Mac Computers Offered

Thank you to Jonah and Sara Hubner (Gonic Meeting and NEYM Office Manager) who have offered us the use of Mac computers.

Nominating Committee

We would like to express our deep appreciation to all those who have served in leadership roles and on committees this past year and also to those who have agreed to serve the Meeting during the coming year. The Nominating Committee Report, approved this month for terms beginning in June, can be found here: Nominating Committee Report

Let's Walk Together

Let’s get a walk in before the end of May! Kathy U. and Faith Sillars are inviting you for a walk on Wednesday, May 25th at 9 am on the rail trail in Boscawen.

To get there: Take exit 17 on Rt 93 and pretend you are going to Meeting, but don’t! Stay on rt 4, cross the river and in a couple of miles you will be in the village of Boscawen. A Cumberland Farm gas station and convenience store is on the east side of the street. As you approach Cumberland you will see Depot Street. Take it and you will find a parking lot for Northern Rail Trail. Hope you can make it. Please let Kathy U. know you are coming via email or cell phone. 

Let’s plan another walk(s) during the first full week in June, June 5th through June 11. Please send Kathy U. preferred days and times. Hopefully we will find a time when most of us can walk together. If there are two or three of us who chose the same day and or time, Kathy U. will let each of you know that and you may want to make your own arrangements. And yes, bring a friend.

Suggestion: Maybe a walk down to the river after Meeting, June 5th,. With a bag lunch, of course.

Sunday Morning Study Group

The Sunday AM spiritual study group will have an irregular schedule during the summer, but hope to return to a regular schedule in the fall. To make it more accessible to those whose schedule is also different in the summer, we will have a study of individual passages or poems each time. That way if you miss one, you won't be discombobulated the next time. I will bring a poem to start us off. The first days will be: Fifth Sunday May 29, Second Sunday June 12  -  Sara Smith

Save the Date for Spring Party Sunday, June 19

The annual Spring Party will be held Sunday, June 19 about 12:30pm at the home of Lars Prilliman at Sanborn Mills Farm. After the rise of Meeting, we'll drive to the farm and begin with an outdoor potluck and then have the annual Spring Basket Hunt (complete with confetti eggs). There will be plenty of time for fellowship and learning about Lars' work at the farm. (More about that in future weeks). Sanborn Mills Farm is about 23 minutes from the Meetinghouse (according to Google Maps) in Loudon NH. Hope you all can come! Please RSVP to the religiouseducation [at] concordfriendsmeeting [dot] org so the children can prepare a paper basket for each attendee. More on Spring Baskets in future announcements!

Fourth Sunday Program - May 22 - Presentation/Q&A about Friends House Moscow by Julie Harlow

Friends House Moscow (FHM) has gained attention from the Quaker community by organizing and hosting the daily international worship for peace, which is still well attended. Their spokesperson, Julie Harlow, will tell us how and why they formed their organization and what they are doing now. Here is FHM's description of the presentation, which will be followed by a Q&A session. Questions can also be submitted before the presentation by emailing Julie at fhmus [at] sbcglobal [dot] net.

"Julie was in Russia when the Soviet government fell in 1991. One day she was in Leningrad, and the next day, she was instantly in St. Petersburg. She had spent the previous seven years leading tours of Russia for Friends and friends of Friends, carrying a traveling minute from Pacific Yearly Meeting.

Julie speaks with great empathy and knowledge about the general outlook of the Russian people, whose lives have been constricted by poverty, government corruption, and lawlessness, all of which have worsened dramatically since the fall of the Soviet Union. She speaks with equal empathy about the outlook of contemporary Ukrainians, whose culture was forcibly suppressed and “Russified” under Soviet authority, resulting in a “pressure cooker” of resentments among Ukrainians against ethnic Russians.

Friends House Moscow has been a candle in the dark in Russia for twenty-five years – sponsoring programs that provide material aid and education for orphans, offering workshops by the Alternatives to Violence Project, translating Quaker reading materials into Russian and publishing them, providing venues for worship, meditation, peaceful fellowship, and much more."

Outreach Committee Needs Welcoming Statement Feedback

The Outreach Committee presented this affirming statement at May M4B:

We affirm that the Divine Spirit is present in every person, and everyone is equal and precious before God. We welcome all people (all ages, colors, cultures, genders, sexual orientations, abilities, financial conditions, and religious or wisdom traditions). We celebrate diversity and seek to embody what we hope to see in the world—a just, loving humanity and community in which all people are free to be themselves fully and without fear.

There was very little time for reflection or comments then but we have since received a few suggestions:

• Remove the parentheses and say "We welcome people of all ages, colors, ..."
• Add the word “ethnicities”
• Replace the word “gender” with the phrase “gender identities”
• Make it more clear, or state more strongly, that we support gay marriage

We invite further suggestions and will thresh them at our next Outreach Committee meeting, then bring a recommendation to the June business meeting. Please email your suggestions to ruthheath [at] concordfriendsmeeting [dot] org

Blessings,

Kathi and Ruth (Outreach committee co-clerks)

Asylum Seekers Support Fund

We are launching a drive to raise money for our Asylum Seekers Support Fund and sending it to the wider community (Immigrant support groups, churches) as well. We would love to have as many people as possible contribute. Whether or not you can contribute, can you send it to five friends and tell them how or why you support this cause? That will be another way to build awareness and help the cause! See the poster here. Also, thanks to Kathi C's efforts, we will also have a page on our website to help this as well. Thanks to all who helped bring this forward.

Minutes

The draft minutes of the May Meeting for Worship for the Conduct of Business are available at https://www.concordfriendsmeeting.org/2022-05-08_CMM_Minutes

Dover Quarterly Meeting - a message from Clerk Jeremiah Dickenson

Hello Friends,

We gather again as a Quarter in two weeks on May 29. I would like to try a hybrid meeting—in-person at Dover Meeting for those able to do that and on Zoom for those who cannot. The meeting has the connectivity and the equipment to make this possible. Those who can are invited to join Dover Friends for worship at 10:30 with a potluck lunch after. We will begin our meeting at 1 pm. I will send out the Zoom link closer to the time.

Please send me items you would like included on the agenda. Currently the draft agenda includes:

• Treasurer’s report
• Minister’s reports
• Memorial minutes
• Reports from meetings: Concord, Dover, Gonic, Nashua, North Sandwich, Weare/Henniker, West Epping
• Proposal for Quarter to host a gathering of ministers from New England

The details of this last item are still being developed but I want to give Friends a chance to consider it as we prepare to gather. The hope is that it would be a relatively simple time for Friends who are called to a public ministry to get together and “talk shop” in both structured and unstructured time. This has been an identified need expressed by some and it seemed something the Quarter might usefully offer.

I look forward to being together again. -- Jeremiah

AFSC - News around the Country

Follow this link for a rundown of program activity.

These Announcements

Dear Friends,

If you have information to share via these announcements please have your information submitted to Greg by 5:00 PM on Thursdays. Items should begin with a headline followed by text that can be copied and pasted without editing. Please remove any formatting if you are able. Also, please keep postings directly related to the Meeting or activities and groups supported by the Meeting. Typically the announcements will go out by Friday.

And finally, it's best to keep your Zoom links in a handy place in case the announcements are not sent in a given week.

Greg Heath - Communications Assistant

The following items have appeared previously in emailed announcements.

NEYM Annual Sessions, Save the Date Aug 6-11

Friends, an exciting update on plans for Sessions 2022:

At this writing we are expecting that, after two years' absence, Friends will be able to joyfully gather together, in person, at Castleton University for the Annual Sessions of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, August 6–11. All of us, especially youth staff, are looking forward to welcoming children, youth, and their families to what will be for many the first time together in two years.

We are aware that not all will be comfortable or able to gather in a large group and are planning some hybrid events so that those who so choose may participate again by Zoom.

Friends responsible for Sessions planning continue to wrestle with balancing a desire for a good number of different events/activities with the awareness that the busyness of Sessions can feel like “too much.” And with how to provide meaningful experiences for both in-person and remote participation. While in-person and remote can in no way be “equal,” our hope is all Sessions participants will find spiritual comfort and meaning, and will come away from the experience a bit richer.

Add to this the exhaustion of staff and volunteers from two years of the extra burden of planning events in an unfamiliar platform, now needing to plan hybrid (in-person and virtual) events, and you will understand that this year’s Sessions will likely be based on a simpler schedule.

While the schedule and details are yet to be resolved we do have news to share:

• We have a new clerk of the Sessions planning process: Phil Veatch of Fresh Pond Meeting has stepped into the role that Rebecca Leuchak was filling until a new clerk had been named. Rebecca is now released to live into her new role of Rising Clerk of the Yearly Meeting. A veteran Sessions attender, Phil is catching up and getting ready for the busy season of Sessions planning.
• Our theme for Sessions 2022 is "This is the hour: How does the Spirit find you?" This grew out of our sense that Friends’ condition, as we gather, will reflect two years of living with the pandemic. We all are carrying myriad conditions, among them: joy, grief, longing, outrage, happiness. “How does the Spirit find you” invites you to acknowledge the many and sometimes seemingly contradictory feelings. But “This is the hour” is a query in the form of a statement. What is this the hour for? Concerns have been brought to Sessions in recent years about the state of our earth, systemic racism, the history of our relationship with Native Americans, and more. “This is the hour” invites us to consider what this is the hour for.
• The Bible Half Hours will be given by Regina Renee Ward. Regina Renee is someone for whom the Bible is not just a foundational document for our faith tradition, but is a living, breathing, guide to daily living. She has given Bible Half Hours at Friends General Conference and Pacific Yearly Meeting, and was a presenter at the Walking with the Bible series offered by Woolman Hill Quaker Center and the Beacon Hill Friends House.

Watch for further news and the official Sessions invitation coming soon, but for the time being, mark your calendars!

Bruce Neumann, Presiding Clerk

clerk [at] neym [dot] org

Phillip Veatch, Clerk of Sessions Planning

sessions [at] neym [dot] org

Ending the war in Yemen - now

This week NH Peace Action has asked members to contact our reps about Yemen (message below). How about we add our voices to amplify the message?

Over the past month there have been encouraging changes in the conflict - a Ramadan cease-fire, a slight easing of the blockade which allowed a few ships with vital supplies to reach Yemen. This is the most progress we've seen in years and we want to continue to build on it. So, please join us in calling our representatives today and urging them to stand with Rep. Pramila Jayapal and Rep. Peter DeFazio to end U.S. involvement in the Yemen war.

You can also use this FCNL tool which makes it very easy and also gives FCNL info on what we've done to help in their tracking: www.fcnl.org/ATyemencall

Dear Friends,

Since 2015, the U.S. has been funding, arming, and providing logistical support to the Saudi Monarchy as it wages a brutal war against the Yemeni people. This is a clear violation of Article I of the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which grants Congress the power to declare war and authorize US military involvement.

As a candidate, President Biden pledged to end support for the war in Yemen while many who now serve as senior officials in his administration have repeatedly called for shutting down precisely the activities the US is engaged in.

Recently, Rep. Pramila Jayapal and Rep. Peter DeFazio published an article in the Nation announcing their intention to submit and pass a new War Powers Resolution which would re-affirm congresses control over declarations of war and use of military force.

Call your representatives today and urge them to stand with Rep. Pramila Jayapal and Rep. Peter DeFazio and end U.S. involvement in the Yemen war.

• Rep. Chris Pappas (CD-1)- (603) 935-6710
• Rep. Ann McLane Kuster (CD-2)- (603) 595-2006
• Sen. Jeanne Shaheen- (603) 647-7500
• Sen. Maggie Hassan- (603) 622-2204

Thank you for your continued support and action,

The team at NH Peace Action

info [at] nhpeaceaction [dot] org - www.nhpeaceaction.org - (603)228-0559

4 Park Street, Suite 304, Concord, NH 03301

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