CMM 2021-01-10

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.

NB. The Balance 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.

Do we have the resources to support our obligations? YES

Variable Assets Less Current Liabilities and Replacement Reserve = $3,820

Property Committee Report

Property Committee will ask Meeting to empower it to represent the Meeting in conversations with the across the road developer, the Canterbury planning board and the Zoning Board of Adjustment (ZBA).  We would like to know how much the Meeting is interested in and has unity around a few items.

• If a food truck periodically deliver food on site to individuals, do we care?
• They have proposed plantings as screening from the road in their site plan?  Will this be written in to the approval?  And how does the set back variance they are planning to ask of the ZBA influence these plantings, or is it not the north boundary set back they have an issue with?
• Might people want to be living in the units?
• Are the hours of operation limited, or not?; might they be willing to not be open till noon on Sundays given the meditative nature of Quaker worship?
• What will they do with items left in storage and rent is not paid?  Would we care if items were left out on the roadside for sale or for free?

I believe you already have the request from Greg about considering what the Meeting would like to have in discussions about development of the property across Oxbow Pond Rd from the Meetinghouse.

Report:

The full committee met 1/6/2021 over Zoom and discussed a few things that we thought would benefit from input even while the pandemic has caused us not to use the Meetinghouse.  We note that it is unlikely the situation will improve enough to resume in-person worship or other activities there before the weather is warm enough to have the windows open.

We agreed to keep the temperature in Meetinghouse this winter set to 55 degrees.

The committee clerk is part of the weekly rotation for boiler cleaning and will start the generator monthly to be sure about the need for maintenance.  Investigation of future plans for power backup was deferred though we have a sense that a battery system may be a good long term solution to the NH susceptibility to lengthy electric power outages.

We briefly talked about air purification after return to Meetinghouse use.  Since this is complicated, we will not easily have answers that are clear.  We expect it can be looked into further prior to next fall season when windows can be closed again and we may be back to holding in-person worship.  It is clear the existing air-to-air heat exchanger is not capable of filtering for COVID or providing sufficient fresh air.

We think we can wait until Spring to meet again unless new situations arise that need our collective discernment.

Jennifer Smith, clerk of property committee

Report and Announcements from Ministry & Counsel

Ministry and Counsel

Report to Meeting

January 2021

1. Fourth Sunday – We plan to once again use January 4^th Sunday to gather input for State of Society report from the Meeting.  We will invite you to consider these prompts:
   
   • How do you experience God over Zoom?
   • How has the pandemic changed your experience of Meeting?
   • Has it weakened us? Strengthened us?
   • What are the spiritual consequences of using Zoom?
   • How has the forces in our outer society affected our Meeting?
   • What spiritual learnings have happened?
2. Restructuring small groups: We’ve had a request that we switch the care groups around.  This will be a way to include some people that are not in any group now.  We expect some groups may continue but some people in those groups may want to join another new group also.  These will be somewhat themed and or structured.  We suggest we consider these as short term (maybe 6 weeks) to allow people the opportunity to switch. Here are some ideas we thought of, we invite other ideas. For example,
   
   1. a group that would share poetry
   2. Share songs and why they were important to them
   3. Crafting together (Sit and knit for a bit or other handwork)
   4. Discuss a book or reading on a set topic/theme (e.g. Native American spirituality or racial justice - Long book group - or short book group)
   5. A Slack group (using Slack to communicate)
   6. Walk once a week for an hour
   7. Bible Study group
   8. Podcast group – listen to and respond to a podcast (not more than 30 minutes)

   Ruth will be organizing these- so look for an email.  There is no limit on how many groups you join.

3. Mark’s Tuesday evening Quakerism 201 on the Testimonies has continued to meet as “Living Our Testimonies” and is now researching homelessness. This grew organically out of their learning and gives them joy. Three other Meeting attenders have joined that group. They wish to remind us that anyone can participate at any time.

Right Relationship with Native Peoples

The ad hoc Right Relationship With Native Peoples Working Group gathered via Zoom on the 9^th day of first month, 2021.

Jonah agreed to serve as clerk for this committee

We began by checking in, and with a period of time to share the concerns and leadings that have been with us as we consider Right Relationship.

In these sharings, some common threads appeared – that we should not attempt to lead an action or forge a new path, but listen to those already doing the work of living into Right Relationship.  That living requires action and not just words, whether we are living our own faith, living in relationship with others, or trying to understand the life and spirit of the Native peoples who have stewarded this land.  That when we brought the land acknowledgement, we may have been trying to begin with the end of a process, but also that it is important to act, and to begin.  We also recognize that we five on the committee have different experiences and understanding of Quaker history with Native peoples, and that this is even more true of the Meeting as a whole.

We determined to take a few actions now, and determined a few more to discuss when next we meet.

• The Meeting is looking at starting at least one book group.  We would like to facilitate a discussion of the book “Braiding Sweetgrass”.
• Sara has already contributed some resources from the Right Relationship NEYM group to the newsletter.  Our committee will be submitting a few pieces to each newsletter that comes out.  Our goal will be to have at least a few items items that will give people something to reflect on, something to do, and an event to attend, so that everyone in the Meeting will be able to engage in a way that works best for them
  
  • We will also look into whether there’s an appropriate way to archive these on the website.
• We will research ongoing projects to see if there are existing ways for the Meeting to assist
  
  • Existing work at the Hannah Dustin monument (Heidi to research)
  • AFSC New England program in ME (Mark)
  • Existing programs throughout NEYM
• We encourage members of the Meeting to provide any additional feedback on the land acknowledgement, and any questions, events, or useful readings they encounter