Why was the idea of having one charity but keeping the 7 AMs rejected?
This was the proposal in the first consultation (2021), but responses from AMs emphasised the importance of being spirit-led in our governance arrangements, supporting the trustee structure with a cross-London worshipping group and developing a London Quaker community. This could have been done by adding an extra layer of governance 'on top of' the AMs, but that would have added complexity. Friends – and particularly LQPT trustees themselves – noted the challenges that arise because LQPT does not have a London-wide worshipping group to engage with, and wanted to avoid replicating this problem in the new structure. In the second consultation the option of having a single AM was recommended by the Pan London Group and accepted my most AMs.
Why was the idea of mergers into 2 or 3 larger AMs rejected?
Back in April 2019, when ideas for addressing the issues faced by Quakers in London were being explored by an informal group of Friends, this was one of the options they considered. But at a gathering of Friends from across London in April 2019, there was a considerable degree of unity that this would still require too many trustee and treasurer roles across London.
(See FAQ 'Why was the idea of having one charity but keeping the 7 AMs rejected?' for how this proposal changed)
Why not just centralise the financial roles and consider contracting those out?
Centralising financial roles across multiple charities would be difficult. We can certainly contract out much of the bookkeeping, and plan to do so, but treasurers must be members of the Society so this approach would not do much to solve the acute shortage of Friends willing to act as treasurers. Nor would it solve the shortage of trustees. (We currently need about 57, across the AMs and LQPT. In a London AM we would need about 10.)
What is the districts proposal?
The development group produced the proposal to allow some groups of LMs (AMs or other groupings) to optionaly retain some of their current roles and responsibilities, delegated through an MOU with the London Area Meeting. The shape of "districts" and which meetings could form them is still being decided through a process of threshing and discernment.