Structure
Most members are appointed by Yearly Meeting, based on nominations put forward by each monthly meeting or by Meeting for Suffering's own standing committees. It may also co-opt a few members on its own initiative. Members normally serve a three-year term - the next round of appointments is in 2006. The table below shows the role of the relevant committees that provide members, as of 1999.
| Number | Origin |
|---|---|
| 170 | Monthly meetings |
| 10 | Co-opted |
| 2 | Young Friends General Meeting |
| 2 | Quaker Communications Central Committee |
| Responsible for publicity, media and government liaison, and income from grants and legacies. | |
| 2 | Quaker Finance and Property Central Committee |
| Financial management and planning. | |
| 2 | Quaker Home Service Central Committee |
| Local and national outreach, supporting pastoral work. | |
| 2 | Quaker Peace and Service Central Committee |
| Working for peace and social justice. | |
| 2 | Quaker Resources for Service Central Committee |
| Administrative support, including personnel and IT services. | |
| 2 | Quaker Social Responsibility and Education Central Committee |
| Advice and support for concerns (individual vocation to carry out some service) and social projects. | |
| 1 | Quaker Committee for Christian and Interfaith Relations |
| Relations with non-Quaker groups. | |
| 1 | Quaker World Relations Committee |
| Relations with non-British Yearly Meetings and Friends World Committee for Consultation. | |
| Total 196, plus a clerk and assistant clerk. | |
Various officers of Yearly Meeting, and staff employed by Meeting for Sufferings, also attend.
Read more about this topic: Meeting For Sufferings
Famous quotes containing the word structure:
“... the structure of our public morality crashed to earth. Above its grave a tombstone read, “Be tolerant—even of evil.” Logically the next step would be to say to our commonwealth’s criminals, “I disagree that it’s all right to rob and murder, but naturally I respect your opinion.” Tolerance is only complacence when it makes no distinction between right and wrong.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 2, ch. 2 (1962)
“Why does philosophy use concepts and why does faith use symbols if both try to express the same ultimate? The answer, of course, is that the relation to the ultimate is not the same in each case. The philosophical relation is in principle a detached description of the basic structure in which the ultimate manifests itself. The relation of faith is in principle an involved expression of concern about the meaning of the ultimate for the faithful.”
—Paul Tillich (1886–1965)
“Women over fifty already form one of the largest groups in the population structure of the western world. As long as they like themselves, they will not be an oppressed minority. In order to like themselves they must reject trivialization by others of who and what they are. A grown woman should not have to masquerade as a girl in order to remain in the land of the living.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)