Community, Good Practice, Good Practice, Inclusion, Outreach, Quaker A-Z, Spiritual Practice, Sustainability

Quaker A-Z: S is for Simplicity

Simple Things

Communicating with others doesn’t have to be complicated.

It can be simple. You just need to decide who you want to talk to, and about what.

Then work out what is required, and who can do that – remembering that you don’t have to do it all.

What do you want to achieve? What do you want to communicate to others? Often when we start working with a new client they’ll tell us about the failures

– the website that doesn’t work because the person who controls/created it isn’t around anymore…

– the newsletter that lapsed because it all got too complicated with GDPR or the community is too fractured…

– the lack of people, energy, or other resources…

– a list of other failed projects, or ideas that never even got that far…

We encourage people to do an outreach audit so they can see all that is being done and by whom, and then decide what to focus on.

If your priority is building community across the worshipping community or charity’s geographical space – what could you do with the resources available?
If your priority is building up income streams – what is needed to encourage people to donate more, hire your space or give you grants?
If your priority is letting people locally know you exist, and would welcome them – how can you do that?

Don’t get overloaded, blue sky thinking or a threshing meeting will help generate ideas but you also need to be open to discern what you need to focus on. Always with the underlying reminder that living faithfully as a worshiping community is what we are called to do in the world.

Incomparably the most important thing is that each one of us should be sensitive to the call of God to ourselves and not spend time in passing judgment on the lives of others. To some the call will be to adopt the witness of great simplicity, perhaps to live in an Indian village or in a London slum. To others the most important thing will be to maintain our ancient testimony against ‘fightings with outward weapons, for any end, or under any pretence whatever’. But perhaps most will be called to the humdrum tasks of serving an employer supremely well, or running a house, bringing up a family, keeping the peace with difficult neighbours, serving the community in little things – the tasks which, because they are simple, are in fact most difficult to do with dedication… Our duty is to be sensitive to what God is asking us to do, and not to dissipate our energies trying to be absolutists in several directions at once.

Industry and the Social Order Conference, 1958 Tweet

Simple things stand out

You want visitors to your building learn about you as a worshiping community? That they’re welcome and perhaps something about the values you share?

Putting up a poster inside or out and then updating them when they get battered is fairly low energy.
Add a sign over the recycling, or point out that you use 100% green energy by a light switch. Simple signs to start people thinking.

You want to let people in the local area know what happens inside your building? Encourage hirers and support them so they continue to use your building?

A noticeboard outside your building with flyers reviewed and updated regularly is fairly simple (as long as you don’t lose the keys!)
A pop up banner or A frame sign can be put out if you’re off the main road or not easily visible.

You want people in the local area to find you if they do a web search?

Advertising in local directories or local focused publications is often free.
Setting up a simple domain and website giving information about what happens, that everyone is welcome and with directions and a way to ask questions is all you need. More pages might be fun, but aren’t necessary.
You can claim your Google Business profile and let Google manage almost everything for you.

If you’ve not read July’s post: O is for online presence click here!

You want to build connections between different parts of your community?

Choose a date and invite everyone to come to the building for something low energy such a coffee morning, or tie it to another bigger event such as Quaker week, or a local festival/event.
Partner with another organisation by offering space for an event they organise.
Organise a spiritual awayday or course – everything from watching the Swarthmore Lecture on YouTube and then talking about it, to going away for a long weekend at a retreat.

There will be something simple (which might be low key and low energy) you can do to work towards the goals you want to focus on.

Ask someone else to do it

You probably already ask someone to clean the building, tend the garden, look after the various systems that keep the building safe, compliant and functioning. You can do the same thing for communications.

If you have a Facebook page you can reuse posts such as ‘we meet at xxx and everyone is welcome’, or share posts from other organisations rather than needing to create your own content. You can use tools to schedule posts in batches so you don’t have to be constantly monitoring and responding – more on that next post!

For Quakers you can

get advice from Local Development Workers, support through drop in sessions run by both volunteers and central work staff, posters and outreach materials from Quakers in Britain,
have your website and domain managed by Quaker Meetings Network,
your communications supported by Discovering Quakers who reach out both to the public and to Quaker communities.
Yes, of course you can also ask us for help and advice!

For free – you can start by reading through blog categories such as Marketing, Outreach, Community, Inclusion and of course all of this year’s Quaker A-Z theme is focused on Communication.

"You may know that early Friends lived this testimony by wearing plain clothes; eschewing materialism; and living frugal, plain lifestyles. You may have heard that Quakers do not put particular stock in holidays, and this practice is part of simplicity, too. Christmas and Easter are no more holy than another day. Special rituals, special music, special prayers, special buildings—these things can be of the spirit, but it is because we bring spirit to them, not the other way around. And we must take care that they do not distract us from what’s most important: attending to and loving the spirit, and one another."

Anna McCormally, 2020 Former Friends Committee on National Legislation staff member

Wendrie Heywood

MBS Founder

Our blog has over a decade’s worth of inspiration, advice and musings from our team members. Search through our categories and tags to see what we have to say on whatever you’re curious about.