Summer Sessions 2018

Find It Quickly:

• Week-at-a-Glance
• Descriptions of the Interest Groups
• Session Documents — Documents shared for Meeting for Worship with a concern for Business.
• Plenary Speaker, and Visitors to Sessions

Photo by Ted Shuster

Abbondanza!

What is our abundance?

How do we share it?

 

The Clerk’s Invitation to Summer Sessions 2018

 

"Abbondanza! What is our abundance? How do we share it?"

 

We decided on the queries that are this year’s Summer Sessions theme in a committee meeting. We were about to move to the next item when someone said “abbondanza!” and it took off from there. It was a time of abundance in Sessions Committee. We tried to think of the word for abundance in all the languages we knew. Of course, we googled it, and we were delighted by the loveliness of the word when written in Arabic. We wondered how hard it would be to learn to sign it. It was an abundance of abundance.

 

Every time you look at your Week-at-a-Glance at Summer Sessions you will see this abundance of abundance. You may be able to add more. Maybe you can dance, sing or draw it. Our cup overflows; we shall dwell in the house of the Lord for many long days (using Robert Alter’s 23^rd Psalm translation).

 

We will be blessed to have long July days together, Friends. Please come to Summer Sessions – for work, for play, for rest and renewal, for worship, and to share our abundance with each other and the world.

 

Lucinda Antrim

Clerk, NYYM

 

 

Advance Reports

• Advance Reports - These are the annual reports from the committees and staff of NYYM. Whether you are new to NYYM, or a seasoned veteran of committee work, the Advance Reports are the best source to learn about the amazing work happening around New York Yearly Meeting.

AGENDA ITEMS

• Business Agenda
• Treasurer's Report from June 2018
• General Secretary's Report
• State of Society Report
• Report from NYYM Personnel Committee
• Report from Meeting for Discernment
• Recommendation from Sessions Committee for Pay as Led model at NYYM Summer Sessions
• Report from the Priorities Support Working Group
• Consent Agenda
  • Nominations for 2018 — Final version
  • Interim Actions Report from Clerk and General Secretary
    • Amicus Brief against the DACA, signed by the Clerk and General Secretary
  • Proposed changes to NYYM Bylaws from the Trustees of NYYM
• Travel Minute for Sue Regen
• Powell House Strategic Plan
• Minute of Support for Green Haven Prison Worship Group
• FGC Institutional Racism Report
• Progress Report from FGC's Institutional Assessment Working Group
• Report from Belize City Friends Center

 

PLENARY SPEAKER, JACQUELINE STILLWELL (MONADNOCK, NEYM)

Jacqueline Stillwell, General Secretary of Right Sharing of World Resources, shares the abundance of God’s love by working for equity through partnerships around the world.

 

Jackie grew up in Reading Meeting, PA. She has a B.A from Friends World College and an M.S. in Organization/Management from Antioch New England. Jackie has lived abroad in England, Norway and spent nearly a decade in Guatemala, three years of which were serving in the Peace Corps. She has also led five trips to Cuba to visit NEYM’s sister Yearly Meeting. For 22 years Jackie served as Head of The Meeting School, an experiment in education and simple living in Quaker community. At The Meeting School, Jackie experienced the joys and challenges of faithful living with integrity and embracing conflict as opportunity for transformation. She has traveled widely among Friends with FWCC, FGC, and FUM, serving as an elder and workshop facilitator (Friends decision-making, clerking, Friends organizational governance, Power of Enough) at monthly, quarterly, yearly meetings and Friends schools. Jackie strives to understand how our social, cultural and class experiences influence our perspectives on need and want.

 

Sharing God’s Abundant Love: Expect Grace, Miracles and Transformation

 

While serving as the clerk of New England Yearly Meeting, Jackie labored with the community as they faithfully discerned a “Pay As Led” system for financing Annual Sessions. How can a community resist the fears of scarcity instilled by society and instead trust their collective power to provide for one another? How can sharing your gifts change your life and that of our sisters and brothers? Jackie brings the message that we can choose to find our power of enough through faithful listening, resisting the status quo and accepting God’s grace. Having enough does not mean having it all, it does mean having what is needed to do God’s work. She invites us to know God’s abundant love, share the gifts given to us, and trust that God will provide for our needs. This is an invitation to be fearlessness in taking risks, making mistakes and becoming successful in the pursuit of Truth. As the General Secretary of Right Sharing of World Resources, Jackie has seen first-hand the ways in which sharing one’s abundance has a transformative effect for individuals and communities across the world. In her work, Jackie encourages everyone to find the balance of what is “enough” and to release the rest. Through recognizing that we all belong to one another and believing in the abundance of God, we can manifest a world in which we are all embraced lovingly and provided for.

 

Shelley Tanenbaum, General Secretary for Quaker Earthcare Witness (QEW)

Shelley will be spending the week with at Silver Bay. Shelley combines her lifelong love of nature with many years of environmental advocacy and research. She has served as staff and a board member of QEW, Quaker Institute for the Future, Earthlight Magazine and many other non-profit organizations. She is an environmental scientist with a focus on air quality. Shelley lives in the San Francisco area and is a member of Strawberry Creek Monthly Meeting.

 

Shelley combines her lifelong love of nature with many years of environmental advocacy and research. She has served as staff and a board member of QEW, Quaker Institute for the Future, Earthlight Magazine and many other non-profit organizations. She is an environmental scientist with a focus on air quality. Shelley lives in the San Francisco area and is a member of Strawberry Creek Monthly Meeting. Quaker Earthcare Witness (QEW) is a network of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in North America and other like-minded people who are taking spirit-led action to address ecological and social crises from a spiritual perspective, emphasizing Quaker process and testimonies, including continuing revelation.

 

QEW has grown over the last 25 years out of a deepening sense of spiritual connection with the natural world. Out of this has come an urgency to work on climate and related issues.

 

Oliver Waterhouse, Assistant Head of Ministry & Outreach for Britain Yearly Meeting

Oliver will be with us all week and we hope that Friends, Monthly Meetings, and Yearly Meeting Committees will take good use of the opportunity to meet him, share a meal, and learn new perspectives on familiar issues. In the course of his work, Oliver is involved directly in the following areas:

• Eldership and oversight (ministry and council) support for Quaker meetings
• Conflict in meetings
• Mental health in meetings
• End of life issues
• Employment (and supporting meetings with employing people)

He also can share current leadings in Britain Yearly Meeting on areas of:

• Safeguarding (child protection)
• Book of discipline revision
• Church governance, including initiatives for alternative paths to membership in the Yearly Meeting