Composting Business Meeting

RantWoman wishes to reiterate, emphasize, underscore... the following comments are her own efforts to season events of yesterday's Business Meeting. They may or may not intersect meaningfully with the actual minutes and should be assumed to reflect RantWoman's views alone, not necessarily those of anyone else and certainly not any recorded position of her Meeting.

First two announcement reflections:

Nasturtiums in Salad Friend announced that the composting toilet has at last officially been installed. CONGRATULATIONS!

Next, one of our most stalwart and to RantWoman's mind inspiring older members announced that the last surviving founding member of our Meeting has entered hospice. RantWoman recognizes that the mere phrase founding member speaks volumes compared to other parts of Quakerdom. RantWoman has actually met other founding members, now deceased and will hold in the Light the passing of the departing one. RantWoman will also do her best to carry forward our founders' project in this still new century, though she will also admit with only the slightest prodding a "not very good" feeling about the future of the RSoF being on her shoulders. RantWoman supposes she is just going to have to let God handle some of that for now.


Lead me not into temptation. RantWoman left her Sudoku book in the coatroom in her second bag for the ENTIRE day. This did not improve RantWoman's experience of Meeting for Worship for Business. It caused her simply to fixate on a whole list of kvetches and vexations which she now needs to season appropriate responses for. Alas, for a number of reasons it is also clear that merely kvetching in a blog is NOT always appropriate. Sigh.


RantWoman has given herself permission to note the obvious: noisy rooms and crowds of more than about 20 people stress her out--unless RantWoman is at a podium or something. RantWoman will try at some point to reflect about ways she can live with this point and still interact effectively with what needs to be interacted with. In this case that meant banging around alone in the kitchen when she was done eating helping get cleanup started and then retiring to the Worship Room for blessed silence and maybe missing some great buzz from the energy released by The Year of Discernment Final Report


RantWoman wonders whether someone has been reading her blog about overdoing the xerox machine. Past practice has been to make more or less enough copies of our minutes for everyone present. Of course this results in lots of copies left over or thrown out. This time, RantWoman did not even think to check herself, but conversation indicated that people were to share during the review of the minutes. RantWoman APPROVES, though it does occur to her to want to check whether insufficient numbers of minutes copies were a factor in the precipitous drop in attendance after compared to before lunch.


(As far as information access, RantWoman is also reflecting on a large number of laptops in attendance at plenaries at her yearly meeting's last annual session. RantWoman thinks she would prefer NOT to have endless laptop proliferation in Business Meeting, but she is wondering whether not having anything to review would be as disconcerting to others as it sometimes is to RantWoman and how that would affect the progress of business.)


Lots of people liked The Year of Discernment Final Report . Six people volunteered to help organize the recommended two retreats / year for the next year. RantWoman herself offered her services in connection with one of the recommended task forces. RantWoman has NO interest in clerking or convening. RantWoman also wishes the Year of Discernment committee had spelled out a little better what they want the task force RantWoman volunteered for to do. Unfortunately the clerk of the Year of Discernment Committee sent a job description that seemed, based on RantWoman's previous professional activitiy inadequate. Possibly the lack of scope definition is an opening. RantWoman still does NOT want to convene anything.

RantWoman is amused to note that the Year of Discernment steering committee has the same problems finding topical documents as RantWoman. RantWoman cringed when she saw a bit asking the committee which is the topic of the compost thread to do something RantWoman knows it already did. RantWoman felt a pang on behalf of Dear Friend, who RantWoman knows was centrally involved in drafting and seasoning said minute. RantWoman would be less vexed if the results were easily findable by members of the public, but for the time being RantWoman has just added the findability point to her list of compost-themed kvetches.


RantWoman also noted one concern which RantWoman very loosely paraphrases as "why are we spending all this time on committees when there is a world to be saved?" RantWoman understands the point. For some, committee service, community IS the way to peace; others simply cannot do all that peace stuff without deep spiritual centeredness. Still others might also, despite the other two points, grumble "That Friend speaks my mind."

Next came laying down the Year of Discernment steering committee--after 18 months of work. One Friend suggested alternate phrasing: "relieved of service" except that sounds like a cross between an Alka-Seltzer ad and a euphemism from one of those work record documents RantWoman occasionally translates for being forcibly retired or fired.


RantWoman made the mistake as one of her activities after Meeting for Business of going to another event involving several Friends and wanting to debrief instead of attend to the other matters. RantWoman supposes she could have worse problems.