NEYM P&SC Committee Meeting
Sunday, December 20, 2009 at 07:02PM
16 December 2009
www.Skype.com
Present: Mary Ellen Cohane, Erbin Crowell, Katherine Fisher, Ian Harrington, Stephen McKnight, Aggie Mitchkoski, Nancy Shippen, and Lillie Wilson
We opened with silence.
Website
Aggie took us on a tour of the website. We each have a login id (the password is the same); ask Aggie what yours is if you don’t know. You can login after clicking on “login” in the upper right-hand corner of the home page of the website (http://neympsc.squarespace.com/). A double click on “PSC Committee Minutes” on the left-hand side (under “Navigation”) gives you access to a part of the site reserved for the committee (including pictures of us – please send one to Aggie if you haven’t yet – and “committee conversations”).
There are some pages already set up, but others can be set up (such as for AVP). Contact Aggie if you would like to do so. Stephen is thinking about what to put on the Israeli-Palestine page. Check it out and be sure to add your posts.
Priorities
We reviewed the draft statement of priorities sent out with the notes from our previous committee meeting. It was:
The NEYM Peace & Social Concerns Committee affirms the following priorities for the year ahead:
1. To collect and provide information to Friends, including but not limited to monthly meetings and their Peace & Social Concerns Committees, on a variety of important issues determined in consultation with Friends in New England (perhaps a web survey or other tool could help us discern what issues are of interest to Friends).
2. To assist monthly and quarterly meetings, as well as Friends individually, with networking (seen as helping make visible the work being done and the concerns being carried at the quarterly and monthly meeting level, and helping Friends communicate with one another, in order to help Friends cooperate and support one another in their work and witness.
(these first 2 functions will primarily be conducted through developing and updating the new P&SC webpages on the NEYM website)
3. To support the Planning Committee for extended meetings for worship at the quarterly meeting (or regional) level with a concern for the state of our world, in partnership with Ministry & Counsel and Earthcare Ministries.
4. To prayerfully prepare for Sessions 2010, including soliciting or accepting proposals for workshops on relevant issues, organizing witness, service, and educational activities for Yearly Meeting Sessions, and seasoning relevant minutes to be brought to Sessions as appropriate.
5. Articulating a one-paragraph, clearly-worded "charge" for the committee, defining its role in relation to the other committees of NEYM and other Peace & Social Concerns Committees at the monthly and quarterly meeting levels.
In order to work towards these priorities we encourage all members to attend as many meetings as possible, respond promptly to e-mails, and support the committee's tasks as much as possible.
An additional priority was added: to identify and develop corporate action for the yearly meeting as way opens.
Since the statement of priorities was not available in print for everyone’s review, we decided to discuss it further at our next meeting.
Extended Worship
Aggie presented a summary of the Extended Worship gathering hosted by Connecticut Valley Quarterly Meeting at Hartford on 5 December. Those present felt it was very rewarding, and there are efforts to schedule another such gathering in that Quarter in the next month or two.
Salem Quarter is planning an Extended Worship gathering at Wellesley on 13 March, and Northwest Quarter is planning a gathering on 6 March.
Future Meetings
Our next in-person meeting is set for Saturday 30 January at Wellesley Meeting. We found this conference call meeting to be a nice way of reconnecting, so we talked of scheduling a meeting early in January 2010. Katherine Fisher offered to send a Meeting Wizard message to find the best time for the next conference call. Those who can’t use Skype can be included in the conference call by giving Aggie a phone number to call.
Reader Comments (1)
Ian has heard from Noah Merrill that he will not be able to continue on with the NEYM PSC committee. This is sad news but we wish him well and hope that our paths will cross in the future. Noah will continue to work with the Extended Worship Planning Group.