Jani Evans reflects on the CCQW June meeting

Reflections on CCQW meeting held on 27th June 2026 at Bangor Meeting House and via Zoom.

Thirteen friends met at the Meeting House and a further 14 joined us from all parts of Wales on a hot Saturday in June. Despite the heat the Meeting House was cool and we enjoyed lunch together outside in our small garden.

As usual the morning was devoted business where a broad range of matters of concern to the Society in Wales were discussed. It helped to remind those of us who are mainly involved in local and area meeting endeavours, of the range of important work being undertaken on our behalf by CCQW and to see our work within a larger national context. Topics ranged from: the new Book of Discipline being launched on 21st November 2026 at Yearly Meeting, with encouragement to local area Meetings to read, reflect and respond by May 2027 before draft is considered in Yearly Meeting in July; South Wales Area Meeting’s Environmental Cluster activities and an invitation for it to become more broadly the Environmental Cluster for CCQW; political engagement in Wales with the Senedd; to forward planning for the residential weekend in 2027 building on the success of the event held in Gregynog in April 2025.

I was particularly interested to learn that representatives of CCQW had met with Cherry Vann, the first woman Archbishop of Wales and that she had attended Meeting for Worship with Friends and had been presented with a copy of Margaret Fell’s (1667) book “Women’s Speaking Justified”. This meeting is further evidence of the Society reaching out to Christian churches in Wales and a desire to continue collaborating and working together. Margaret Fell’s work written over 360 years ago, in prison for organising faith services in her house, is particularly appropriate. It challenges the silence imposed on women and affirms their spiritual equality and presents a detailed argument of the rights of women to preach and teach in the church. The recent translation of her work into updated English comes at an appropriate time as we rejoice not only in the installation of the first woman Archbishop of Canterbury but our own first woman Archbishop of Wales.

We welcomed details of Quaker’s involvement in the forthcoming National Eisteddfod and the wider involvement of CCQW’s participation on the Maes with interesting and varied activities. This year, in addition to the general Quaker presence, CCQW have sponsored the Composers Medal, a competition worth £500 gifted by the Lynn Moseley fund to set music to two poems of Waldo Williams, the pacifist Welsh Quaker poet, Plentyn y Ddaear and Y Ci Coch. Plentyn y Ddaear is a famous Welsh anti war poem published in 1939 and explores the themes of peace, humanity and our relationship with the earth. It seems particularly relevant to our situation in the world today. Y Ci Coch is a popular children’s poem. This Composers Medal will make a valuable contribution to the cultural life of Wales and an opportunity to make the work of Waldo Williams more widely known.

After lunch our speaker Andrew Hind gave a talk on “How can Quaker testimonies illuminate our response to Artificial Intelligence.” The talk raised awareness of how many falsehoods surround AI for example on energy and water consumption to set up and run data processing centres. The lecture drew attention to risks of AI not widely known which pose threats to our concerns for the environment, equality and peace. It is a worthwhile lecture which needs to be made widely available.

Jani Evans, Bangor Meeting, July 2026