Talking of NPYM affiliation with FGC

Here below are some queries in connection with the question of North Pacific Yearly Meeting possibly affiliating with Friends General Conference. Background about the history of our non-affiliation is

http://onequakertake.blogspot.com/2010/12/north-pacific-yearly-meeting.html

Blogosphere News Flash: download a description of the issue and some NPYM queries here:
http://www.npym.org/structure/ad_hoc_committees.html

RantWoman learned of the above queries when she sent her draft off to topical people in her Meeting.

RantWoman wants to do things that might lead to thoughtful
discernment about this question within her own Meeting as well as in the wider world as prelude to Annual Session. RantWoman has various partly informational questions. Rather than just bang away at her own point of view, RantWoman wants to think about what would help our community participate in thoughtful
discernment. How to do that is not obvious.

RantWoman has inflicted most of these queries on people in key positions in her Meeting, but RantWoman is also attempting to see what happens if they come to the blog too.

Sometimes RantWoman has more of an expediency view of this question: is affiliation with FGC good value for the resources expended? Does NPYM get to share in resources we couldn't access otherwise?

How would or would not affiliation with FGC help Friends nurture
spiritual development among our own communities?

How would or would not affiliation with FGC enhance prophetic witness
within NPYM or in the wider world?

Would NPYM's affiliation bring something specific and / or unique to the work of FGC?

Does clinging to independence preserve and reify
historical issues that current Friends have no clue about.
How much do these historical splits affect how Friends interact
today in our region?

Why does any of this matter to people who come to our Meetings and become convinced Friends today?

To what extent is NPYM's independence just western exceptionalism: In the west it's a lot harder to find people like oneself so anyone vaguely similar is held dearly. Also, there have not been hundreds of years for views to get set in people's heads. But when enough people
from other places get together, we still figure out it's darned hard
to get along with each other and sometimes there are good reasons to
give space for diversity.

But being glib about this is skipping over the evangelical roots of
numbers of Yearly Meetings inout Latin America. Does our historical
independence offer something unique in terms of reconciliation among
Friends and new Light for the challenges of our current age?

On the other hand, could NPYM preserve its walk in multipl traditions
by affiliating with more than one body? Would there be other bodies
who would have us given some minutes we are VERY clear about?

Is the entire question of Quaker communications still stuck in the
last century and what do we need to do to keep all our generations
talking to one another across our different modes of communication? It
seems possible that affiliation with FGC may be neither here nor there
about this question, but the two exist together in RantWoman's head. ONE reason is RantWoman's own tumultuous relationship with print and electronic media, but RantWoman thinks that topic belongs in a different post.

But what say ye all?