Permanent Board minutes | May 13, 2017

17-17 Opening Worship: Friends gathered in worship at Amesbury Friends Meeting. Paula Chase, Amesbury’s clerk, welcomed Friends to the historic meeting house, whose windows were designed by John Greenleaf Whittier, giving a welcome view of spring leaves throughout the day.

17-18 Opening Exercise on Undoing White Supremacy: Lisa Graustein led Friends in a “dismantling white supremacy culture” exercise (attached). Naming patterns that further a culture of white supremacy (such as fear of conflict, worship of the written word, and others), Lisa invited Friends to choose one of these characteristics and break into small groups for discussion. She invited Friends to notice when these cultural characteristics might surface during the day’s meeting, together with any conscious adjustments that might occur.

17-19 Roll Call:

Present: Sarah Gant, Clerk; Becky Steele, Recording Clerk; Holly Baldwin, Deana Chase, Susan Davies, Jeremiah Dickinson, Hannah Zwirner Forsythe, Christopher Gant, Ian Harrington, Rebecca Leuchak Christopher McCandless, Jean McCandless, Carole Rein, Elias Sanchez-Eppler, Karen Sanchez-Eppler, Suzanna Schell, Sara Smith, Bill Walkauskas, Donn Weinholtz, Rosemary Zimmerman, Mary Zwirner

Regrets: Justice Erikson, Ben Guaraldi, Leana Kantt, Anna Radocchia, Philip Stone Absent: Kimberly Allen, Galen Hamann, Tom Jackson, Elizabeth Szatkowski

Ex Officio: Noah Merrill (YM Secretary), Shearman Taber (Treasurer), Fritz Weiss (Presiding Clerk)

Visitors and Staff: Sam Bailey, Paula Chase, Lisa Graustein, Anna Hopkins, Leslie Manning, Ed Mair, Elizabeth Reuthe, Jennie Isbell Shinn, Honor Woodrow, Kathleen Wooten

17-20 Minutes: Friends approved minutes from the 18 February 2017 PB meeting.

17-21 Presiding Clerk’s report: The Presiding Clerk referred to his written report (attached). Quoting “sing a most jubilant song,” he noted that Whitman was able to write a song of joy even in the face of his service in a Civil War hospital. The Clerk prayed that Friends would leave at the end of the day with hearts filled with joy.

17-22 Yearly Meeting Secretary’s report. The Secretary referred to his written report (attached), and shared how he had experienced a feeling of life rising from a recent conversation with a monthly meeting clerk about the relationship and communications between the monthly meeting and the yearly meeting. The Secretary also expressed his joy at working with the new Friends Camp Director, Anna Hopkins.

Friends considered the following requests from the Secretary:

• Moses Brown School after-school program: Moses Brown School, which leases its land from NEYM, is interested in a partnership with “SquashBusters,” which offers after-school sports-based programs. In keeping with the terms of the lease regarding use of the property, the Head of School notified NEYM. Friends authorized the Secretary, in consultation with YM legal counsel, to enter into discussions with the school about SquashBuster’s use of the land.

• “Beyond Diversity 101”: Last Sessions’ white supremacy minute committed NEYM to raise

$4,000 to help support a cultural competency audit for FGC, should FGC decide to conduct one (it did). If more than $4,000 was raised, Friends directed PB to use the excess “to support the work of interrupting white supremacy.” NEYM raised $1,500 above the $4,000 given to FGC. Friends approved using the excess funds to send meeting clerks, other NEYM leaders and staff to “Beyond Diversity 101” and other programs that work to dismantle white supremacy.

• The two 2016–2017 Living Faith gatherings were very successful. Friends approved continuing the gatherings. Friends will be invited to give feedback during Sessions 2017 to help staff and the organizing committee learn from this year’s experiment and plan for next year’s two gatherings. Friends expressed warm thanks to the committee, staff and volunteers whose hard work made the gatherings successes.

17-23 Friends Camp Director report: Following kudos from the YM Secretary about the new Friends Camp Director’s energy, hard work, and commitment, the Camp Director presented her report (attached). Highlights:

• Growth: right now, applications up 12% over last year, inviting discernment on how to handle the joyful problem of how to choose if there are more applicants than the camp can accommodate.
• The Director invited Friends to visit the camp and meet the camp staff.
• The Camp Director values developing the relationship with NEYM staff, particularly the YM’s youth programs staff.
• Moses Brown School will be sending its entire 9th grade class for a retreat in August.
• She would like to develop more ways to use the camp for retreats, workshops, and rentals.
• The reaccreditation process is underway and seems to be going well.
• She would also like to further earth stewardship at the Camp, as well as working on equity, diversity, and dismantling white supremacy.
• The director addressed the challenge of living fully into the good governance document recently approved by the YM. Friends were encouraged to approach Leslie Manning, clerk of Friends Camp Nominating Committee, if they are interested in serving.
• Friends passed a minute of appreciation to Betsy Muench, who is cycling off the committee, in appreciation for her many years of dedication and service to the Friends Camp.

17-24 Development report: Consultant Jennie Isbell Shinn presented recommendations and fruits of discernment from the Development Committee’s work.

Small groups discussed the relationship between money and ministry. After reconvening as a whole, Friends reviewed themes and observations. Some of the issues included how Friends talk—and don’t talk—about money, fears and concerns about lack of money or over-focusing on money, and the need to be tender with each other when talking about money.

The committee gathered information from Quakers about public ministers and ministries, life and joy in their worshipping communities, growing edges, relationships with wider Quaker world. The Committee listed several goals and presented a plan for Friends’ consideration.

Goals:

• Close the budget gap in the next 2 years
• List successes and achievements
• Revitalize the Development Committee
• Provide education and ministry about spirituality and money
• Help meetings with money management, i.e., credit card fundraising and other ways of handling their own needs for funds
• Help hone programmatic funding priorities
• Develop understanding around ministry and what it means
• Work with Ministry and Counsel to pull the State of Society reports into this work.

Friends approved the following Development goals for FY ending 2017:

1. Close the YM’s budget gap within 2 years
2. Shape a call for contributions at 2017 Sessions, seeded by a $50,000 challenge gift
3. Prepare a report of goals, problems, successes or failures to date
4. Rebuild the Development Committee: 4 tasks:
   • education and ministry about spirituality and money
   • plan for assistance to MM/churches on meeting their own budgeting needs
   • process to identify programmatic funding priorities (to PB in May 2018, to Sessions 2018)
   • Create a Quaker model of fundraising that reflects faithful action in the world Friends approved the following Development goals for FY ending 2018:
5. Set and meet fundraising goals for FY 2018:
   • $49,600 increase in individual giving; 5% increase from meetings/churches ($16,815 increase)
   • Build set of multi-year programmatic funding priorities

17-25 Treasurer’s report: The Treasurer presented his report (attached), which Friends received with gratitude for his service during a difficult time.

17-26 Finance Committee Report: The Finance Committee Clerk presented his committee’s report (attached). He noted that the committee has made significant progress toward meeting the YM’s financial goals, but the work has been hard. The Finance Committee clarified that its purview is financial. It develops budgets that implement the YM’s ministry, but does not define that ministry.

The Committee presented the proposed Friends Camp budget for FY 2018, noting that expenses and income will probably rise in light of attendance higher than originally anticipated. Understanding that the current budget process makes such adjustments cumbersome, Friends approved sending the Friends Camp 2018 budget for approval at Sessions.

The Committee presented PB with YM budgets for the next two years. While only the FY 2018 budget needs to be approved at the upcoming Sessions, it is useful to see the upcoming budget as part of a longer-term financial plan toward solvency. Highlights:

• Sessions Fees—adjusted in light of last year’s experience showing slightly lower expenses and income due to attendance expectations
• Staff—Increases are largely due to the decision to voluntarily meet FLSA/overtime standards
• Contracting services—higher due to contracting out communications and some IT support previously supplied by a staff member
• There is still a line for Committee Day expenses in case any committees need support from the YM for their meetings, and also in case the Living Faith gatherings run a deficit.
• Increased accounting expenses to support the work of the YM better.

Friends accepted the report, referring the FY 2018 YM budget to Sessions for approval.

17-27 Committee Purposes and Procedures: The Presiding Clerk presented draft committee purposes and procedures (attached). Friends approved sending this update to Sessions for approval.

Friends also considered recommendations about two other committees:

17-29 Clerk’s Nominating: Friends approved of bringing Rosemary Zimmerman’s name to Sessions for approval as a rising recording clerk.

17-30 Report of Work Group on Challenging White Supremacy: Two Friends of Color have joined the group. The group reached out to meetings and Friends carrying a concern for this work. Lisa Graustein and Xinef Afriam will conduct a workshop at Sessions. The working group is also reaching out to the NEYM Racial, Social & Economic Justice Committee to lift up its work. The working group is compiling information about what Friends are doing, and is figuring out ways to share information on the NEYM website. Friends were encouraged to connect the work of local meetings via [email protected].

17-31 Legacy Gift Committee: The committee reported that it has awarded its spring grants, which it will announce soon (report attached). The Fund has extra funds, due to income received and growth in market value of investments.

1. The Legacy Gift Committee asked PB to consider accepting a transfer of $25,000 from the Legacy Gift Fund to provide assistance to Friends who have suffered due to their public witness. This could be via the revitalization of the existing Fund for Public Sufferings, or a new fund that better serves this purpose. Friends approved creating a working group to consider these possibilities. Friends Ian Harrington, Christopher Gant, and Shearman Taber agreed to tackle this work, with help from the Secretary.
2. Request for reparations: Following an inquiry that the Committee received, Friends approved creating a PB working group to consider NEYM’s relationship with making reparations to Native peoples.
3. Meetinghouse Fund: the Legacy Gift Committee has received numerous requests for grants to fix meetinghouses. It is considering setting aside $100,000 from existing monies to seed a meetinghouse fund that would administer loans to meetings for capital improvements. Friends who would like to provide input should contact the Committee clerks.