EMES (“European and Middle East Section) is the collective body for Quaker meetings in Europe and the Middle East. They are doing a survey to find out what Quakers in Europe need and how EMES can support them. Here is the invitation to the survey and some explanation of the survey project.
Please complete the survey yourself and secondly: could you please share the survey with Friends in your meetings and Quaker communities? The deadline is May 31st for this survey. You can find the ministry and outreach survey here: forms.gle/n4aQs6b9XJvkWcTY7
Background information from EMES to explain what the reasons for the survey are:
“Since 2020, our ministry and outreach work supporting Friends and meetings has been part of our core work rather than a separate programme. COVID has also changed our work in ways we had not imagined by increasing online opportunities for building community and worship. We felt it would be important to create a short survey to ask Friends across the Section about their engagement and needs in this area to see how we can better serve the spiritual support and nurture of Friends spiritual lives in the Section.
Our ministry and outreach work serves to nurture and support the spiritual lives of Friends, individually and corporately, as well as to strengthen outreach efforts across the Section. EMES staff and roleholders work closely with Quaker Meetings, groups and isolated Friends to offer a variety of resources and opportunities for both online and face-to-face learning and fellowship. At one time, the Ministry and Outreach programme centred on intervisitation across the section with a dedicated staff person and funding, but in the last 5 years as more of EMES’ activities shifted online and we no longer had a staff person in that role, our understanding of this work has shifted.”