General Meetings provide a forum for Members of the Yorkshire Quakers charity to oversee the governance of the charity. They appoint Trustees and Clerks and Treasurer on the recommendation of the Yorkshire Quakers Nominations Committee. They approve the annual report and accounts and hear regularly from Trustees on their work. The General Meeting is also a forum for discerning the vision and purpose of Quaker activities in Yorkshire so that local and area meetings can flourish.
Information on future General Meetings will be posted here.
First General Meeting
The first General Meeting was held on 24 September 2026 by Zoom. The minutes of the meetings are as follows:
Friends present: 81 including clerks
Clerks for the meeting: Margaret Bryan and Juliet Prager
Elders for the meeting: Ruth McCarthy and Chris Skidmore
1/2026 Welcome and practical matters
The clerks welcomed all present and explained the outline of the meeting.
2/2026 Worship and introduction
We gathered in worship together before an introduction from Rosemary Daley, clerk of Yorkshire Quakers’ Trustees. Rosemary reminded us that trustees have been working for just under a year on the administrative aspects of setting up the new charity as a legal, solvent and safe body. Now is the time to look for the involvement of the wider number of Friends in shaping the vision for Yorkshire Quakers as a spiritual community.
3/2026 Groups
We divided into breakout groups to consider the questions:
4/2026 Bringing it together
We moved into a period of worship sharing. It is clear from our meeting today that Friends wish for personal connection with one another, sharing good practice about things that have worked well locally.
At the same time it is important to define what Quakers have to offer that is different from other groups. Networking across shared interests is very valuable and could feed into regional gatherings
We wish the General Meeting of Yorkshire Quakers to be more about the spiritual than the administrative. Could there be a lead trustee for spirituality?
Given the great variety of local meetings and Area Meetinss we need to be flexible. Regional meetings or gatherings need to be focussed less on governance and with more concentration on themes.
Recently there have been very positive developments Yorkshire-wide – Local Development Workers, the Youth Development Worker. Let’s build on this at the same time as recognising what is best done locally. Finally - communication is a huge challenge. Can we move into the 21st century and be creative in making use of new ways?