Preparing to Participate in Quakers Australia Yearly Meeting 2024 hybrid Business Sessions

A Message from our Presiding Clerk

In our meetings for worship we seek through the stillness to know God’s will for ourselves and for the gathered group. Our meetings for church affairs, in which we conduct our business, are also meetings for worship based on silence, and they carry the same expectation that God’s guidance can be discerned if we are truly listening together and to each other, and are not blinkered by preconceived opinions. It is this belief that God’s will can be recognised through the discipline of silent waiting which distinguishes our decision-making process from the secular idea of consensus. We have a common purpose in seeking God’s will through waiting and listening, believing that every activity of life should be subject to divine guidance. 

Quaker faith and practice 3.02

Business Sessions for YM24

A very warm welcome to our YM24 Quaker Meetings for Business in a spirit of Worship!

YM24 is our first “Hybrid” Yearly Meeting, ie some people face-to-face and some on line

Quakers’ experience internationally is that worshipping together online can be deep and spirit-filled, with ministry springing from a gathered stillness.

However, Meetings for Worship for Business with an online component may  take longer than when we meet in person. Recent experience suggests that a virtual Meeting for Worship for Business takes longer than one held face-to-face. The same will be true of hybrid meetings

Preparatory work for the Meeting for Worship for Business

If you plan to attend and participate in YM24 Business sessions,  please come prepared. Please access information on the YM24 website and read the relevant reports.

Preparatory work for the Meeting for Worship for Business includes both information gathering (which includes Documents in Advance 2024, reports from Preparatory Sessions, Regional Meeting responses and reports or recommendations from committees and other meetings) and preparing the mind and heart.

As part of your preparation, Friends are asked to reflect upon matters to come before the meeting, so that all relevant insights, leadings, information and other considerations can be weighed in the meeting’s discernment process.

Spiritual preparation and support for the clerking team helps to ensure that the meeting is conducted in a worshipful manner. Elders and Pastoral Care play an important part before, during and after each session.

It is important that each participant begins the meeting with the expectation that it will be a spiritual experience.

Queries

• What activities, rituals, practices can you engage in to prepare yourself for YM24 Meetings for Worship for Business?
• Have you read the relevant material for each meeting and taken time to sit with this material? Is there anything you are unsure about that you could ask a friend for clarity about?
• If you are attending online, how might you create your own opportunities for informal conversations and connections during YM24, perhaps on the phone, meeting up with nearby Friends, or through daily walks in nature?

Speaking in Formal Session 

In the Formal Session, if you wish to speak:

• If you are in the room, stand and wait to be recognised by the Clerk
• If you are online, use the "Raise Hand" function in order to be recognised by the Clerk.
• The Clerk will call you by your name on the Zoom screen. All others wishing to speak should remain muted, until called upon. 
• State your name and your Meeting, speak briefly and clearly, and avoid repeating points that have already been put before the meeting.  
• It is not expected that any Friend will speak more than once on an issue, unless specifically requested by the Clerk (e.g., to provide a committee report or information from a Friend’s area of expertise).
• The Clerk will allow time to process and consider before calling the next person. We need this space to create a gathered stillness for ministry within the worshipping community.
• If you indicate that you wish to speak, but are not called upon to speak, be patient, remain in worship and trust that if the contribution needs to come to the meeting, a way forward will present itself. 

If you are on line: 
1. Prepare the space where you are meeting

Friends wishing to participate will need to have a computer, laptop, tablet or smartphone with a Zoom connection, a camera/webcam, a microphone setting and enough bandwidth to allow them to be heard distinctly without the signal breaking up.

Friends using a phone line or experiencing unreliable Internet should consider simply listening to a Business session or joining another Friend with a better connection. If either situation applies to you, please consider talking with your Regional Meeting Clerk about how you can best participate in Yearly Meeting. If you know someone in this position, consider reaching out to them and inviting them to join you for Business meetings, or offer to help them get set up on Zoom.

2. Before the day

• Try out Zoom in advance, ideally with a friend who can help you – it takes away the stress, and lets you learn peacefully first.

3. On the day

• Make sure the name you wish the Clerk to use is on your screen. If more than one person is present, please include names of all Friends.
• Connect 10 minutes or so ahead of the scheduled time of Meeting so if you need help, you can contact someone who can help (there will be a Help Desk number for YM24).
• Check that your microphone is turned on, but muted unless you are speaking.
• Try to have a few minutes of quiet preparation ahead of the start of the session.
• Stay in that worshipful space throughout the whole meeting, especially if the Clerking Team leave the main meeting to write a minute in a break out room.

4. Queries for preparing the space you are in (either on your own or with other Friends)

• Is this a quiet space? Is this a space where I can be quiet and still? If I unmute, will there be background noise?
• What will Friends see on the screen? Does it look like and feel like a worshipful space? Might a few flowers or a copy of this we can say help set the scene?
• Do others in the location understand that you are Meeting for Worship for Business?

Bruce Henry, Presiding Clerk

Yearly Meeting 24 Business Processes Explained

1) REPORTS:
Each national committee, working group, and AYM-associated body is asked to write a report for Documents in Advance (DIA), which Friends are encouraged to read ahead of Yearly Meeting. 

Regional Meetings may also write a report for Documents in Advance with a Part B if they have an item for consideration at Yearly Meeting. Regional Meetings have otherwise already written their main report of their year's activities, for the national AGM held in January.

Documents in Advance 2024  is available here on this website.

• Part A reports on the work of the committee or working group during the preceding year.
• Part B (only included if needed) presents Items for Consideration.

2) CONSIDERATION OF REPORTS AT REGIONAL MEETINGS:
Regional Meetings receive all the reports in Documents in Advance and are asked to discuss the Part B matters at their Meetings for Worship for Business, so that consideration at Yearly Meeting is well informed. Regional Meeting responses are minuted, sent to the AYM Secretary, and will be available on this website.

3) INFORMATION SESSIONS & PREPARATORY SESSIONS:
Prior to Yearly Meeting, each committee or working group which has submitted a DIA report, may hold an Information Session (in May-June) or a Preparatory Session (in May) prior to Yearly Meeting.

• An Information Session is for a group whose Report for Documents in Advance only has a Part A. The session provides an opportunity to present what the group has been doing and to elaborate on what is in their report. Such a session will not contribute to decision-making, but will air the good work of the committee. Because a decision is not sought, the reporting of this committee stops here; it does not go on to a Formal Session.

• A Preparatory Session is held when a committee or working group has a Part B in their DIA report, in which they have put forward Items for Consideration that they would like Quakers nationally to consider.  Prior to their Preparatory Sessions, Regional Meetings will have considered their reports. Minutes will be taken and forwarded to the AYM Secretary.  The Preparatory Session report will be brought by the committee or working group to a YM24 Formal Session. 
• The list of scheduled Information Sessions (and their reports) can be found here.
• The list of scheduled Preparatory Sessions (and their reports) can be found here.

Documents in Advance 2024

Each national committee, working group and associated body writes a report for Documents in Advance (DIA), which consists of a:

• Part A, which reports on the work of the committee or working group during the preceding year. Find these reports HERE.
• Part B (included only if needed), which presents questions or proposals for consideration at Yearly Meeting. Find these reports HERE.

Download the complete Documents in Advance 2024 HERE. 

 

 

 

Each Yearly Meeting produces epistles to the rest of the Quaker world. Sometimes there are several Epistles written during a Yearly Meeting, with some contributed by particular groups within the YM (such as a Children's Epistle, etc.).

Please find below the YM24 Epistle drafts, prepared by the YM24 Epistle writers:
Restina Nininahazwe , Dale Hess, Sally O’Wheel

• First draft Epistle
• Second draft Epistle
• YM24 Epistle Final

 

This page contains:

• Formal Session Agendas, as they become available. Agendas might be decided only a short time before its session. Agendas may change throughout the week. Revised agendas will be posted here prior to Formal Sessions.
• Formal Session Minutes from each Formal Session, once checked by the Minute Checkers and the AYM Secretary.
• Formal Session items for consideration 

 

Formal Session 1

• Agenda
• Yearly Meeting Formal Session Items
  - Explanation of Procedure by Presiding Clerk
• Appointments for the duration of Yearly Meeting
• The State of the Society Address
• Minutes

Formal Session 2

• Agenda
• Summary of Epistles
• Noting of QA Reports without a Part B
• Nominations Committee Report
• Minutes

Formal Session 3

• Agenda
• Testimonies to the Grace of God in the lives of TRM Friends
• Undirected Donations/Bequests Working Group
• Thanksgiving Fund 
• Handbook Revision Committees
• Minutes

Formal Session 4

• Agenda
• Testimony to the grace of God in the life of Heather Herbert (CRQ)
• Handbook Revision Committee Report
• Child Protection Committee Report
• Children and JYF Committee Report
• Minutes

Formal Session 5

• Agenda
• Testimony to the grace of God in the life of Elaine Polglase (NSWRM)
• Reading of draft YM24 Epistle
• Climate Emergency & Species Extinction WG
• Minutes

Formal Session 6

• Agenda
• Testimony to the Grace of God in the life of John McMahon (VRM)
• Report about NCCA Forum (Jenny Stock & Ann Zubrick)
• Children & JYF Committee Report (Di Bretherton)
• Associated Bodies within AYM Report by Alan Clayton
• Minutes

Formal Session 7

• Agenda
• Archivist Report
• Transition Implementation WG
• Minute of Record for Meeting for Remembrance (record of names read)
• Statements on behalf of QA
• YM24 Activity Reports

• Minutes

Formal Session 8

• Agenda
• 2nd reading of Epistle
• Any left-over Business still to be discerned
• Minutes

Formal Session 9

• Agenda
• YMOC - where and how are we holding YM25? (and YM26?)
  See Prep Session Notes HERE
• FINAL reading of Epistle
• Minutes

 

 

 

Testimonies

These are the Testimonies to the Grace of God in QA Friends who have died in the past year. They will also be uploaded into DAQB in the usual manner.

 

Letters of Greeting

We have received the following Letters of Greeting from Quakers outside of Australia:

Greetings to QA from Aotearoa New Zealand for your 2024 YM