Dugan Cummings, Clerk to EPCC reports on what the Committee has been up to in its first year.
A year ago it was decided to set up a committee of Elders and Pastoral Carers to serve Joint London Area Meeting (JLAM). The intention was to seek experienced people from each of the Area Meetings in London, plus someone from Young Friends, to provide:
- Eldership and Pastoral Care during JLAM and subsequently QIL in session
- support to other Elders and Pastoral Friends in Local Meetings (LMs) (including ensuring that support is provided from outside a LM in times of difficulty). This may include training, helping to build mutual support groups and responding to ideas for strengthening Eldership and Pastoral Friend work
- gatherings of all Elders and Pastoral Friends from across London Area Meeting at least once a year.
We were asked first to consider ways into membership. Quaker Faith and Practice (chapter 11) sets out principles and gives guidance but allows flexibility in how area meetings implement them. The seven current London AMs have each developed their own practices. As we come together, we have an opportunity to agree on a shared approach, drawing on the best of existing practice, but ultimately creating something exciting and new, future-facing, and suitable for the new Quakers in London.
We gathered leaflets on applying for membership and on what ought to be done when visitors are appointed to meet with an applicant. Not all the AMs in London had them. Together we marked up what seemed to us to be best practice and drafted new leaflets for JLAM to consider at its meeting in March. Friends present that day felt they needed more time to consider the issues and that will be done when JLAM meets in October. The EPCC paper on QiL Membership Process is available here.
We were also asked to draw up a job description for the new Membership Clerk. It was encouraging to learn that clerical support would be provided for this role.
In November 2025 Elders and Pastoral Carers across London were invited to spend a day at Friends House getting to know one another and thinking about how they carried out their responsibilities. This was so popular we planned another day together on 11July to consider the new relationship between JLAM and local meetings, support for smaller meetings, and support for families, children and young people. There were 40 of us, led by Josh Selfe in the morning and Julia Stacey in the afternoon. Friends were encouraged to write their questions and ideas on post-it notes and Josh collated them. They have drawn attention to areas of further work we need to do, including:
- How will the EPCC support Elders and Pastoral Carers in Local Meetings? We think it might be helpful to draw up a list of Es and PCs with appropriate experience which we could draw on to support meetings with difficulties.
- How can we learn from those meetings that are thriving and keeping their newcomers? We are seeking to collect their initiatives so they can be passed on to other meetings to help them ‘grow well’.
- Can we provide training for new Elders and Pastoral Carers in London? We are exploring how this might be run with help from Woodbrooke. It could be very useful to people newly appointed to these roles and would also help them to get to know one another.
We have met online 10 times so far and we have also provided Eldership at JLAM meetings, both in the room and on-line. We enjoy meeting together and trying to discern the way forward for QIL. There are only 8 of us on the committee and we have asked Nominations Committee to find us some more Friends to share the burden of our responsibilities at this key time in the development of Quakers in London.
Dugan Cummings, Clerk to JLAM EPCC
You can contact all of the QiL Committees on the contact page of this website.