Northern Friends Peace Board
Annual Report 1999

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Contents

• Introduction
• Support and communication
• Peace concerns in the wider world
• Quaker Connections
• Membership
• Treasurer's Report
• Financial statement
  

Introduction

During 1999 our activities were significantly shaped by the conflict in the Balkans. To a large extent we were able to use our existing structures and programmes for work on these issues, supporting Friends in their peace witness.

The Hague Appeal for Peace conference in May 1999 was another key part of the year, and it was valuable not least because it helped to set the Kosovo crisis in the wider context of global concerns. These ranged from issues of justice and the environment in many parts of the world to global economics and disarmament.

During Nato's military action against Serbia, some Friends found very clear leadings in terms of witnessing against the bombing. Others found it more difficult to answer the tough questions. Our role as NFPB is to one of providing support for Friends and attenders in finding ways in which they can each give expression to the peace testimony at all times, not only at times of war. The rest of this report highlights some of the ways in which we sought to do that in 1999.

As can be seen from the financial statement in this report, we made a deficit last year, with contributions not keeping pace with inflation. We are focusing more actively on fund-raising during 2000, and hope to move forward into this new century in a more confident financial position. Friends have generously provided the bulk of the funds for NFPB over its long history, and we can only express our deep gratitude for this.

Support and communication

The task of providing support and information to Friends in their peace activities remains at the core of our work. This entails proactive communication to and with Friends, responding to requests for information and advice.

Our programme of "Peace is Growing" days continued during 1999, seeking both to link up with and thereby support interests and concerns of Friends. It also provided input and stimulus in thinking through the issues involved. Two of our days this year (in Lancaster and in Glasgow) focused on the theme of Peace in the Balkans. Whilst they took place towards the end of and after the Nato bombing campaign respectively, the five speakers involved were particularly helpful in drawing participants' attention to the broader issues involved and the longer-term challenges that need to be faced in the aftermath.

In October our day in Edinburgh on "Beyond Violence" brought a good attendance from Friends and others. The problem of vengeance as a threat to peace was identified by two of our speakers. Bob Johnson of the James Nayler Foundation spoke of the need to heal the hurt and the need for vengeance in working with violent adults who had suffered abuse as children. Helen Steven linked this to HMS Vengeance, the Trident submarine; we also need to break away from this dependence on weapons systems of such destructive potential and find new ways of working with conflict. Work was begun on further days to take place in 2000.

Our newsletter, "The Peace Board", carried reports of these and other events, and was distributed to all local meetings and to a growing number of individuals who have asked to be added to our mailing list. It was also published on our web site (http://www.gn.apc.org/nfpb), which saw its first full year of operation during 1999. The site was well used (judging from the statistics we had available at the end of the year) and the special news and action pages relating to Kosovo illicited positive feedback from a good number of sources.

Our workshops were a much smaller part of our work programme during this year, although we did run two one-day events and continued to offer this as a resource to Friends and Meetings. We also ran our third succesful joint residential workshop with Woodbrooke on the Road at Glenthorne, this being on the theme of Faith into Action: Living our Quaker Testimonies Today. Towards the end of the year we were beginning to develop ideas for a workshop focusing specifically on a culture of peace.

Peace Concerns in the wider world

We also seek to work with, and communicate our concerns to, non-Quaker friends in our peace work. Our links with the National Peace Council were strengthened during the year, with our Clerk able to attend a good number of their meetings at this crucial period in their life and development. This was particularly valuable during the time of, and after, the Hague Appeal for Peace conference, and in preparation for the International Year for a Culture of Peace.

During the Nato bombing campaign in the spring we organised a public meeting in Bolton, with speakers from the Balkan Peace Team and from Women's Aid for Peace. This attracted participants (Friends and others) from the local area and from wider afield, which was particularly encouraging for a weekday evening meeting.

We continued to be members of the Network of Christian Peace Organisations (NCPO). Whilst not able to attend many of their London-based meetings during 1999, we collaborated again in producing resources for the Peace Tent at Greenbelt, the Christian arts festival which took place in August. We jointly promoted with them a petition concerning the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty review conference.

Our concern about the long-term effects of depleted uranium in Iraq led us to appoint a Friend to serve on the committee for the Campaign Against Depleted Uranium (CADU), which is Manchester based, but international in orientation. We have been very encouraged by the vigorous growth, in size and influence, of this group.

We wrote to the government with our concerns about its military action in Iraq and in the Balkans, and also produced briefing materials for Friends and others to use in raising concerns with candidates in the Scottish and European Parliaments' elections. The latter focused particularly on the militarisation of the European Union. We have also had the opportunity to contribute views in the broadcast media, with the Co-ordinator's participation in local radio discussion on the morality of bombing to solve the conflict in Kosovo. And we expressed our profound disquiet to the Russian government about its action in Chechnya.

Individual Board members and other Friends have continued to take an active part in a range of campaigns and initiatives. Whilst not formally taking on all these concerns as a Board, the community of Friends that our meetings bring together has provided a valuable opportunity for the exchange of information and for networks of support to be built and nurtured. In particular, we have sought to do this during the forums which now form a component of each of our meetings. We have found opportunities to support, directly and indirectly, those involved in Trident Ploughshares' actions, for instance. At our June meeting we used our time to share experiences of explaining and witnessing to our peace testimony during the time of Nato's military action in the Balkans. Partly as a result of this we identified the need to affirm the breadth and long-term nature of the Quaker peace witness. The Peace Papers project, will aim to address this..

Our Board meetings were also occasions to learn about and make connections with other bodies working for peace. At our September meeting we learned about the Scottish Centre for Nonviolence, in whose premises we were meeting at the time. Whilst having deep Quaker roots, this project aims to build wide links and to develop nonviolent approaches in many parts of society. We look forward to working more closely with them in the future. At our November meeting wwe heard from Carol Rank, of the Peace Museum in Bradford, and also from speaker connection with the Imperial War Museum North, which is due to be but in the Trafford area of Manchester.

The Board was represented at the Hague Appeal for Peace conference by its Co-ordinator, and other members also attended in other capacities. NFPB joined with Quaker Peace and Service in maintaining a stall in the vast exhibition area. Many useful discussions took place and contacts were made during the week of this conference, which brought together around 10,000 people from throughout the world. We sought to promote a wider understanding of the Hague Agenda for Peace subsequently, whilst being aware of the difficulties that Friends had with such a detailed 50-point action plan.

Quaker connections

Our links with other Quaker groups and organisations has been a crucial part of our activity, as we constantly seek ways in which we can collaborate with, but also to complement the work which others are doing. At the British level we have been represented by our Co-ordinator throughout the year on QPS's Peace Witness and Action Committee. He was also our representative in 1999 to the European Quaker Peace Consultation in April. A group of NFPB members met up with Friends walking from Cumbria to Canterbury on a Walk of Witness, join with them for a vigil in the town centre in Holmfirth.

We sought to raise awareness amongst Friends of other relevant Quaker work. Of particular interest to some Board members has been the work of QCEA in Brussels on the development of European peace agency. The Board's Co-ordinator was also involved in the work of the QPS reference-group to find the right way to use the funds raised by the International Conflicts Appeal, set up at Yearly Meeting in response to Friends concerns about Kosovo.

At the end of the year a new project was emerging which will seek to draw together a number of concerns that have been touched in the course of our recent work. Friends gave their enthusiastic support to proceed with this "Peace Papers" project, which will aim to highlight and illustrate way in which individuals can work for peace.

Board Members during 1999

Monthly Meeting - Representative/s

Balby - Jill Burt
Brighouse - Anne Marshall
Carlisle and Holme - Hilary Barker
Cheshire - Tim Carlisle, Phoebe Spence (dep)
Darlington - Kathleen Rodham, Doreen Hammond (dep)
East Scotland - Barbara Davey, Peter Cheer (dep)
Guisborough -Martyn Gaudie
Hardshaw East - River
Hardshaw West - John Hamilton
Kendal & Sedbergh - Kevin McKenna, Peter Leeming (dep)
Lancaster - Harry Warner
Leeds - Anni Rainbow, Jo Lloyd (dep)
Lincolnshire - Wendy Gwatkin
Marsden - Julia Hoyle, Joan McDermott
Northumbria - Nova Brockbank
North of Scotland - Barbara Potter
North Wales - Siw Wood, Pen Waugh (dep)
Notts and Derby - Gillian Smith, Jean Miles (dep)
Pardshaw
Pickering and Hull - Arthur Taylor
Pontefract - Claire Weaver
Preston - Bill Kneller, Alistair Thomas (dep)
Richmond - Dennis Prosser
Settle - Hilary Fenten, David Pemberton (dep)
South East Scotland - Geoffrey Carnall, Elisabeth Seale Carnall
Swarthmore - David Harris, Josephine Wyatt (dep)
Wirral and Chester - Dai Owen
York (vacant)

Co-opted members Maria Brown, Ellen Moxley , Brenda Rigby, Helen Steven, Caroline Westgate Clare Whitehead

Young Friends General Meeting Representatives Mike Stokes, Bethan Hillas

QPS Peace Witness & Action Committee Representative Dennis Prosser Mary Lou Leavitt / Steve Whiting

Honorary Members Jessie Baston, Mary Bradbury, Wilfred Dally

Board Treasurer Peter Kennedy, Tim Carlisle (assistant)

Board Co-ordinator Philip Austin

Admin Assistant Sarah Burn

Treasurer's Report for year ending 31 December 1999

The Board was granted status as a 'Scottish Charity' by FICO (Scotland) in April 1996 under the provisions of the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1990. It is also listed in the Book of Meetings of the Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain (Friends House, 173-177 Euston Road, London NW1 2BJ) as one of its "other committees". It was established by a minute of a Meeting of the Joint Peace Committees of the Five Northern Quarterly Meetings in 1913 "to advise and encourage Friends in the north, and though them their fellow Christians and citizens generally in the active promotion of peace in all its height and breadth". It operates through an Executive Committee,made up of the Honorary Officers together with a number of ordinary members appointed by the Board, and Project Working Groups consisting members of the Board augmented by others with a specialist interest or knowledge in the area of the group's work. The Board represents all Monthly Meetings in Scotland, North Wales and England north of the Trent - An area with a recorded membership of the Yearly Meeting of approximately 4200. It is financed entirely by them and by donations from individual Friends and from a few Trust funds. The Co-ordinator to the Board, Philip Austin operates from Victoria Hall, Knowsley Street, Bolton BL1 2AS. During the period covered by this report Gillian Smith and Dennis Prosser have been Clerks to the Board and Executive respectively, Philip Giles and Peter Kennedy as Treasurers and Peter Kennedy and Tim Carlisle as Assistant Treasurer. With the exception of the Treasurer who is appointed by the Executive, the Board appointed each of the others. The Board can be contacted via its official postal address - 'The Treasurer and Official Correspondent, Northern Friends Peace Board, Quaker Meeting House, 7 Victoria Terrace, Edinburgh EH1 2JL', or through the current Treasurer, Peter Kennedy, Chapelfield, Cammachmore, Stonehaven Aberdeenshire AB39 3NX. There are no restrictions on the way the Board may operate, though it naturally follows Quaker business methods so that it is very much a worshipping group of Friends gathered in the search for God's peaceful purpose for the world. We congratulate Philip Austin on the successful completion of the second stage of his Open University course in Managing Voluntary and Not-for-Profit Enterprises and record our thanks to John Noble for his assistance as Adviser (non-managerial supervisor) to the Co-ordinator during 1999.

Summary Statement of Financial Activities
for the year ended 31st December 1999

Income
Friends' Contributions                         21,663
From charitable trusts                            4,098
Investments                                              846
Fees/sales                                                890
                Total income                     27,497

Expenditure
Salary and wages                                24,947
Rent, heat & light                                     894
Training                                                   600
Post and telephone                               1,373
Workshops                                             284
Communications & events                       236
Representatives' travel                             580
Insurance                                                166
Depreciation                                           269
Misc. Office                                         2,944
Internal meetings                                     847
Total direct charitable expenditure  33,140

Management and Admin.
Accountancy                                           588
Treasurer honorarium                              550
Board and exec travel                             542
Total Management & administration 1,680

     Total Resources Expended       34,820

Net outgoing resources                       (7,323)
Net Movement in Funds                     (7,323)

Funds Brought Forward                      26,091
Funds Carried Forward                      18,768