Sessions Visioning

Sessions Visioning process update and report

In early 2024, the Sessions Visioning Working Group began meeting with the intention of designing a process to re-envision New England Yearly Meeting’s Annual Sessions. This initiative was not only aimed at addressing the practical challenges faced by the Yearly Meeting but also sought to engage and connect Friends across the region, including those not currently active in Annual Sessions. The goal was to foster meaningful dialogue to clarify potential short-term experimental changes to Sessions while also inviting broader discernment about how Friends are led to nurture relationships with one another and with Spirit.

As outlined in the plan for this process, “The goal is not to use market research to ‘fix’ the current model to please more potential attenders, but rather to step into broader imagining and discernment about how Annual Sessions relates to the wider work of the Yearly Meeting now.”

We express deep gratitude to all who participated in this process. The Sessions Visioning Report is now available and can be accessed in the downloads section below. Those serving as point people for Listening Groups are encouraged to share the report with participating Friends.

As the report is reviewed, Friends may find it helpful to recall an early guiding intention approved at Sessions last summer: “Although unlikely to end up with Friends all agreeing on every aspect of Sessions, we are hoping that we will grow towards unity so that incremental decisions can be made. Key metaphor: We’re not trying to create ‘MapQuest’ step-by-step directions to a specific location, we’re trying to increase the number of Friends who are looking at the same map and navigating towards the same general direction.”

On May 10, Permanent Board will convene to reflect on the Sessions Visioning process and the learnings it has produced. The meeting will also include discussion of next steps for those charged with planning Sessions 2026, shaped by the discernment that has taken place. This meeting will be held at Framingham (MA) Meeting and also on Zoom; all interested Friends are welcome to attend. Details here.

Further updates and reflections will be shared during the meeting for business at Sessions, held August 1–6 at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and via Zoom.

In addition, all are warmly invited to participate in the annual Meeting for Listening on Saturday, June 21, a gathering that continues the Spirit-led conversations affirming the vitality of local meetings and the collective life of Friends across the Yearly Meeting.

Deep appreciation is extended to all who have contributed presence, insight, curiosity, creativity, and prayer throughout this ambitious and hopeful undertaking.

Why Sessions Visioning?

Recent years have brought many changes, both internal and external, to the context and circumstances surrounding NEYM Annual Sessions. These include increasing costs, diminished capacity to pay on the part of many Friends and families, reduced and shifting patterns of attendance, increased demand for supportive services and capacities, reductions in volunteer availability, and growing awareness of the need to focus and prioritize limited attention and resources.

In light of all of these changes, the Yearly Meeting’s model of programming, logistics, services, and funding for the event of Annual Sessions is in need of review and reimagining. 

Starting in the fall of 2024, we will embark on a months-long process to engage many Friends across New England in meaningful consultation and discernment regarding future offerings of NEYM’s Annual Sessions. For more details on this process, see the full proposal and slide presentation in the downloads section below.