John Pearson: At Conference we heard that there were once 27 active Local Groups, spread around the country; a valued link for us all, for the Network and for one another. We made new friends and shared new insights. I myself belonged to the North East Group, led then by Richard Place. We once stayed at his Guest House in Hexham. Our meetings still felt a bit like ‘Church Away Days’, but with occasional excitement. I remember our particular thrill at a Bishop, incognito, who had lost his faith. Penny Mawdsley, who did much to nourish Local Groups, remembers much more. She writes as follows:
Penny Mawdsley: As John has intimated, local groups have been an important arm of our Network from the beginning, and have enabled various initiatives to develop, particularly those we called ‘Roadshows’. These introduced different parts of the country to Sea of Faith discussion, as well as to its ‘personalities’ and its growing number of SOF magazines and other related publications.
Stronger groups in prime locations often organised these day events for themselves, inviting key speakers from the wider membership to address those curious enough to come for the day, and providing opportunities for break-out into smaller discussion groups.
The first of these roadshows was held in Norwich, and the one the furthest away was held in Belfast. The latter was one of those I was most closely involved in organising, with an advance recce, and with a number of us flying over for the event itself. We produced customised literature for the events, from advance posters to go out in the various localities to simple leaflets about the Network.
As Convenor and Co-ordinator for a number of years, I had a great time travelling around the country for initial meetings with those ‘on the ground’ as well as at the events themselves – being closely involved with the planning for these day conferences in South Devon and Southampton, in Preston and Sheffield, in Liverpool and in rural Gloucestershire.
It was also part of my brief to visit our groups at their regular meetings, a task which I greatly enjoyed. It entailed meeting many interesting folk in a wide range of places, joining in their discussion, finding out how the Steering Committee could serve them, inviting suggestions for our conferences, and providing encouragement to groups whose energy was flagging. The subjects that individual groups have chosen to focus on have been very wide-ranging and meetings themselves have varied in how much they have included in the way of refreshments. Reports in Portholes from groups have provided useful ideas for topics to consider in other groups, as well as suggested reading.
I sadly did not make it to every group during my stint as Convenor, but I managed to visit Suffolk, Surrey and Sussex groups, Bath (Wessex), Birmingham, Cardiff and Dorset, Yorkshire, Hemel Hempstead, North London, and Edinburgh – a couple of them more than once.
Kind members in various parts of the country put me up when some of my trips involved more than a day away. David Boulton organised one or two enjoyable residential weekends at Glenthorne, the Quaker retreat and conference centre, which a number of us attended, together with family members. These were great for group bonding, as were a number of planning weekends which the Steering Committee, later the SOF Trust, held for its early autumn meetings at the Gladstone’s Library in Flintshire.
One of my happiest SOF memories was a meeting we held at the latter in the depths of winter, when we had all somehow managed to get there despite deep snow. We made it out of the lane slipping and sliding for a jolly drink or two in the evening at the pub in the village.
I had joined the North West England group after its first meeting in 1991. The group initially met on the Fylde near Lytham St Anne’s before moving to venues in Preston and later Penwortham, where it thrived for many years. In 2001 I founded the Merseyside group, as we had accrued more members from further south and east. We have somehow kept going ever since, sustained by a faithful membership enhanced by additional new blood from North Wales. Since the Pandemic we have been mostly meeting by Zoom, which not everyone likes, but which solves the problem of our membership spanning a large area. A bright room in Liverpool’s Quaker Meeting House, which is reasonably accessible by public transport from all over our region, makes a pleasant venue for the occasional face-to-face meeting. For us in Merseyside food and drink have been important components to enhance our face-to-face discussion, as is the case with the North London group.
It saddens me greatly to see the collapse of many of our local groups over the last fifteen years or so, due to ageing and the loss of their early cohorts. These included the once popular SoFiC (Sea of Faith in the Churches) group, initiated by the redoubtable Ronald Pearse. The collapse is inevitable in many ways, but something we have been aware of for at least half the time of our existence. The concerns that brought the original cohorts in are rarely those of the seekers and enquirers nowadays, and anyway society today has changed so much.
When it comes to joining societies and clubs that are not about singing in choirs or taking part in sport, the market for such membership has dwindled drastically. Today many adults across the age groups appear to be satisfied with social media alone, and cannot be bothered to put time aside to engage with others face-to-face, especially if it means travelling for any distance to do so.
Let us hope that our remaining active groups long continue to inspire others with fresh ideas for discussion, and even prompt a renaissance of new groups.