CMM 2022-11-13

Minutes of Meeting for Worship with Concern for Business

Concord (NH) Monthly Meeting of

the Religious Society of Friends

Eleventh Month 13^th, 2022

Seventeen Friends gathered in worship to attend to business, in person and by Zoom. We opened with a brief period of Worship.

Minutes of Tenth month were approved as posted on the Meeting website.

11.01  Membership: Ministry and Counsel reported that they found Friend Sharon Kulik clear to join our Monthly Meeting.  We joyfully approved the acceptance of Sharon into membership.

11.02  Finance Committee: Finance Committee reported on the first five months of the fiscal year.  Full financial report is attached.  Friends received the report.

11.03  Nominating committee brought forth the name of Greg Heath to join the committee on Ministry and Counsel to replace a Friend who has a family need keeping her from this service.  We approved this appointment.  They also reported on the newly formed Communications Coordination committee procedures.  Report attached.  Friends approved.

11.04  PSECC committee reported verbally on their written report which did not make it into the advance documents.  The report is attached to these minutes and will go out via emailed announcements.  A major focus this month is repairing relationships with people of indigenous descent in this area.  They are requesting that Meeting allocate $300 of our Social Justice funds to the workshop about the language reclamation project of the Wampanoag people.

11.05  Youth Religious Education reported on our ongoing support for a Kenyan young woman’s education. We have already raised support for this year and further fundraising will wait until Spring of 2023.  There are plans to hold a yard sale for that purpose.  They also reported on the reconstruction of our playground sandbox.  There is a possible rewrite of our child safety policy to allow remote monitoring.  We received this report and it will be attached to these minutes.

11.06  Ministry and Counsel received a request that children be allowed to have a lighted candle when they come into Meeting for Worship.  They approved this request with the proviso that we give them a candle that is not based on fossil fuel.  They plan to use holders that won’t allow them to drip.  Friends approved this recommendation.

11.07  Possible Land Purchase: James F gave us a verbal report of the ad hoc group gathering fundraising pledges for the Meeting to possibly purchase the land across the road from the Meetinghouse.  They are also requesting that Meeting consider asking Friends to loan money to the Meeting to bring the funding to the level needed for the purchase.  Meeting would then need to set up a mechanism to repay that loan.  Concern was expressed about the need for Friends to first address a shortfall in our balance sheet, despite our cash liquidity.  Friends agreed to have a threshing session about how Meeting feels led about this issue.  We will schedule that for fourth Sunday meeting this month.

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

Nominating Committee Report for November 13, 2022 Meeting for Business

1. ITEM ONE — Ministry and Counsel Committee:
   
   1. The release of Faith Sillars from Ministry and Counsel Committee required the discernment of names for replacing Faith.  Committee members discussed names that had presented themselves while listening for a leading.  Several names were heard.  It was suggested that the Committee might benefit greatly from having two new members if possible.
   2. After some discussion, the names of Greg Heath and one other were focused upon – Elaine agreed to speak with both.  Status: Discussions took place on 11/2/22.
   3. Greg called later that week to say that he would be happy to serve on Ministry and Counsel.
   4. This news was joyfully celebrated by the members of the Nominating Committee.
2. ITEM TWO — Communications Coordination Committee: Questions have been repeatedly asked of the committee about exactly how the new Communications Coordination Committee is to work.  Rich read the description from last May’s Minutes which states clearly that the Coordination Committee would consist of one member from each of the Communications, Web Site and Social Media Committees.  They would be called upon as needed to assist in coordinating details for the 3 committees.  Heidi and Rich offered to act as conveners for this Coordination group, explaining their role, appointing representatives and establishing protocol for their service to the Meeting.  All agreed that this would help clarify working methods and roles.  Their service includes:
   • Provide a more widely shared site for storage of Meeting passwords.
   • Acting as a single point of contact for those wishing to publish information.
   • Serve as back up for others on the three related committees.
   • Serve as a pace of discernment when needed.

Thank you, Elaine Bello, Clerk - Nominating Committee

Peace, Social and Earthcare Concerns Committee Report for November 2022

1. Clothing Fundraising: We will NOT be doing a winter clothing drive this year, because the situation has changed and it is being handled a different way.
2. ASSF Fundraising: The fundraising for the ASSF is ongoing. Looks like we will be getting $400-$800 from the UU church.  Sara will be sending out other requests and urging Meeting members to do a fall contribution.
3. Halloween Costumes: We have managed to collect enough Halloween costumes for the group at the Comfort Inn.  Need more candy, decor and bags still.  Sara dropped them off with lots of help from Kath U and Sharon K.  They held the event on Saturday from 4–7 in the parking lot. Lots of gratitude.
4. Indian Boarding Schools Workshop: NEYM is putting on a workshop on Quakers and Indian Boarding Schools Nov. 15 from 7-9. It is online.  We would like to get a group together to attend and have the opportunity to be in a breakout room together to process the presentation.  There is a pay as led registration and they would also like to have donations toward reparations.  The reparations will be to the Wampanoag Language project.  PSECC will be asking for $300 from the Social Justice fund toward the reparations and any shortfall in pay as led from our group.  We want this to be a big focus of the meeting during November, Indigenous Peoples month.
5. Also on Right Relationship — Kate Berman of Monadnock Meeting would like to have a joint program with Concord with the Pouliots and the Land Acknowledgements.  We would like the Social Justice fund to donate toward their work as a reparation.  Details to be worked out.

Request to meeting: Send $300 from the social justice fund to the workshop as part of the reparations.

October 20, 2022

Youth Religious Education Report, November 2022

YRE met in October.

Christine Fundraising: Because we have nearly $800 in our fund to send for Christine’s family this December, we will put off the fundraising for 2023 contribution until this spring.  We plan to hold a spring yard sale that the whole Meeting will participate in.  We will have a short meeting with the children some Sunday to ask for their input on fundraising for Christine.  We sent the letter to Christine.

Playground repairs: The property committee is working to replace the broken sandbox with a new one that will have 8 sides (same side to side dimension of 10 ft).  Thanks to Chris Haigh for working on this.

Candle in Worship Space: The children developed a class schedule that includes them coming into worship for at 10-15 minutes.  And they requested a lit candle be present in the worship space to help them center once they enter.  YRE took this request to Ministry & Counsel, per request of October Meeting for Business.

Teachers/Helpers: Rich, Wendy, Ruth and Elaine are the four teachers.  We need more people to sign up to be the childcare person.  Please signup on Google Document or on the bulletin board.

Child Safety Policy: If you would like to be an observer in the childrens’ rooms (by Zoom) please let one of us know.  This would involve randomly coming into a YRE breakout room that will be open to ‘see’ our rooms.  Teachers will also leave doors open and try to peek into the other room occasionally to satisfy our child safety policy.

Website: We are working with Kathi Connors on updating our website pages to reflect most recent info on Christine and the new Kenya Rising program.