23-58 Welcome and Gratitude
Susan Davies (Vassalboro), clerk of the Permanent Board, thanked Mt. Toby Friends for preparing a welcome to us. This included setting up the technology for our meeting and preparing the coffee and food for those of us meeting in person.
23-59 Roll Call
Willa Taber (Fresh Pond), Recording Clerk for the Permanent Board read the roll.
Bold is present in the room. Underline is present on Zoom [italicized here].
Susan Davies (PB Clerk), Willa Taber (PB Recording Clerk), Deana Chase, Darcy Drayton, Martin Forsythe, Christopher Gant, Elizabeth Hansen, Ian Harrington, Newell Isbell Shinn, Roger Jasaitis, Carolyne Lamar Jordan, Meg Klepack, Frances Lightsom, Edward Mair, Anna Radocchia, Bob O’Connor, Allison Randall, John Reuthe, Martha Schwope, Liesa Stamm, Eleanor Warnock, Diane Weinholtz, Donn Weinholtz, Morgan Wilson, Kathleen Wooten, Mary Zwirner, Leslie Manning
Ex-officio members
Scot Drysdale (Finance Clerk), Sarah Gant (Clerk, Meeting Accompaniment Group), Rebecca Leuchak (Presiding Clerk), Noah Merrill (YM Secretary), Robert Murray (YM Treasurer), Elizabeth Reuthe (YM Secretary Supervisor), Carl Williams (Clerk of Ministry and Counsel)
Regrets
Kimberly Allen, Thomas Brenner, Christopher McCandless, Carole Rein, Jackie Stillwell (Clerk of Nominating Committee)
Visitors
Nia Thomas, Peter Blood-Patterson, Nicola Metcalf, Honor Woodrow, John Ridgeway, Jennie Isbell Shinn, Sadie Forsythe, Andrew Grant, Mey Hasbrook, Kathy Olson, David Colleta, Kristina Keefe-Perry, Nan Davies, Mary Link, Katie Bond, Melody Brazo, Marian Dalton, Melissa Foster, Phebe McCosker, Polly Atwood, Pamela Tierrien, Fran Brokaw, Elizabeth Hacala, Michelle Wright, Janet Hough
23-60 Embodiment Exercise
Continuing our practice of supporting the work of being gathered in our individual bodies into the corporate body, Jennie Isbell Shinn (Mt Toby) led us in some exercises to share a framework for grounding and techniques for anchoring into the present moment in order to be more fully present with our full selves. She asked us, “What helps you to be more present to Spirit in meeting? What conditions free you to tend to the leadings of the Spirit?” She then asked, “How can this body support you being available to the Spirit? How can you support others in this body to be available to Spirit?” She introduced us to sensory anchors to help us bring ourselves back to our bodies and to focus in the moment. These included noticing the space between our fingers, noticing the back of our bodies, noticing our feelings, and noticing our thoughts. Where are you when you are not in our body? Are you in the future, in the past, or in a story that does not relate to what is happening to you now? She ended by reminding us that we are practicing to be a beloved community.
23-61 Permanent Board Clerk's opening comments
Susan Davies, Permanent Board clerk, started by responding to some questions that came to her about the inclusion of travel minutes in the advance documents. Leslie Manning (Durham), the former Permanent Board clerk, was faithful in checking in with people who traveled in the ministry for the Permanent Board. Including the minutes is a way to be faithful to the reporting back of the travels that they have undertaken. There were various other documents that are not part of the work which we are undertaking today but which may be of interest to members or may relate to work that will come to us in future meetings, including the interim report from the 3 Rivers Visiting Committee and the Memorial Minute for Richard Regen.
Susan also reported that, on her own initiative and with the support of the Coordinating and Advisory Committee (C&A) she called a closed meeting of the Permanent Board, held over Zoom on November 27, 2023, for the purpose of strengthening relationships among Permanent Board members. The meeting was an opportunity to recognize the Permanent Board’s role in ensuring the accountability of the Coordinating and Advisory Committee to the Permanent Board and the Yearly Meeting, and to lift up Permanent Board members’ responsibility to care for the entire body of Friends in NEYM. The dialogue was fruitful, direct, and open. She expects continuing the dialogue will contribute to improving our relationships, and the functioning of the Board, as it seeks to be faithful to the charge it has been given by New England Yearly Meeting.
23-62 Approval of Minute 23-36
Minute 23-36, Recommendation from July 15, 2023, Listening Session for Salem Quarter, for Three Rivers Worship Group, from the August 5, 2023 Permanent Board Meeting was not approved with the rest of the minutes at our September 30, 2023, meeting. A revised minute, here attached, was brought back for approval.
Friends approved the revised minute. All of the minutes from the August 5 Permanent Board Meeting have now been approved.
23-63 Approval of Minute 23-39
Minute 23-39, Concern for Youth and Youth Ministries, from our August 9 Permanent Board Meeting was not approved at our September 30, 2023, meeting. A revised version of this minute is attached.
Friends approved the revised minute. All of the minutes from the August 9 Permanent Board Meeting have now been approved.
23-64 September 30 Permanent Board Minutes
The minutes from the September 30 Permanent Board Meeting, here attached, were presented.
The minutes of the September 30, 2023, Permanent Board Meeting were approved.
23-65 Presiding Clerk’s report
Rebecca Leuchak (Providence), NEYM presiding clerk, reported that she worked with Hisham Awartani, one of the students shot in Burlington, and this has touched her deeply. Another of the students in her department also took their life. This has been a tough time for her.
She is excited and hopeful about new initiatives that are rising in the Coordinating and Advisory Committee but are not yet ready to come forward.
She attended the Friends General Conference Central Committee annual gathering at Pendle Hill in October and learned much more about that organization. She also attends Legacy Gift meetings and meetings of the Notice Patterns of Oppression and Faithfulness and Right Relations Working groups.
23-66 Report from the Coordinating and Advisory Committee
Rebecca Leuchak presented the report from the Coordinating and Advisory Committee, here attached.
Kathleen Wooten (Lawrence) and Liesa Stamm (Hartford) have volunteered to start the work of setting the priorities for NEYM contributions to outside organizations, but they have not been given a specific charge. C&A hopes to bring a charge for that group in February. C&A also would welcome other people to join in this work.
23-67 Developing an Ongoing Capacity and Practice of Consultation and Reflection on Youth Ministries
Nia Thomas (Northampton), Yearly Meeting Program Director, presented a proposal for developing a practice of regular, cyclical, reviews of Youth Ministries work, here attached.
She sees these consultations happening over a 3-year cycle. The youth ministries committee has been inactive because it has not been properly peopled. She hopes that in February the Nominating Committee will bring back a full slate for the committee and that this reconstituted committee will bring a timeline for the consultation to us in May.
Proposal: That the Youth Ministries Committee (which is composed of NEYM’s Youth
Ministries staff and six volunteer members) undertake consistent, robust, creative, and widely consultative listening to inform youth ministry decisions and to provide more transparency, accountability, and support for our youth ministries.
Rather than seek to address these issues “once and for all,” we are imagining a cyclical process, regularly returning to essential questions to continually improve and build resilience in our youth ministries. Taking place every 1 to 3 years, this consultative cycle may take multiple forms of engagement (written reports, online or in-person gatherings, calls to local meetings and individual youth ministers, focus groups, etc.), but should be grounded in the questions below and should culminate in a periodic report shared with the wider Yearly Meeting for comment and ongoing conversation. Insights from these reports would then inform funding priorities, staffing
responsibilities, and other important discernment of New England Friends.
Reflection questions for youth ministers, interested youth, and parents to respond to at
least annually:
- What recent stories related to youth ministry should the wider Yearly Meeting hear?
- Based on your recent experiences, what challenges and possibilities do you see related to the following:
- Current and emerging models of youth ministry
- The spiritual condition of youth, families, and youth ministers
- Quaker faith formation
- Outreach to youth and families
- What new experiments seem ripe to try in the above areas? What current work do you sense should be deprioritized or set aside?
- What do you see as current indicators of the health of the path we are on in regards to youth ministry?
- What resources, relationships, and connections seem most vital to this ministry at this time?
- Is there any support needed to sustain this ministry that is not currently being provided?
Today, we ask that the Permanent Board approve that the Youth Ministries Committee be tasked with leading ongoing, cyclical consultation regarding youth ministry, consistent with the description above. While the particular forms of consultation may change from year to year, the Youth Ministries Committee shall report to the Yearly Meeting as part of each consultation cycle.
Friends approved this proposal.
23-68 Charge to the Conflict Response Group
The Coordinating and Advisory Committee considers the way forward as a two-step process. First is the discerning of the charge of a working group on strengthening capacities for response to conflict rising in the life and work of the Yearly Meeting. That task requires a small group of Friends working in collaboration with the clerks of the Coordinating and Advisory Committee, Ministry and Counsel, and the Permanent Board. Many Friends across our meeting have been consulted for their perspectives and wisdom on this matter and two Friends have felt led to engage in this work; a third Friend is in discernment about serving.
Darcy Drayton is a long-time member of our Yearly Meeting and a career-long educator. She
served for many years on the Yearly Meeting Committee on Racial, Social, and Economic Justice.
Melody Brazo, serving on the Noticing Patterns Working Group, is also a long-time member of
the Yearly Meeting and an educator, who coordinated for 20 years an inclusion program in
the Cambridge public schools.
Friends approved Darcy Drayton and Melody Brazo to serve on the working group to discern the charge of a Conflict Response group.
23-69 Noticing Patterns Debrief
Newell Isbell Shinn (Mt. Toby) and Polly Atwood (FMC) reported on the October 18, 2023, Noticing practices debrief for our September meeting. The written report is attached.
Some of the learnings and questions from the debrief are:
- People will experience the same event differently.
- We bring their own history and experience to the same event.
- What do we do with the noticings? Where do we go with them?
We need to continue to hold this practice and to let it change us.
23-70 Yearly Meeting Secretary’s report
Noah Merrill (Putney), NEYM Secretary, said that he appreciates hearing people asking how they can improve our time together. He then spoke to his written report, here attached.
All members of the Permanent Board will be invited soon to make phone calls thanking our Give Monthly donors for their contributions to the YM. All members of the Permanent Board are encouraged to accept this invitation. If everyone makes a few calls, none will be overly burdened.
Noah reported that two people from Maine with strong relationships in the regional Jewish and
interfaith community have expressed tentative interest in assuming ownership of the North Fairfield meetinghouse (which has long been vacant while we sought future uses for the property) and transforming it into a multifaith community center for the region. Initial explorations are underway to see if this possibility might be viable. He hopes and expects to be able to devote more time to resolving the legal status and future of the North Fairfield and South Pittsfield properties in the new year and hopes to have more to report in February. Any decision would be brought to the Permanent Board for discernment and approval.
23-70.1 Budget Funding Priorities for FY2025
As many Friends are aware, the Funding Priorities process of the Yearly Meeting charges Coordinating & Advisory with bringing forward each fall recommended funding priorities to guide the Finance Committee in the preparation of the coming year’s budget. Our practice is that these priorities are approved by the Permanent Board; the final proposed budget is approved by Annual Sessions.
This is a time of uncertainty in our finances, as in other ways. The last two fiscal years have ended with deficits; despite responsive attention to needed changes, the Yearly Meeting is still feeling the effects of the disruptions caused by the pandemic and more. While recent fundraising efforts have been promising, aided by Friends newly energized to support the work of the Yearly Meeting, we still have work to do to rebuild a more robust financial position.
Several discernment processes are ongoing that may have financial implications for the Yearly Meeting (Sessions visioning & design, youth ministries, financial contributions to other organizations, and more). In recommending funding priorities this year, C&A feels it is important to take care not to get ahead of other ongoing discernment that may have financial implications.
Coordinating & Advisory is aware that, when Permanent Board approved (PB Minute 21-43) a commitment to paying honoraria to Friends serving in key volunteer leadership roles, there was a commitment to review and revisit this experiment after three years, beginning in the spring/summer of 2024. While this review may not be among the Board’s most urgent priorities or within the Yearly Meeting’s capacity this spring, C&A hopes the Permanent Board will give this review and reflection attention in a timely way, both to help us learn from this experiment, and to clarify whether this budget commitment of approximately $15,000 dollars annually will continue in an ongoing way.
In light of the above, the Coordinating & Advisory Committee recommends that, for the FY2025 budget process, the Permanent Board approve maintaining existing spending levels as much as possible, with particular attention to sustaining staffing at current levels, adjusted for inflation, health care, and other changes consistent with our policies.
Friends approved these budget priorities for FY2025.
23-71 Financial Contribution Discernment
The Finance committee has had trouble deciding on the proper balance of giving to other Friends organizations. The Permanent Board has already decided that it is not the work of the Finance committee to decide how that money is distributed. We lack a shared understanding of what principles and shared understandings underlie our decisions on what organizations we should support and what the relative allocation of the funds would be. Are our contributions a manifestation of a relationship? Are they an expression of our values? Are they a way to do good in the world?
In May 2021, Permanent approved (Minute 21-42) creation of a working group to help establish guidelines and a more spirit-led understanding of our intention behind the donations
that we make. This working group reported back to the April 2022, Permanent Board meeting (Minute 22-26) recommending that the Finance Committee prepare a budget with a total amount for contributions to other Friends organizations and that Permanent Board be responsible for allocating those funds among the other organizations and that it be laid down. The Permanent Board did not approve the specific recommendation, but it did lay down the working group with the understanding that the Board should continue work on this concern and requested that the Presiding Clerk consider making a spacious time for deep reflection on the concern for how we use our financial resources. In May 2023 (Minute 23-22), the Finance Committee recommended that, because of our financial condition, no contributions be made to any outside Quaker organizations in the FY 2024 budget. At that time the Permanent Board clerk announced that they have sent invitations to many people to serve on a working group to propose a process and criteria to guide the Yearly Meeting’s decisions about contributions, with the goal to develop such guidance prior to the September 2023 Permanent Board meeting. So far only Kathleen Wooten and Liesa Stamm have volunteered to work on this working group. The Coordinating and Advisory Committee will work with Kathleen Wooten and Liesa Stamm, to create a specific charge for this working group. They intend to bring a charge to the working group to the February meeting of the Permanent Board.
Friends approved the direction of this work.
23-72 Legacy Gift Committee
2024 Legacy Gift Review
Mary Link (Mt Toby) co-clerk of the Legacy Gift Committee and convenor of the 2024 Legacy Review Committee) reported on the process of the 10-year review of the Legacy Gift experiment. One overall result of the Legacy funds is that they have helped some individuals and meetings to feel more connected to NEYM, especially smaller meetings that previously were not certain about what they got from NEYM. Another unforeseen benefit to meetings has been learning about testing and supporting ministry and spiritual leadings. Some meetings learned about clearness committees or ministry care committees when a member applied for and received Legacy funding. One small meeting thought that they might need to sell the meetinghouse when the roof needed replacing, but felt the encouragement from NEYM via a Legacy grant and were able to successfully raise the rest of the funds.
The 2024 Legacy Review committee has been working for about 1½ years. It is composed of Mary Link, Legacy co-clerk; Fritz Weiss (Portland) as former presiding clerk; Bob Murray (Beacon Hill) as NEYM treasurer; and Suzanna Schell (Beacon Hill) as former Legacy co-clerk and one who helped with the original process and design of the Legacy Gift funds.
The Review Committee has so far prepared a brief history of the funds, a financial summary, and various other data. It is working on writing up the impacts to date. So far 40 of the 62 meetings in NEYM have been touched by Legacy funding. The remaining 22 meetings generally are very small meetings who may yet apply. In addition, over 20 other Friends' entities including Friends schools, Friends Camp, Woolman Hill, Beacon Hill Friends House, Quaker Voluntary Service, and NEYM committees have received grants.
Their goal is to include input from as many Friends as possible. They have sent out a survey to the NEYM meetings list and grantees list. The November and December NEYM newsletters have included a survey link and invited all Friends to fill out the survey. They have received only about 20 responses so far. Everyone is encouraged to respond to the survey and to ask their meetings and other Friends to do so as well. So far nearly all have survey respondents have said they want Legacy Gift to continue, with two saying maybe/that they needed more info.
The Legacy Gift Committee is exploring the idea of holding a workshop with a focus on Holy Abundance: Creating a Gospel Economy among NEYM Friends. They are currently planning this for March. They welcome collaboration with others who we heard during the meeting are clearly also exploring this overarching theme. Stay tuned.
The work of Legacy Gift Committee itself has grown, honoring the experience it has developed—by adding the Bodine-Rustin Fund, and taking on administration of Salem Quarterly Meeting funds while they are on sabbatical. The Legacy Gift Committee will likely need more support to carry out the extra work.
The 2024 Legacy Review committee plans to bring a first draft of its report and recommendations to the February Permanent Board meeting for review and feedback. The final report is expected to be brought to Sessions this summer.
Bodine-Rustin Fund
Mary Link continued in her role as co-clerk of the Legacy Gift Committee to report on the work of the Bodine-Rustin Fund. This is the second year of the fund. The Permanent Board and the Legacy Gift Committee share the administration of the Bodine-Rustin Fund. Grantees do not apply for grants but rather Friends make suggestions of LGBTQ+ related groups to distribute the funds to. These are annual suggestions so that if someone suggested an organization last year, they would need to recommend them again this year. So far this year the fund has not received any suggestions. The posted deadline is December 15, but they will receive them after that. Kristina Keefe-Perry is the FUM representative to the subcommittee that reviews the suggestions, along with two members of the Legacy Gift Committee. That subcommittee reviews the organizations and makes a proposal to the full committee for which ones to fund and funding amounts, which then goes to the Permanent Board for final approval. Our goal is to bring funding recommendations to the Permanent Board for the February meeting.
Last year’s contributions included a group in the Northeast Kingdom that put on their first Pride parade and Friends Uganda Safe Transport (FUST).
23-73 Travel to Cuba YM
Susan Davies reported on the recommendation of the Puente de Amigos Committee for travel to Cuba. The report on the approved delegation and the report of the clearness committee for travel to Cuba are both attached.
The Puente de Amigos Committee is pleased to support the leadings of Robert Watt of Providence Meeting and Christel Jorgensen of Cambridge Meeting to travel to Cuba to attend Cuba Yearly Meeting and immediately after that to facilitate a third Alternatives to Violence training in February 2024. Robert will leave on February 22, 2024, and return
on February 29. Christel will leave on February 21 and return on the 29th.
Friends approved this recommendation.
23-74 Travel Minute for Andrew Grant
Friends received a Travel Minute endorsed by Mt. Toby Meeting and Connecticut Valley Quarterly Meeting for Andrew Grant (Mt Toby) to travel outside the Yearly Meeting with a concern for healing relations with North American Indigenous people with a particular focus on repair of the ongoing harms of the boarding-school era when Quakers participated in the separation and assimilation of Indigenous children, here attached.
Friends approved endorsing this minute.
23-75 Nominating Committee
Beth Hansen (Westerly) brought forward the report from the Nominating Committee here attached.
NEYM Treasurer
The Nominating Committee recommends Marian Dalton (Brunswick) to serve as New England Yearly Meeting Treasurer for a term starting on December 9, 2023. Marian’s husband, Robb Spivey is currently serving as the Friends Camp Assistant Treasurer and is therefore a check signer. Robb would be released from being a check signer before Marian would be added as a signer on NEYM accounts.
Friends approved this nomination.
FWCC Representatives
Since Brianna Halliwell is Susan Davies’ daughter, Rebecca Leuchak clerked the following approval.
Friends approved Anna Lindo (Framingham Meeting) and Brianna Halliwell (Vassalboro Meeting) to be representatives to the Friends World Committee for Consultation, with terms ending in 2027, and to be delegates to the August 2024 FWCC Plenary.
23-76 Report on Antiracism Consultative Working Group
Kristina Keefe-Perry (Fresh Pond, Three Rivers) presented a report on the progress of the Antiracism Consultative Working Group. This Group was created at the November 2021 meeting of the Permanent Board. (Minute PB 21-104) Although the full scope of the work was unclear, the Board was clear that the planning and implementation work should move forward, and that professional expertise was needed. The Clerk of the Permanent Board and the Clerk of the Nominating Committee were authorized to appoint a working group having the needed expertise and experience to refine and articulate a more specific charge, set priorities for next steps, and bring the results back to the Permanent Board.
The first part of the work was to finalize the charge of this working group. This charge was finalized in May of 2022.
The intended outcome of the consultative process is to bring to the Permanent Board a framework and recommendations—a “roadmap”—for how the Yearly Meeting can concretely: 1) bring the perspectives and insights offered by antiracist theory and practice into the Yearly Meeting’s discernment and action as an institution, and 2) support and encourage local Friends meetings (monthly and quarterly) across our region, as they are led, to bring the perspectives and insights offered by antiracist theory and practice into their discernment and actions as worshiping communities, and into the discernment and actions of Friends as a regional corporate body.
Those appointed to the Antiracism Consultation Working Group were: Melody Brazo (Fresh Pond), Nia Thomas (Northampton), LVM Shelton (Plainfield), Morgan Wilson (Framingham), Becky Jones (Northampton, as a prayerful presence), Noah Merrill (Putney), and Kristina Keefe-Perry (Fresh Pond/Three Rivers). Leslie Manning, the Clerk of the Permanent Board at that time, was named clerk.
One of the most significant pieces of work the working group has done was to develop a Request For Proposals in our work of selecting a consultant.
Kristina read a part of that RFP:
New England Yearly Meeting of Friends (NEYM), an organization of Quakers in the northeastern United States, seeks a consultant to guide us in a process for becoming a more anti-racist organization.
We seek to develop a multi-year plan for action, a roadmap that can be used at all levels of the organization: including local monthly meetings and worship groups, the quarterly and yearly meetings in which they are nested, and the committees and individuals that are part of each of these communities.
We seek common goals, language, and processes that will guide us in living into our intention to challenge and dismantle white supremacy in ourselves and in our faith communities
The specific outcomes outlined in the RFP were:
- NEYM is seeking consultation to work with Yearly Meeting leadership, staff, and the Permanent Board to help us develop a process for living into our commitment to becoming an antiracist faith community.
- We seek to develop a multi-year plan for action, a roadmap that can be used throughout the organization through the development of common goals, language, and processes that will guide us in living into our intention to challenge and dismantle white supremacy in ourselves and in our faith community.
- We seek a process that is consistent with Quaker theology and practice. We hope to partner with consultants in our developing practices, in ways that further a commitment to and articulation of antiracism in ways that are authentic, relevant, and rooted in our faith tradition.
- We know that this work will involve digging into the spiritual roots of racism and white supremacy that underlie some of our traditions and practices. We cannot cling so tightly to tradition—for tradition’s sake—that it hinders our antiracist goals. We may need strategies that help us to let go of beloved historical understandings and practices. This will include responding to harm, as it arises, and addressing resistance.
The working group has solicited more than a handful of consultants. It has engaged in a group held interview with one of those and has hopes to interview another. The work has moved more slowly than the working group had imagined or wanted. However, the working group feels that it has moved at just the right pace.
The scope of this work is delicate and complex. It is intertwined with and colored, at this time, by what the Program Secretary, Nia Thomas, noted in their last meeting is a “trust deficit” that exists in the yearly meeting. They have labored and wondered if addressing that is impeding our work. They have concluded that, while it is not specifically our work, it is clear that it is deeply related to the work that is before them. They are hopeful that when it is right it will move to the next stage.
With a break for Sessions and the transition in Permanent Board clerks, our work slowed over the summer and early fall. We are looking forward to appointing an ongoing convener and setting a regular meeting schedule. The next piece of work in front of us is to interview the second consultant, select one, and begin the work of faithful collaboration.
23-77 Nomination to the NEYM Naming Committee
Susan Davies presented the report on her nominations to service to the yearly meeting, here attached.
Friends approved the nomination of Darcy Drayton (Souhegan) to serve on the Naming Committee.
23-78 Minute of Exercise
This meeting had a much different spirit and feel than our September 30 meeting. Discussions were more focused on the immediate issues at hand and less on personalities or larger patterns of behavior. Many people attributed this change in part to the conversation that was started at our called meeting on November 27. Other factors contributing to this change may also be that there were no controversial items on the agenda, or that people were on their best behavior. While this was a good start, we still have more work to do on the conflicts affecting us and the yearly meeting at large.
We started with embodiment exercises that encouraged us to be aware of our bodies as a grounding for our decision making. Even with this, we found ourselves revisiting a decision after we had made it. We need to learn to trust our discomfort, and give it a voice. Sometimes just saying, “Something about this decision makes me uncomfortable but I am not sure what it is,” can give the body a chance to pause and find together what is amiss.