Adapting in Uncertain Times - EMES Peace and Service Consultation
ADAPTING IN UNCERTAIN TIMES
This was the theme of this year’s Quaker Peace and Service Consultation, held on Zoom, 20-22 November. The Covid-19 pandemic prevented us from meeting together at Quakerhaus in Bad Pyrmont, Germany, although all being well we plan to do just that in 2021, on 19-21 November.
One important aspect of the Consultation is sharing news about our respective peace and service work. Another is networking and connecting in various ways in person during the weekend. Both these aspects were baked into this year’s Zoom experience. We also had two guest speakers. Judith Moran, director of Quaker Social Action, talked about her experiences of adapting in uncertain times and the importance of resilience in the world, within our organisations and in ourselves. She asked us to imagine squeezing a tennis ball and a tomato and say which was the most resilient. Surprisingly enough the answer was the tomato because its seeds are extremely resilient and lead to regeneration. Nadja Schnetzler, facilitator and coach at Word and Deed and Generation Purpose focused on navigating uncertainty with joy and showed us new ways of collaborating and planning our work online, for example using the collaborative whiteboard platform MIRO (see photo from a collaborative exercise on identifying important issues of collaboration).
The Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 has changed how we think about and work with peace and service, and much of our work this year has been online. Yet there is also a hunger to interact face-to-face again and contribute to change in the world. If we are to make a difference, Quaker groups and organisations need to work more strategically together and focus on common threads. We therefore expressed the desire to continue to experiment, stay in touch as a group and support one another throughout the coming year. Developing a wider sense and ownership of our peace and service community is also important and we hope to include more Friends from the Middle East, Central-, Eastern- and Southern Europe in it and learn about what they are working on and with. One way of doing this is through the EMES monthly Peace and Service Consultation online sessions.
In 2021 the online sessions are on the second Thursday of the month.
In January, March, May, July, September and November they are at 19:00 Central European Time.
In February, April, June, August, October and December they are at 13:00 CET
Report by Sue Glover Frykman
To join the Peace and Service Consultation mailing list email Jez Smith, the Assistant Secretary of EMES.
