PB 23-41 Opening Worship
Friends opened with a period of worship. Toward the end of the worship, Susan Davies, Clerk of the Permanent Board noted that Sarah Spencer, former clerk of Salem Quarter and former member of Permanent Board, died on Friday and asked Friends to hold her family in the Light.
PB 23-42 Arrival and Welcoming
The clerk welcomed Friends and introduced Jennie Isbell Shinn (Mt Toby) who led us in an embodiment activity to give us time to feel into our own bodies and from there into the sense of the gathered body. Jennie asked us to feel into our bodies and then to notice one other person. She then asked us to see if there was anything in our bodies that needed attention, tending or repair, in each person or in the body. Then she asked us to ask ourselves, “How am I?”
Jennie then led us in an exercise that comes from the Theater of the Oppressed. She asked us to name an emotion that we were feeling. She then asked us to adopt a pose that represented or expressed these emotions and to look around and notice others responding with their bodies to the emotions being shared in the room. She asked us, “What do you notice or wonder about the gathered body today? What is it like to try to connect as a gathered body over Zoom?”
PB 23-43 Invitation into the Noticing Practice
Polly Attwood (FMC), co-clerk of the Noticing Patterns of Oppression and Faithfulness Working Group (NPWG), invited Friends on Permanent Board into the work of noticing patterns. The practice of noticing patterns of oppression began from the floor of Yearly Meeting Sessions in 2016. This led to the creation of the working group. In April of 2017 their scope was enlarged to include noticing patterns of faithfulness. NEYM continues this practice today and the NPWG is under the care of Permanent Board.
NPWG supports Friends to engage in the practice of noticing and naming patterns. This work starts with self-examination and an honest loving look at how we have been participants in often unconscious oppressive behaviors. This practice resonates with Friends’ faithful practices of honoring that of God in all, and our testimonies of peace and equality. We are all products of society and we each need to do the work of rooting out the seeds of oppression in ourselves.
We need each other to do this work of cultivating the faithfulness that can flow from the practice of noticing and naming patterns of oppression that move us away from our testimonies and lifting up patterns of faithfulness that draw on Friends’ practices that bring us into greater alignment with our testimonies.
Together as we practice, we are invited to let go of perfectionism, self-blame, and blaming one another. We are invited to accept that this learning is messy and that we need to hold each other in love, speak truth, and learn from each other’s experiences. Through this practice we consciously choose to listen through our bodies for inner knowing and guidance as Jennie invited us to do this morning. We choose to listen for the Spirit moving among us that calls us into ways of being that we recognize and name as faithful. We choose new ways of being faithful to Divine Guidance that make room for new voices and a deeper discernment coming through the gathered body.
Here are some reminders that can be a resource for us as we engage in this practice
- Focus on patterns (not people): recurring instances that manifest in the body of NEYM that are complicit with oppression
- Attend to what your body is telling you
- such as tightness or openness in the shoulders; heaviness or lightness of heart; holding your breath or feeling an exhale
- Discern your leading to speak to name a pattern as you would a leading to speak in worship
- Am I led to speak?
- Does this need to be shared here with the body?
- Would this better be shared as an individual conversation?
- Am I being asked to respond with prayer rather than in words?
Curiosity is a useful approach when offering a noticing - Outcomes to sharing will vary; what is important is being faithful
- Receive noticings in gratitude
PB 23-44 Roll Call
Willa Taber (Fresh Pond), Recording Clerk of the Permanent Board read the roll.
Bold is present in the room.
Susan Davies (PB Clerk), Willa Taber (PB Recording Clerk), Darcy Drayton, Martin Forsythe, Christopher Gant, Joyce Gibson, Elizabeth Hansen, Ian Harrington, Newell Isbell Shinn, Carolyne Lamar Jordan, Frances Lightsom, Bob O’Connor, Allison Randall, Carole Rein, Martha Schwope, Leisa Stamm, Eleanor Warnock, Diane Weinholtz, Donn Weinholtz, Morgan Wilson, Kathleen Wooten, Mary Zwirner
Ex-officio members
Scot Drysdale (Finance clerk), Sarah Gant (clerk, Meeting Accompaniment Group), Rebecca (Presiding Clerk), Noah Merrill (YM Secretary), Elizabeth Reuthe (YM Secretary Supervisor), Jackie Stillwell, (Nominating Committee clerk)
Regrets
Kimberly Allen, Thomas Brenner, Deana Chase, Roger Jasaitis, Meg Klepack, Edward Mair, Christopher McCandless, Anna Radocchia, John Reuthe, Robert Murray (YM Treasurer)
Visitors
Katy Bond, Carl Williams, Melissa Foster, Ellen Neelands, Becky Jones, Reiner Humphries, Aaron Sakulich, Janet Hough, Keith Olsen, Marian Dalton, Celadry Humphries, Maille Wooten, Katherine Williams, Arty Williams, Brian Drayton, Mey Hasbrook, Melody Brazo, LVM Shelton, Kristina Keefe-Perry, Jennie Isbell Shinn, Nia Thomas, Pamela Terrien, Polly Attwood, Gordon Bugbee
PB 23-45 Orientation and Expectations Document
Susan Davies (Vassalboro), clerk of the Permanent Board, welcomed everyone to our meeting and drew the attention of members, and particularly new members, to the Orientation and Expectations document for members of Permanent Board, here attached. We expect to continue to revise and expand this document over time.
PB 23-46 Minutes from August 5
Susan Davies presented the minutes from the August 5 meeting of the Permanent Board, here attached.
Friends approved minutes PB-23-28 through PB 23-35. PB 23-36 will be brought back for approval on December 9th.
PB 23-47 Minutes from August 9
Susan Davies presented the revised minutes for August 9 here attached.
Friends approved all of these minutes except PB 23-39 Concern for Youth and Youth Ministries, which will be brought back for approval on December 9th.
PB 23-48 Presiding Clerk’s Report
The Presiding Clerk’s written report is attached to these minutes. Rebecca Leuchak (Providence), Presiding Clerk of NEYM, reported that she has been in conversation with many people about Sessions and has read the comments on the evaluation of Sessions. These evaluations have been invaluable to gather a greater sense of how things were.
She has appreciated the comments and suggestions she has received in regard to the group to examine our responses to conflict. She has not responded to all of the 22 Friends who have emailed her about this, but she is looking forward to having conversations with all of them.
Rebecca is here with you as a person who has an extraordinarily busy life. She works, she has a family, she cares for her home, and she wants to serve the Yearly Meeting. Are there hours in the day for all of this? This Yearly Meeting is her love and she wants to serve it as best she can. She knows that we are all people who love the Yearly Meeting and want to serve it the best we can. She is sorry that she only added her written report to the advance documents yesterday afternoon.
Attending the various committees that she serves ex-officio, she is impressed by the amount of faithful work that Friends are doing in service to the Yearly Meeting. The Coordinating & Advisory Committee (C&A) held a retreat September 21–23 at Woolman Hill. One of her learnings from this retreat is not to schedule a C&A meeting so close to a Permanent Board meeting. Much of the work of the retreat involved responding to the events of Sessions. There are many communications that get circulated that contain incorrect information and this has been a problem. What is important is that we lean into our differences and conflicts and hold each other in love and tenderness and the faith in God’s grace. We are broken open and she is grateful to be here with us.
PB-23-49 Coordinating and Advisory Report
The full written report from the Coordinating and Advisory Committee is attached to these minutes.
PB-23-49.1 Understanding the needs of Youth Programs
Coordinating and Advisory Committee proposed that Permanent Board take the following action:
Approve a charge to the Coordinating and Advisory Committee that they bring back to PB for consideration (and approval) in December a Consultative Process that will guide us in an inclusive and responsive understanding of our needs for Youth Programs as a Yearly Meeting, including direct response to the needs of our monthly meetings. This highly consultative work will be assigned to Coordinating and Advisory in collaboration with the Youth Ministries Committee with its vital role of nurturing youth programs, and with the assistance, support, and input from our Yearly Meeting staff. The aim of this work is to put forward a plan for mission, evaluation, dialog and integrative visioning of our Youth Programs, highlighting specific and concrete priorities with which we can align the functions of Youth Programs going forward. This will be accompanied by proposed action steps, under the care of the respective committee and staff charged with this work, all in an effort to advance our growing edges of this essential life within our community.
Friends approved this recommendation.
PB 23-49.2 Dealing with Conflict
The Coordinating and Advisory Committee recommended that the Yearly Meeting:
- Reflect on ways in which the practices described in the C&A report are functioning currently, and how they might be strengthened or changed to better serve these purposes.
- Explore ways to more effectively and consistently communicate pathways for responding to conflict, recognizing that many Friends may not be aware (or may need of be reminded) of these practices.
- Consider opportunities and capacities for ongoing education, training, and engagement with skills and methodologies for responding to conflict consistent with Friends faith and practice, both for Friends generally and for those charged with specific responsibilities for response to conflict in the life of the Yearly Meeting. This would potentially include committee and working/resource group clerks, staff, youth ministries volunteers, and Friends serving in other volunteer leadership roles.
- Examine how resources or capacities developed might relate to our primary purpose of strengthening the life and ministry of local meetings, and how efforts focused on response to conflict arising beyond the scope of a local meeting might relate to and be informed by wisdom and existing practice in local meetings.
- Integrate insights from the steps above into the ongoing work of the Yearly Meeting, including especially the work of the Nominating Committee to nurture and support the expressions of gifts and skills in service, and to support the functioning of the Yearly Meeting as a whole.
In support of this, Permanent Board charges the Coordinating & Advisory Committee, in consultation with Nominating Committee and consistent with our practice, to bring forward to the December 9, 2023, meeting of the Permanent Board nominations for a working group on strengthening capacities for response to conflict rising in the life and work of the Yearly Meeting and to make recommendations to Permanent Board for further discernment and action.
Persons serving on this working group would include Friends with relevant gifts, skills, and experience who have expressed their availability and interest, as well as other Friends whose names may rise in this process, to allow for broad consideration. In making nominations, C&A should consider the qualities listed in Sessions Minute 2023-1002. Consistent with Sessions Minute 2023-703, this working group will include the Presiding Clerk, clerk of Ministry & Counsel, and clerk of the Permanent Board.
The first charge of this group will be to create a plan of work on creating this process.
- Permanent Board encourages this group to consider:
- When conflict involves members of C&A, there need to be ways to bring the conflicts to other places.
- There is a need to balance the needs of confidentiality and transparency and there is also a need for there to be ways of reporting back on the resolution of conflicts.
- The goal is not to eliminate conflict but to accept that conflict is a normal part of our life together.
- There is a need to find ways to resolve conflict that bring us to healing.
Friends approved the creation of a working group on strengthening our capacities to respond to conflict in the Yearly Meeting as outlined in the bold text above.
PB 23-50 Friends Camp Budgets
Robb Spivey (Brunswick), Treasurer for Friends Camp, presented the Capital and Operating Budgets for Friends Camp here attached.
Friends approved the Friends Camp Operating and Capital Budgets.
PB 23-51 Youth Ministries Program FAQ
Noah Merrill (Putney), NEYM Secretary, presented a draft of a FAQ document on our Youth Ministries Program, here attached. Friends are asked to convey any questions or comments about this document to either him or Nia Thomas (Northampton), NEYM Program Director. In particular, they are looking for items that might be added to this document.
PB 23-52 2025+ Sessions Visioning & Design Process
Noah Merrill, NEYM Secretary, presented the report on the 2025+ Sessions Visioning & Design process, here attached. He said that it remains our hope that we can return to Castleton University at a time similar to those that we have used in the past. Friends will be notified when the dates are confirmed.
Friends approved the overall project as outlined in the report and bringing Phase 1 of this process to the December 9 PB Meeting for approval.
PB 23-53 Honoring Service to Permanent Board
We honored and expressed appreciation for the people who have completed their service to the Permanent Board in the past year. Leslie Manning completed her term as clerk of the Permanent Board but continues to serve as a member. Bob Murray has completed his term as NEYM Treasurer. Peter Bishop, Joyce Gibson, and Jean McCandless have completed their terms of service on the Permanent Board.
PB 23-54 Nominating Committee Report
Jackie Stillwell, clerk of the Nominating Committee, presented the report of the Nominating Committee here attached.
Friends approved the nominations included in the report.
PB 23-55 Naming Committee
Susan Davies brought forward the names of Jeremiah Dickenson(Dover) and Ed Mair (Amesbury) to be continuing members of the Naming Committee.
Friends approved these nominations.
PB 23-56 Visiting Committee for Three Rivers Worship Group
Because of the chaotic nature of the end of our meeting on August 5, there was some confusion as to whether we had actually approved the names of members of the Visiting Committee to Three Rivers Worship Group. At the direction of the outgoing and incoming clerks of the Permanent Board, they have begun their work and their first report is attached to these minutes.
Friends approved Regina McCarthy (Wellesley), Ellen Neelands (Acton), and Mary Zwirner (Beacon Hill) to serve as a visiting committee for Three Rivers Worship Group. They will follow the process that is outlined in their report.
PB 23-57 Minute of Exercise
In her opening remarks, the clerk noticed a pattern of giving preference to particular positions and an attitude of distrust and assumption of mal intent which are not healthy for our work together. This will not be resolved in one meeting but the work of healing the lack of trust in each other is the most important work before us. Some of us have wondered if, in part, we are being influenced by the current climate of distrust, division, and chaos in the larger society. The spirit of distrust and confusion that was present in our August meetings was part of what prevented us from being able to approve the minutes concerning the appointment of a visiting committee to visit Three Rivers Worship Group, or the minute concerning the Youth Ministries program.
Friends are fond of using traditional Quaker circumlocutions, perhaps being unaware the extent to which some of these serve to gloss over actual issues and they are a part of our long tradition of avoiding conflict. Some of us also have a tendency to speak in metaphors which cause the listener to work hard to understand exactly what is being said. We are people with great imaginations and sometimes we take the metaphors to places far from the intention of the speaker. We need to work to recover the Quaker tradition of plain speaking, and name as clearly as we can exactly what it is that we are speaking of. We must learn the difference between being tactful and being opaque. We must work to deepen our communications, equally striving to understand and be understood, even when patterns of speech, vocabulary and metaphors vary. Clear and precise language is an invitation to move deliberately and together, under the care of the Spirit whom we gather ourselves to in our corporate practice of expectancy. We also must keep an inward watch to see if there is something in us that keeps us from being rightly convicted by the words that are being spoken.
Several friends noticed that in a number of meetings, meetings that were clerked by different people, when a particular topic came up, the same person was called on to speak to the issue first. This was a person to whom the dominant culture normally defers. It appeared that this was a case of power speaking to power. Each time, these first comments set the tone for the rest of the conversation. We have also noted that it appears that, especially when there are strong emotions involved, the initial reservations we express to a course of action may not be the real source of the concerns. Unless these underlying issues are raised, acknowledged, and held in patient tenderness by the body, they are unlikely to be resolved. We were also reminded that sometimes our objections are triggered by unresolved issues that are unrelated to the particular business at hand. It is important for us to notice, and to own, when we are enacting any of these patterns because that is an important step in achieving unity.
A corporate body is not its forms and structures but is fundamentally the relations we have with each other when we meet heart to heart and soul to soul. Building these relationships requires communication and connection and recognizing when we are being broken open.