25-39 Roll Call
Willa Taber (Fresh Pond), Recording Clerk for Permanent Board read the roll:
Members
Susan Davies (PB Clerk), Willa Taber (PB Recording Clerk), Travis Belcher, Thomas Brenner, Darcy Drayton, Elizabeth Hansen, Meg Klepack, Frances Lightsom, Edward Mair, Allison Randall, Carole Rein, Martha Schwope, Liesa Stamm, Diane Weinholtz, Morgan Wilson, Kathleen Wooten, Mary Zwirner.
Ex-officio members
Marian Dalton (Treasurer), Sarah Gant (Clerk, Meeting Accompaniment Committee), Rebecca Leuchak (Presiding Clerk), Noah Merrill (YM Secretary), Jackie Stillwell (YM Secretary Supervisor and Clerk of Nominating Committee), Carl Williams (Clerk of Ministry and Counsel).
Regrets
Kimberly Allen, Martin Forsythe, Carolyne Lamar Jordan, Newell Isbell Shinn, Anna Radocchia, Bob O’Connor, Donn Weinholtz, Scot Drysdale (Finance Clerk).
Visitors
Maille Wooten, Phillip Veatch, LouAnne McDonald, Janet Hough, Sadie Forsythe
More than 25% of the named members of Permanent Board being present, Noah Merrill (Putney), Yearly Meeting Secretary,declared that we have a quorum and can conduct business in this called meeting.
25-40 Approval of Permanent Board Minutes
Friends approved the minutes from our February 6, 2025, called meeting here attached. Friends approved the minutes from our March 1, 2025, meeting here attached.
Friends approved the minutes from our May 10, 2025, meeting here attached.
25-41 Yearly Meeting Secretary Report
These are busy days. The Yearly Meeting office will move to Amherst for Sessions tomorrow. At the moment adult registration is 105 people more than we had since the pandemic. We have 480 adults. There are 90 people attending for the first time. There are 38 people registered for JYM and 30 people in our other youth programs. At the moment we appear to be looking at a deficit of $55,000 when we include staff time, which is significantly less than our worst-case scenario that we presented at our May Permanent Board meeting. We will have a surplus on direct costs. We still expect a significant number of on-line registrations and walk-on in person registrations.
Carl Williams will not be able to attend Sessions because he will be undergoing chemotherapy. There has been some shuffling around to cover the responsibilities that he was planning to hold at Sessions. This is a testament to the willingness of us to hold each other in love with all of the challenges we may be facing and the way that we step up in whatever ways we are called to do this.
Friends had a brief worship to hold Carl in the light.
Our annual giving from individuals and households is running about 8% above where it was last year. Noah is planning to be more intentional in our solicitations. Monthly meeting giving looks like it will come in ahead of our budgeted goal. At Sessions we will be introducing the beginning of the Living Stream Travel team which will consist of Donn Weinholtz, Jackie Stillwell, Michael Wajda, and Noah Merrill.
At Sessions they will be announcing the new Teen and Outreach Ministries Coordinator.
25-42 Moses Brown Bylaws Revisions
Rebecca Leuchek (Providence), Yearly Meeting Presiding Clerk, presented a set of revisions to the bylaws for Moses Brown School, here attached. The changes codify some practices that have been in place for some time and also solidify the relationship between the school and the Yearly Meeting.
The Presiding Clerk of the Yearly Meeting or the clerk of Permanent Board will be ex-officio members of the Moses Brown Board. In Section 6, the role of the Quaker Coordinator who serves on the Executive Committee of the Board is clarified. There also is a new requirement that all committees of the school will have a Quaker member.
The bylaws attempt to clarify how Quaker nominations are handled. The responsibility for nominating the 30% of the board that are required to be Friends will be transferred to the NEYM Nominating Committee in collaboration with the Moses Brown Governance Committee and the Committee on Nurturing Friends Education. Friends had concerns about exactly what form that collaboration would take.
Friends approved the bylaws with the understanding that they are unclear on what the relationships and responsibilities of the NEYM Nominating Committee, the Moses Brown Governance Committee, and the Committee on Nurturing Friends Education in regard to nominations. Friends ask that the Moses Brown School work with the clerk of the NEYM Nominating Committee to clarify that language. The Permanent Board would welcome a future clarification of that language.
25-43 Updates to Purposes, Procedures, and Composition document for the Meeting Accompaniment Group
There have been some modifications to the Purposes, Procedures, and Composition document here attached. It has been revised in light of the work that they have done as they have lived into their work. The Meeting Accompaniment Group will be a standing body. There is clarification of exactly what work they will undertake. Keeping the prayer list has been dropped because it is already being handled by the clerk of Ministry and Worship. The actual changes are included on the Unity Agenda for Sessions and will be approved there.
25-44 Nominations
Jackie Stillwell (Monadnock), clerk of the Nominating Committee, presented their report here attached.
Friends approved the nomination of Mark Conley (Providence) to be Sessions Recording Clerk for a term of 3 years starting immediately.
Friends approved the nomination of Beth Bussiere-Nichols (Portland) to be Interim Reading Clerk for Sessions this year.
25-45 Transitions
Susan Davies noted that Sessions this year will mark the end of Rebecca Leuchak’s term as presiding clerk. She will continue to be an ex-officio member of the Permanent Board for the coming year so that we hope that this will not be her last Permanent Board meeting. Scot Drysdale is finishing his term as clerk of the Finance Committee. Jackie Stillwell is ending her term as clerk of the Nominating Committee. Sadie Forsythe is the rising clerk of the Nominating Committee. Willa Taber is ending her term as recording clerk for the Permanent Board.
25-46 Recording Clerk’s Comments
Willa Taber, Recording Clerk, said that it has been a pleasure and a privilege for her to serve as recording clerk for the past two years. She thanked everyone for the patience and support they have shown me over this time. She gives particular thanks to that handful of people who regularly read the draft minutes and provide comments and corrections to them. She is not a perfect writer and a worse proofreader, so she appreciates being given the opportunity to correct her mistakes before they are enshrined in the NEYM archives. It has also been comforting to her to know that someone has actually read the minutes. She reminded us of the importance of these minutes. Approval of them is not just a formality that we have to go through before we can begin the real business of Permanent Board. Whatever we might think we have agreed to at the time, if anyone wants to go back and find out what we decided, the only record they have is our minutes. If the minutes don’t match our recollection of what we did, let the clerk and recording clerk know, preferably before the minutes come up for approval, so that there is time to correct them as needed. The minutes are also a way for Permanent Board to communicate to the larger Yearly Meeting what it is that we have done. It has been common for her to receive a question from someone in the Yearly Meeting asking what we decided about some issue or another before the minutes were published. Believe it or not, there are people who actually do care about what we do. She asked the Board to give her successor the same patience and support it has given her and to give them the gift of your comments and corrections.
25-47 Memorial Minutes
Friends approved sending the memorial minutes for Adele MacVeagh Clurman Bourne (Providence), Erica Brinton (Hanover), Anne Willoughby DiMasse (Providence), Rhoda Mowry (Smithfield), and Carla Lurie Dowben (Providence) to Sessions.
Friends entered in a time of prayer and remembrance for these Friends.