Plenty Of Cake
Mar. 11th, 2024 09:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphilo Yesterday's area meeting was about managing decline- though that wasn't the kind of language we used. Numbers are falling, membership is ageing, fewer people are prepared to take on positions of responsibility.... Aaaargh!
British Quakerism is organised into areas (we're East Sussex) and what we're currently looking at is coping with decline by merging them. It's happening in Wales, it's happening in Scotland. There are different ways of doing it. Here in the South East it might make sense to merge with West Sussex- and possibly with West Kent and East Kent (East Kent is desperate apparently) and even Surrey. I'm not an enthusiast,
My feeling is that if we expect decline then decline is what we'll get.
And if we expect growth we'll get growth. It's the way the universe works....
I don't want to be doing outreach (because that's only another way of being desperate.) What I'm saying is be courageous, be cheerful. I'm back to my mantra, "Build it and they will come."
And they will, they will, they will. It's happening here.
When we got away from the subject in hand and were simply socialising the tone of the Meeting was happy and expansive. A lady with a long memory- who was a member here back in the day- congratulated us on keeping up Eastbourne Meeting's reputation for hospitality. Yes, Yes, Yes!
And there was plenty of cake. Much of it home-made....
British Quakerism is organised into areas (we're East Sussex) and what we're currently looking at is coping with decline by merging them. It's happening in Wales, it's happening in Scotland. There are different ways of doing it. Here in the South East it might make sense to merge with West Sussex- and possibly with West Kent and East Kent (East Kent is desperate apparently) and even Surrey. I'm not an enthusiast,
My feeling is that if we expect decline then decline is what we'll get.
And if we expect growth we'll get growth. It's the way the universe works....
I don't want to be doing outreach (because that's only another way of being desperate.) What I'm saying is be courageous, be cheerful. I'm back to my mantra, "Build it and they will come."
And they will, they will, they will. It's happening here.
When we got away from the subject in hand and were simply socialising the tone of the Meeting was happy and expansive. A lady with a long memory- who was a member here back in the day- congratulated us on keeping up Eastbourne Meeting's reputation for hospitality. Yes, Yes, Yes!
And there was plenty of cake. Much of it home-made....
