CMM 2024-04-14

All are welcome to attend our Meetings for Worship which are held in person and via Zoom (hybrid).

We strive to create a beloved community which shows loving concern and actions toward all members of the Meeting and all with whom we interact in the wider world.  Because vaccination protects not only the person vaccinated but others with whom they come into contact by decreasing the risk of spreading COVID-19 with or without symptoms, we demonstrate this care and love by being vaccinated (if able) and encourage that those who attend the meeting in person do so also.  We believe this will make our meetinghouse a safer space available for members and attenders whose own network includes people who are at greater risk of death or disability should they get the COVID-19 virus.

We request that you attend via Zoom if any of the following apply:

1. You have a fever, cough, or other viral symptoms.  (This is because you can have COVID and spread it before testing positive.); or
2. If you have had COVID, please don't attend in person until after the 5^th day after you tested positive; and please wear a mask until the 10^th day (or longer if your doctor recommends)
3. If you know you have been exposed to COVID, please do not attend in person until after testing negative on the 3^rd [5^th] day after exposure.  Then please continue to wear a mask until the 10^th day after exposure.

Otherwise, masks are currently optional in the Meetinghouse unless the CDC reports hospital admissions for COVID as “red” in any county of New Hampshire on the following map: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#maps_new-admissions-rate-county.  For further clarification or questions, please contact Clerk [at] ConcordFriendsMeeting [dot] org (subject: COVID%20Policy) .

A group of Quakers from Concord Monthly Meeting met on April 7, 2024 to discern our list of our top five priorities for FCNL to focus on for the next two years.  Committee members of our Peace, Social, and Earthcare Committee explained the process.  We listed out any priorities we wanted to include, using both the current priorities list and adding those we felt were missing.  Then we held a couple rounds of voting by placing stickers on our top five.  We needed to hold a second round to narrow it down to five, but tied with six.

The priorities, in no particular order are:

• Address the existential threat of climate change by reducing the use of fossil fuels and harmful land-use practices; employ science-based mitigation and adaptation approaches
• Promote peace-building
• Advocate for democracy by working to remedy threats to our electoral processes that limit access to voting and undermine hope, secure and fair elections
• Work to end gun violence
• Work for comprehensive immigration reform policies to establish inclusion and prosperity for immigrant communities, regardless of their status
• Address economic inequality in/by tax system, living wage, and social safety net programs

Also high on the list was justice for Israel and Palestine.

Greg proposes that this spring, like right away, we landscape the font area disturbed by the geothermal install.

Conditions affecting the plan:

• The soil has been disturbed so much that poor soil quality requires improvement, but the poor quality earth fills up the entire area to the top of the landscape timbers.  That makes improving the soil quality difficult.  We would have to remove several inches of earth and replace with good loam to do a plan such as we had there previously.
• We have difficulty addressing our upkeep needs: weeding, watering, replacing plants that don't make it and so on.

The Proposal:

• Replace the landscape timbers that were removed from along the stones by the building.
• Plant enough rhododendrons to essentially fill the space when they are mature.  Few weeds grow in such areas.  This would involve digging holes to plant them in and replacing the removed earth with good loam.
• Digging out the south east and west corners and placing good loam for seasonal or annual plantings of flowers as we have done in the past.
• Shrubs would not be backed up to the edge by the building leaving an open area there. Snow sliding from the roof is problematic for those plantings.  Later there could be ferns planted there as it becomes shady.
• Heavy bark mulch over the entire area. Less will be required as the shrubs get larger and more dense.
• We have $1,000 in our budget for landscaping by the end of May.  I would expect to buy some older shrubs from a nursery as well as younger ones.