CMM 2022-07-10

Minutes of Meeting for Worship with Concern for Business

Concord (NH) Monthly Meeting of

the Religious Society of Friends

Seventh Month 10^th, 2022

Twelve Friends gathered in worship to attend to business, in person and by Zoom.  Minutes of Sixth Month [1] were approved as posted on the Meeting website.

We opened with a brief period of Worship.

07.01  Eighth Month Meeting for Business:  Friends approved skipping August meeting for worship with attention to business.

07.02  Youth Religious Education Committee reported on plans for summer childcare. People need to sign up to take a turn with the care of children.  Please contact Elaine B. to deal with any issues.  YRE also could use help with their plans for activities at the Meeting’s booth at the Canterbury Fair on 7/30.

07.03  Property Committee had their first meeting of the new fiscal year.  The current committee clerk gave a verbal report and will prepare a written report to attach to the minutes.

07.04  Outreach Committee would like to be released from working on the wording of a written statement of our being a welcoming and affirming community.  They feel that, if the Meeting decides it wants such a statement, we might do better to have a group work on this ad hoc and bring it back to meeting for worship with attention to business.

The website committee remains involved in the updating of design to be clearly welcoming to communities that often feel marginalized, such as people who identify as part of the LGBTQ+, when deciding on their willingness to explore any religious communities.  This may involve posting a statement on the website, but we do not have clearness that we are led to adopt a more general welcoming statement at this time.  We approved Outreach and Website committees moving forward on this and they will let people know via our newsletter when they have made changes to the website related to this concern.  Friends approved.  A written report from Outreach Committee is attached.

07.05  Finance Committee reported on the first month of our new fiscal year.  Total income for the month of June was $1,357.  Total expense for the period was $1,427 for a decrease in our funds of $71.  Full financial report is attached.

The committee also requested that there be a Meeting discernment around our attitudes and hopes for investment of the Meeting’s financial reserves.  Friends approved planning this for a fourth Sunday in the near future.  The committee and others are encouraged to provide Friends some reading suggestions [2] to prepare themselves for this.

After a brief time of quiet worship, Meeting adjourned, purposing to meet again on the Second Sunday of the Ninth Month.

NB. The Income & Expenses Sheet was created with two decimal points, which were removed for readability, the cents being unimportant to the overall understanding.  This can have the effect of throwing off any given sum by a dollar due to compounded rounding.  —  Prepared by Greg Heath and Chris Haigh.

Property Committee Report for July 2022 [14]

The committee had some difficulty finding a time for all committee members to meet for the first meeting of the new fiscal/committee year.  We were aware that one of our six members would not attend the selected time and that another was uncertain that it would work out in their schedule (it didn’t).  One new committee member had not responded to email; we are unsure if there was a problem with the forwarding through the committee link.  We note that we need to call this Friend before we schedule the next committee meeting.

The three Friends present agreed to keep the current committee clerk and notetaker for now.  At our next meeting, that decision will be reviewed.  We named Greg H as the landscape coordinator and will look forward to reviewing plans from him as they are developed.

A decision was made to change to having meetings schedule every other month going forward (rather than quarterly) to improve continuity of our efforts.  An email round of communication will occur to find an agreeable time for this, preferably in the first week of the month.  We have a committee member ready to lead the bimonthly third Sunday cleaning in July.  The rotation of the other months’ cleaning leaders will need to be decided at the next meeting.  The clerk will work to organize the list of the tasks for those 20 to 30 minute opportunities for Friends to participate in the upkeep of the Meetinghouse after fellowship.

There was a small glitch in communication concerning the ordering of materials for the acoustic tiles to be installed in the fellowship room.  We expect to get them and schedule a work party to do that in the near future.

There was a brief discussion of other needs relating to our wood pellet furnace and to indoor air quality during months when the windows need to be closed.  These items will need to be near the top of the agenda for the September committee meeting.  Some committee members will look into these concerns as they find the time.

Jennifer Smith, Property committee clerk

Outreach Committee Report to Business Meeting – Seventh Month 2022 [15]

The Outreach Committee has met twice since June’s Business Meeting.  The first meeting was focused solely on discussing the welcoming and affirming statement, with participants including several non-committee members.

We are clear that affirmation of support for gay/lesbian/transgender marriage needs to be more visible to the public, and suggest some public-facing text and/or graphics be implemented on our website home page.  However, our committee has discovered the task of creating a general welcoming statement is much more complex than anticipated when we took it on, and asks the meeting to relieve us of further work on it.  After much committee time and multiple draft presentations to the meeting, we are not closer to discerning a statement representing unity amongst those who have provided input.

-Kathi Connors, committee clerk