Fall Sessions 2014

November 16–16, 2014
Fifteenth Street Meetinghouse
New York, New York

Welcome . . .

. . . to the landing page for Fall Sessions 2014. This page replaces the original landing page, which you can open by clicking the link below.

Sandra Steingraber
Saturday evening speaker
Credit: www.laurakozlowski.com

Highlights. New York Quarterly Meeting welcomed a record number of Friends to Fall Sessions 2014—196 Friends, of whom 26 were teens. We heard a challenging and inspiring messge from Sandra Steingraber, a well-known biologist, author, poet, mother, and activist. Her address, "Hydrofracking, the State of our State, and the Witness of Civil Disobedience," combined her own personal experience and sense of urgency with scientific explanation to call us to action. We approved the 2015 budget and approved next steps in implementing the Priorities that we approved at Summer Sessions. And the host committee continued the practice, begun in Fall Sessions 2013, of providing a rich Quaker program for young Friends, who attended these sessions in record numbers.

Links to Sessions documents and information

• Sessions documents
  • Minutes of Fall Sessions
  • NYYM 2015 Budget
  • General Secretary's report
  • General Secretary's oral message to the body
  • Clerks' report on the Meeting Visitation Initiative
  • Consent Agenda
  • Minute on interim decisions—approved
  • Report of the items approved by the clerk and general secretary in the interims between sessions since 2010
  • Development Committee Report
  • Priorities Working Group
    • Priorities Working Group Report
    • Minutes proposed to Address Implementation and Assessment of the Statement of Leadings and Priorities—first reading
  • Minute for the Release of Leonard Peltier—approved
  • Epistle from the 2014 sessions of Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting
  • Epistle from the 2014 Quaker Youth Pilgrimage
  • Inspirational theme and invitation for Summer Sessions 2015
• Saturday evening program: Sandra Steingraber
• Youth Program
• A link to the original Fall Sessions information page

Saturday evening program: Sandra Steingraber addresses Fall Sessions

Hydrofracking, the State of our State, and the Witness of Civil Disobedience

Sandra Steingraber speaking at Fall Sessions

Ithaca Friend Sandra Steingraber is a biologist, an author and poet, and a tireless activist. She began with a personal story of how surviving cancer and being adopted led her to return to her home town to study the epidemiology of cancer there and ultimately to write her much-acclaimed book, Living Downstream: An Ecologist's Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment. She went on to detail the science of hydrofracking and the plans to store natural gas in a salt dome near Seneca Lake, her home. She emphasized the central role that fossil fuels play in many of our environmental and social problems, described her involvement in civil disobedience against the construction of the storage plant, born of a tremendous sense of urgency. And she called us to action.

On Sunday afternoon, Sandra met with Friends to answer questions and consult with them about how to find our way forward on this critical issue.