NYYM Handbook: Advancement Committee

ADVANCEMENT COMMITTEE (2000)

Purposes and Objectinves

1. To disseminate widely an awareness of the faith, practice, and testimonies of Friends and to encourage their observance by monthly, quarterly, and regional meetings and by members of the Yearly Meeting.
2. To reach out to seekers.
3. To knit Friends and Friends meetings more closely together.
4. To encourage outreach and growth in existing meetings, to undergird and strengthen weak meetings, and to help new worship groups.

Functions & Activities

1. To promote intervisitation among meetings.
2. To arrange for conferences, seminars, and similar activities for study and consideration of Friends’ principles by members and attenders.
3. To find or prepare articles, leaflets, or books by and about Friends and to make them available to meetings and individuals.
4. To assist in the organization of new monthly meetings.
5. To arrange meetings and to speak to interested groups outside the Society about Friends’ principles and
6. To distribute funds made available by the Yearly Meeting Trustees and New York Quarterly Meeting, for repairing meetinghouses, for training meeting workers, and for assisting Friends to attend sessions of Yearly Meeting and other Friends’ gatherings.

In addition to the functions and activities of the committee as a whole, there is an individual responsibility of members to nurture their own local and regional meetings and to travel in the Yearly Meeting and to groups of seekers with Friends’ message of peace, love, and healing.

Organization & Method of Appointment

The committee appoints a clerk, an assistant clerk, a treasurer, a literature clerk, and a representative to the Nurture Coordinating Committee. The committee comprises from eighteen to twenty- one members appointed by the Yearly Meeting for three-year terms, with approximately one-third appointed each year.

Meeting Times & Places

The committee meets during Yearly Meeting Sessions and at the time of December Representative Meeting. Other meetings may be held at other times during the year.

Finances

The work of the Advancement Committee is financed in part by the income from certain trust funds. The committee is responsible for distributing the income of the following trust funds:

1. Martin Leach Fund—This is for the general work of the committee.
2. Lafayette Avenue Meeting House Fund—This is for training present or potential meeting workers. This fund comes from part of the proceeds of the sale of the Lafayette Avenue Meeting House in Brooklyn, New York. The trustees of New York Quarterly Meeting distribute this fund to the Advancement Committee.
3. Lockport-Brinkerhoff Fund—This is for the repair and maintenance of meeting proper- ties. The Advancement Committee receives requests from meetings and makes recommendations to Yearly Meeting Sessions for its final approval.
4. Women’s Fund—This fund is to help women attend Yearly Meeting Sessions.