Page 8 - summer edition2 2023

Quaker Trusteeship 9 Ruth Bush

Within our Area Meeting I have sensed that there has been a perception of trusteeship, including Quaker
trusteeship, as onerous and difficult.

This has not been my experience. I have been a trustee of this Area Meeting for around 8 of the past 12
years, much of this time as clerk to trustees. I have found this challenging and, at times, hard work but,
working with a team of committed fellow trustees, it has been a rewarding task and given me the
opportunity to get to know Friends from across the area. I have also received support from staff of
Britain Yearly Meeting and from an online group of Clerks to Trustees.

It has therefore been suggested that I write this article in the hope that it might help the discernment of
any Friend who might be considering the role of trustee.

I was helped by a Charity Commission training in which it was emphasised that the primary consideration
for a trustee of any organisation is to ensure that the charity functions in the way specified in its
‘Governing Document’ and, most importantly, carries out its ‘Charitable Objectives’.
The Charitable objective of our Area Meeting, as set out in our Governing Document, is:-
‘The object of Bournemouth Coastal Area Quaker Meeting is the furtherance of the general religious
and charitable purposes of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain in the Bournemouth
Coastal Area Meeting and beyond.’
So, although it is also the duty of trustees to ensure that the Area Meeting complies with the law,
maintains rigorous financial safeguards and cares for its buildings, the most important duty is to enable
our Worship and worshipping communities, to flourish.

The duties laid on trustees by law are almost entirely things that as Friends, wishing to exercise a duty of
care to all those connected with our Meetings, we would wish to do anyway. Laws on such things as
Health and Safety, Safeguarding, Employment and Tenancies, can provide a framework to help us ensure
that we do not forget the practical aspects of providing a safe environment for worship as well as a
spiritual one. The two are not incompatible!

Two things seem to me to be most important when thinking about trusteeship in a Quaker context.

Firstly, the Quaker belief that the whole of life is sacramental. Service as a trustee is also a spiritual
service. As we make decisions we listen, we wait in the Spirit. To quote Beth Allen in the Friends
Quarterly 2023/2, ‘As we practise discernment, we need a strong grip on the underlying essential –
love.’ And, ’God doesn’t care what colour we paint the Meeting House walls, what God cares about is
how we treat each other while we make the decision.’

The more we get to know one another in those things that are eternal, the more we are helped in our
discernment.

Secondly, the idea that is expressed very clearly by Paul in Corinthians 1, Chapter 12: ‘There are
varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are varieties of service, but the same Lord. There are many
forms of work, but all of them, in all men, are the work of the same God. In each of us the Spirit is
manifested in one particular way, for some useful purpose.’ This chapter goes on to point out that all
parts of one human body are parts of a whole. They are all important and all need to work together for
the sake of the whole person.

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