure of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) Australia Incorporated (ACT).

Handbook of Practice and Procedure in Australia (‘Handbook’) means The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Australia Inc., Handbook of Practice and Procedure in Australia, Sixth Edition, (2011) or subsequent editions.

Regional Meeting (‘RM’) – a religious and administrative unit for Australian Quakers, with one Regional Meeting in each region, mostly within state boundaries. Each conducts regular Meetings for Worship for Business, subject to the guidance of Yearly Meeting as expressed in this handbook but with significant autonomy.

Host Regional Meeting (‘Host RM’) – the Regional Meeting which has undertaken to host QSA Inc. on behalf of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) Australia Incorporated (ACT).

Standing Committee (‘Standing Committee’) means Standing Committee of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) Australia Incorporated (ACT).

Clerk: Each Local Meeting, Regional Meeting and the Yearly Meeting has a Clerk or co-Clerks. The role of a Clerk is to handle correspondence, and prepare for, chair and facilitate Meetings for Worship for Business. A Clerk combines the duties of a supportive chairperson and a secretary, and drafts minutes immediately after discussion of any point, discerning the sense of the Meeting until there is unity. The Clerk supervises the carrying out of actions arising from the recorded decisions. In addition, the Clerk represents the Meeting in contacts with other people or bodies.

Convenor: A Convenor fulfils the role of a clerk. The Convenor of QSA Inc. will also be the Convenor of the QSA Management Committee.

Draft QSA Constitution 2016, version 16 Page 2

3) Objects

As a preface to the objects QSA Inc. will:

 embrace the founding principles of QSA when it was founded by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) Australia Incorporated (ACT) in 1959; and

 at all times QSA Inc. will act in accordance with the practices of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) Australia Incorporated (ACT), as set out in the Handbook.

The objects of the QSA Inc. are to:

a) express in a practical way the concern of Australian Quakers to build a more peaceful, equitable, just and compassionate world by conducting and/or financing development projects;

b) work with communities in need to improve their quality of life with projects which are culturally sensitive as well as being economically and environmentally appropriate and sustainable;

4) Membership

a) Membership is open to all individuals who accept the objects and the Quaker identity and character of QSA Inc. The total number of members will be sixteen (16) comprising of:

i) seven (7) appointed from the Host RM; ii) seven (7) appointed from the 7 RMs, with one from each RM; and iii) two (2) ex-officio members.

Appointment and term of membership

b) Individuals are appointed to membership by a decision of either the Host RM or the RMs in the manner described below. These appointments are recorded in the RM minutes, and confirmed at the next meeting of either the Australia Yearly Meeting or Standing Committee.

c) Members appointed in this way need only indicate their acceptance of the appointment and are not required to pay any fee nor complete a membership application form.

Draft QSA Constitution 2016, version 16 Page 3

d) Term of membership

i) The term of membership of appointed members is for a period of four years from the date of appointment by the Host RM or the relevant RM. ii) All appointed members must have a break of at least one year from the end of their appointment, prior to being eligible for re-appointment. Iii) Despite the previous clause, the Host RM may re-appoint a person as a member without a one year break if the continuation of the member is considered necessary for continuity, and provided that at any one time there are no more than two members who have been re-appointed for consecutive four year periods. iv) Ex-officio members will remain members of QSA Inc. for as long as they hold the positions entitling them to membership.

Cessation of membership v) Membership shall cease:

1. in the case of an appointed member, at the expiration of the four year membership period ; or 2. if an appointed member’s appointment is not confirmed at the next meeting of either the Australia Yearly Meeting or Standing Committee; or 3. upon resignation in writing; or 4. death of the appointed member; or 5. in the case of an ex-officio member, on ceasing to hold the position that entitles them to membership.

Vacancy and making appointments e) The Convenor of QSA Inc. will inform the Clerk of the Nominations Committee of Host RM by phone and writing of the expected vacancy a reasonable time prior to the expiration of a member’s four year membership period.

The Convenor of QSA Inc. must also advise the Convenor of RM Nominations Committee of the skills, knowledge and experience required by QSA Inc. for the new member.

The Convenor of the RM Nominations Committee will take the nomination to RM in the process described in the Handbook, with any nomination recorded as a minute at a RM.

f) If the Host RM does not appoint a suitable person as a member of QSA Inc. within a two month period of being asked to do so then the following process shall occur

Draft QSA Constitution 2016, version 16 Page 4

i) The Convenor of QSA Inc. will identify an individual from the host RM who accepts the objects and rules of QSA Inc. and has the skills, knowledge and/or experience required by the QSA Management Committee; then ii) The Convenor will forward this nomination to the Host RM Clerk for inclusion on the agenda for the next RM to consider and in the process described in the Handbook with any nomination recorded as a minute.

g) Appointment of members by RMs A reasonable time prior to the expiration of a member’s four year membership period, the Convenor of QSA Inc. will inform the relevant RM of the expected vacancy and of the skills, knowledge and experience required by QSA Inc. for the new member. The RM will nominate a member in the process described in the Handbook, with any nomination recorded as a minute at a RM.

h) Appointment of ex officio members of QSA The Presiding Clerk and the Secretary of Australia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) Australia Incorporated (ACT) are appointed automatically as members of QSA Inc. The Convenor of QSA Inc. will maintain contact with AYM to keep up to date on any changes.

i) A register of members shall be kept by QSA Inc. showing the name, address, contact details, date of birth and date of commencement of membership.

5) Members’ liability

The members of QSA Inc. shall have no liability to contribute towards the payment of debts and liabilities of QSA Inc. or the costs, charges and expenses of the winding up of the QSA Inc.

6) Disciplining of member

A member may be disciplined if, in the opinion of the Management Committee, after affording the member an opportunity of offering an explanation of his/her conduct, the conduct is regarded as being detrimental to the interests of QSA Inc. or against the QSA Code of Conduct. At all times this will include following the QSA Inc.’s Policy and Procedures on Grievance Handling, Complaints and Dispute Resolution.

7) Disputes between members & complaints handling

a. In the event of a dispute arising between members, (in their capacity as members) or between a member(s) and QSA Inc., the parties to the

Draft QSA Constitution 2016, version 16 Page 5

dispute will follow the QSA Inc.’s Policy on Grievance Handling, Complaints and Dispute Resolution. b. The Management Committee must appoint a person to be responsible for the investigation and resolution of all complaints made to QSA Inc. by members of the public and staff. The person so appointed must follow the procedures contained in the QSA Inc.’s Policy and Procedures on Grievance Handling, Complaints and Dispute Resolution and report back to the Management Committee with details of the complaints received and the way that they have been dealt with.

8) QSA Management Committee

a. The operations of QSA Inc. are to be managed and controlled by the Management Committee, and for that purpose the committee may exercise the powers of the Association as if they had been expressly conferred on the committee by a General Meeting of the Association. In particular, the committee shall:

i. manage and govern QSA Inc. in accordance with its objects; ii. determine its major directions; iii. review its performance in achieving its pre-determined aims, objectives and policies.

b. The seven people appointed by the Host RM as members of QSA Inc. will form the QSA Management Committee.

c. At the first committee meeting after the Annual General Meeting, the QSA Management Committee will confirm a Convenor and Treasurer as office bearers for a term to be set by the Annual General Meeting.

Nominations for the positions of Convenor and Treasurer shall be made in the “manner of Friends” as defined in the Handbook. The Convenor and Treasurer cannot be the same person.

The QSA Management Committee will record the confirmation of appointments of Convenor and Treasurer in the minutes of its meeting.

There will be up to five (5) other members of the QSA Management Committee from the host RM.

In a situation where the position of Convenor or Treasurer becomes vacant before the next annual general meeting, the QSA Management

Draft QSA Constitution 2016, version 16 Page 6

Committee may appoint new office bearers for these positions until the next annual general meeting.

d. QSA Management Committee can delegate duties to conduct the business of QSA Inc. including by employing staff and the appointment of sub-committees.

e. The QSA Management Committee shall meet as often as necessary to conduct the business of QSA Inc. and not less than once every three months.

f. The quorum for meetings of the QSA Management Committee shall be four.

g. Notice of QSA Management Committee meetings shall be given at the previous committee meeting or by such other means as it decides.

h. The QSA Management Committee may function provided its number is not reduced below the quorum. Should QSA Management Committee numbers fall below the quorum by resignation or death, the remaining committee members may act only to request the Host RM to appoint new members.

i. The QSA Management Committee will make decisions “in the manner of Friends”, meaning that the meeting will be conducted as a Meeting for Worship for Business with the Convenor, acting as Clerk of the meeting.

j. If after an hour of the notified commencement time for a QSA Management Committee meeting, a quorum is not present the meeting shall be dissolved.

k. No member of the Management Committee can be appointed to any salaried office of QSA Inc or any office of QSA Inc paid by fees, and no holder of such an office may be appointed as a Management Committee member. This does not prohibit a Management Committee member from being reimbursed for of out-of-pocket expenses reasonably incurred in the performance of a duty as a Management Committee member.

l. A Management Committee member must take no part in the decision making process when the meeting is considering:

Draft QSA Constitution 2016, version 16 Page 7

i. the appointment, conditions of service, or remuneration of that of a person who belongs to the Management Committee member's immediate family; ii. any proposal for the supply of goods or services by the Management Committee member; iii. any proposal for the supply of goods or services by a person who belongs to the Management Committee member's immediate family.

m. A Management Committee member who is directly or indirectly interested in a contract or proposed contract with QSA Inc. must, as soon as practicable after the relevant facts have come to that person's attention, declare the nature of the interest at a meeting of QSA Inc.

n. A Management Committee member who occupies a position or owns property which may lead to a conflict with his or her duties or interests as a Management Committee member must declare the fact and the nature of the conflict.

o. The Convenor must record every declaration made under the above clauses in the minutes of the Management Committee meeting at which it was made.

p. The Management Committee may transact any of its business:

i. by the circulation of papers among all the members of the Management Committee; or ii. at a quorate meeting at which members (or some members) participate by telephone/ electronic means, but only if any member who speaks on a matter being considered at the meeting, can be heard by the other members; and iii. the Convenor or acting Convenor will discern the sense of the meeting and produce a minute which is acceptable to all participating members of the meeting.

9) General Meetings

a. An Annual General Meeting of QSA Inc. shall be held each year within five months from the end of the financial year of the QSA Inc.

b. The members of the QSA Management Committee may, whenever they think fit, convene a General Meeting of QSA Inc. The Management Committee must convene a General Meeting within three months of receiving a written request to do so from at least three members of QSA Inc.

Draft QSA Constitution 2016, version 16 Page 8

c. At least 14 days’ notice of all General Meetings, including any proposed motions and the agenda shall be given to members. In the case of General Meetings where a special resolution (as defined in rule 11) is to be proposed, notice of the proposed special resolution shall be given to members at least 21 days before the General Meeting.

d. The quorum for a General Meeting shall be five members present either in person or by telephone/ electronic means provided that all members who participate by telephone/ electronic means can hear the proceedings of the meeting and can be heard by other members present.

e. Decision making in relation to any proposed motion will be conducted in the process of a Meeting for Worship for Business as defined in the Handbook, which requires full agreement by those present at the meeting.

f. Written notice of all General Meetings shall be given to members by email to the email address supplied by the member.

g. In the case of the Annual General Meeting the following business shall be transacted:

i. Confirmation of the minutes of the last Annual General Meeting and any recent general meeting; ii. Receipt of the Management Committee’s report on the activities of QSA Inc. in the last financial year; iii. Receipt and consideration of the annual audited financial statement and any other financial statements or report required by the Associations Incorporation Act (NSW) 2009 to be submitted to members; iv. Report from the Convenor as to the new and ongoing members of QSA Inc.; v. Receipt of nominations for and appointment of the position of Convenor and Treasurer, and the term of the appointment; vi. The Convenor and Treasurer cannot be the same person; and vii. The QSA Management Committee will record its decision for appointments of Convenor and Treasurer in the minutes of its meeting.

h. In the event of any appointed RM member being unable to attend a meeting of QSA Inc., the RM member can request their RM to appoint an alternative representative in consultation with and approval by the

Draft QSA Constitution 2016, version 16 Page 9

Convenor. This representative will be recorded in the minutes of QSA Inc.

i. The minutes of any meeting of QSA Inc. are to be recorded at that meeting. At the next meeting, the minutes are to be confirmed and signed by the Convenor of that meeting.

10) Office bearers

a. The officer bearers of QSA Inc. are the Convenor and Treasurer who are confirmed by the QSA Management Committee following their appointment at the Annual General Meeting.

b. The Convenor shall act as Clerk at each QSA Management Committee, Sub-Committee meeting or General Meeting.

c. If the Convenor is absent from a meeting, or unwilling to act for all or part of the meeting, the members present at the meeting shall appoint one of their number to act as Clerk of the meeting or part thereof.

d. The Convenor shall ensure that the records of QSA Inc. are kept at the Registered Office. These include the constitution, register of members, and minutes of all meetings of the QSA Management Committee and General Meeting. The Convenor shall also ensure a file of correspondence is kept. These records shall be available for inspection by any member.

11) Finances

a. The financial year of the QSA Inc. shall run from 1 October to 30 September.

b. The Treasurer shall ensure that all money received by the QSA Inc. is paid into the general account in the name of QSA Inc. Payments shall be made through a petty cash system, by cheque or by electronic transfer by two signatories authorised by the QSA Management Committee as described within the Finance Policy. Major or unusual expenditures must be authorised in advance by the QSA Management Committee or by a General Meeting.

c. The Treasurer shall ensure that correct books and accounts are kept showing the financial affairs of QSA Inc. These records shall be available for inspection by any member.

Draft QSA Constitution 2016, version 16 Page 10

d. The funds of QSA Inc. shall be derived from bequests, donations, government grants, fund-raising activities and such other sources as the Management Committee may determine.

e. The income and property of QSA Inc. shall be used only for promotion of the objects of QSA Inc. and shall not be paid or transferred to members by way of dividend, bonus or profit except:

i. In the payment of wages or salaries and other such remuneration as is reasonably necessary for the proper fulfilment of those purposes, or ii. In reimbursing out-of-pocket expenses reasonably incurred on behalf of QSA.

f. The accounts of QSA Inc. shall be audited annually and presented to the Annual General Meeting.

12) Special resolutions

a. A special resolution must be passed by a General Meeting of QSA Inc. to effect the following changes:

i. Changes to the name of QSA Inc. ii. Changes to the constitution or objects of QSA Inc. iii. An amalgamation with another incorporated association iv. To voluntarily cancel incorporation or wind up QSA Inc. v. To apply for registration as a company or a co-operative.

b. For a special resolution to be effected it will be passed in the following manner:

i. The notice must give details of the proposed special resolution and give at least 21 days’ notice of the meeting. ii. The meeting may be in person, by telephone / electronic means. iii. A quorum must be present at the meeting. iv. Decision making to determine unity in favour of the resolution will be conducted in the process of a Meeting for Worship for Business as defined in the Handbook. The process of decision making will ensure that the resolution will have at least three quarters of the membership in favour of the resolution as required by the Incorporated Associations Act 2009. v. Any decision must be recorded in the minutes, and these minutes circulated to members and the AYM Secretary.

Draft QSA Constitution 2016, version 16 Page 11

vi. Notification of the special resolution being passed by QSA Inc. must be given to NSW Fair Trading within 28 days.

13) Public Officer

a. The QSA Management Committee must ensure that a person is appointed as Public Officer by a decision of the Committee and confirmed at a General Meeting.

b. The QSA Management Committee may at any time remove the Public Officer, by confirmation by the General Meeting and appoint a new Public Officer provided the person appointed is 18 years of age or older and a resident of New South Wales.

c. The position of Public Officer shall become vacant in the following circumstance:

i. Death; ii. Resignation in writing; iii. Removal by the Management Committee and confirmed at a General Meeting; iv. Bankruptcy; v. Mental incapacity; or vi. Residency outside New South Wales.

d. When a vacancy occurs in the position of Public Officer the Management Committee must appoint a new Public Officer within 28 days.

e. The Public Officer is required to notify the NSW Fair Trading within 28 days of his/her appointment and within 28 days of a change of QSA Inc.’s official address.

f. The Public Officer may be an officer bearer, management committee member, or any other person regarded as suitable for the position by the Management Committee.

g. The Public Officer shall keep a register of members of the committee which must:

i. Contain the name, any previous names used, date of birth and residential address, contact phone number and email address of

Draft QSA Constitution 2016, version 16 Page 12

each committee member and the date on which they ceased to be a member of the Committee; ii. Be updated within one month of any change taking place; and iii. Be made available for inspection by any person, at all reasonable hours and free of charge.

14) Wind-up clause

a. In the event that QSA Inc. has its incorporation cancelled or is otherwise wound up, the following provisions will apply:

i) all outstanding debts and liabilities (including the expenses of winding up) are to be paid, ii) any property which is subject to a trust, or a claim by a government department or public authority, must be dealt with according to that trust or claim, and iii) any approval that is required before distribution can take place must be obtained.

b. If the above requirements are satisfied, any remaining surplus property must not be paid to or given to any member but must be given to an association having similar objects decided upon by a special resolution of the association.

c. In passing a special resolution to distribute surplus property the association must ensure that a recipient association has:

(i) a provision in its constitution which prohibits the distribution of income and property amongst its members to an extent as least as great as is imposed by this constitution, and (ii) such other features as may be required by any government department or public authority that has granted an exemption, concession or benefit to the association.

15) Gift Fund

a. QSA Inc. operates the “Quaker Service Australia Inc. Aboriginal Concerns Fund” and the “Quaker Service Australia Inc. Overseas Aid Fund” each of which is a gift fund that has been endorsed as deductible gift recipient (hereafter called “the Gift Funds”).

b. The Gift Funds are to be public funds managed and controlled by the committee.

c. As public funds, they will have the following characteristics:

Draft QSA Constitution 2016, version 16 Page 13

i. The public will be invited to contribute to the Gift Funds. ii. The people responsible for the administration or control of the Gift Funds will have a degree of responsibility to the community as a whole due to their tenure of some public office or their position in the community. iii. The committee will keep proper minutes of all resolutions relating to the Gift Funds.

d. The committee must ensure that:

i. All gifts of money to a Gift Fund are banked separately from the association’s other funds. ii. All items of property given to a Gift Fund are specifically identified as such. iii. All investment returns from such gifted money or property are recorded as part of the Gift Fund. iv. All proceeds from the sale of such gifted property are recorded as part of the Gift Fund.

e. The committee must ensure that correct books and accounts are kept showing the financial affairs of each Gift Fund.

f. The committee must ensure that the accounts of the Gift Funds are included in the annual independent audit of the association’s financial accounts.

g. The income and assets of a Gift Fund must only be used for the purposes of the fund.

h. No remuneration or other benefit in money or money's worth may be paid by the Gift Fund to any member of the committee other than as genuine remuneration for goods or services supplied to the Gift Fund or for the reimbursement of expenses incurred on behalf of the Gift Fund.

i. No part of a Gift Fund's income or assets may be distributed to the members of the association other than as genuine remuneration for goods or services supplied to the Gift Fund or for the reimbursement of expenses incurred on behalf of the Gift Fund.

j. If a Gift Fund (or QSA Inc.) is wound up or if the fund’s endorsement as a deductible gift recipient is revoked, any surplus assets of the Gift Fund remaining after the payment of liabilities attributable to it shall be transferred to a charity (fund, authority or institution) with a similar charitable purpose and:

Draft QSA Constitution 2016, version 16 Page 14

i. to which income tax deductible gifts can be made; and ii. which has been chosen by the members of the association.

16) Miscellaneous

a. If a member requests that information about them on the register of members (other than the members’ name) not be available for inspection, then that information must not be made available for inspection.

b. Service of documents on QSA Inc. is effected by serving them on the Public Officer or by serving them personally on two members of the Management Committee.

c. Notices sent by email shall be deemed to have been received upon successful transmission from the sender.

d. Notices sent by post shall be deemed to have been delivered in the ordinary course of the post.

Draft QSA Constitution 2016, version 16 Page 15