Meditations For Meeting For Business: Communications Committee

 

Proposed Minute to Establish a Communications Committee:

text below the intro and followed by questions:

 

RanWoman Intro

RantWoman is called to continue to be faithful to her Light. RantWoman assumes that a number of people still need help finding their better selves, communicating what is positive, cutting down on negative and frankly embarrassing messaging, and tending to why RantWoman continues to care  

 

RantWoman suggests that people whose feelings are hurt about this consider the negative messages being sent by what RantWoman hears is RantWoman causing problems merely by existing. Maybe start by taking a good read at the recent Disability Pride piece in Gleamings. Despite RantWoman’s quibbles it’s not a terrible place to start.  

 

RantWoman reminds everyone with hurt feelings that clearness committees are an option either through UFM or through Quarterly Meeting. RantWoman’s only requirement: rantWoman is severely allergic to sloppy use of the term “couples counseling.” On good days RantWoman gets that she is reacting badly to professionals just using the jargon of their field. Still, it’s the pandemic, good days should not be either taken for granted or wasted.

 

RantWoman’s understanding of the testimony on equality is that people in some kind of a couple relationship are by far not the only people who are ever parties to a conflict. RantWoman keeps praying that maybe she can let her allergy go and find some pastoral care equivalent of Xyrtec to help her cope. About that time RantWoman gets a severe quaking Speak Truth to Power spasm telling her she really is not going to be able to drug away the depth of her professional, contextual, and personal allergies.

 

RantWoman is also pretty sure there are resources AND resources available in ways that meet a variety of accessibility needs for describing needed conflict resolution processes without making RantWoman want to scream and go delve into professional codes of ethics. Let us hold that problem in the Light. For one thing, no matter how much about “disability pride” gets printed in Gleamings, merely ACKNOWLEDGING this need in concrete actionable terms still gets scrubbed out of commitments about work on disability issues.

 

RantWoman sees in this proposal great opportunity and AGAIN, as she has done MULTIPLE TIMES dating back to the original Communications task force offers her service, HOPEFULLY in more congenial MAYBE interpersonally nuanced form than this blog.

 

Text to be presented in Meeting for Business

University Friends Meeting approves establishing a Communications Committee and directs Nominating Committee to bring nominations for this new committee to either the summer 2021 or September 2021 Business Meeting.

 

Background

 

In 2007-2008, UFM participated in a year of Discernment.  At the end of  that 18-month year, the Meeting approved establishing a Communications Task Force to develop and support the communication need of the Meeting and individuals in the Meeting.  The Task Force was not able to complete its job, and we have worked without reliable oversight of our communications even as the world of communications has evolved rapidly.

 

Recently an ad hoc IT committee has been reworking our use of electronic communications, Zoom, the website, and information storage and sharing, but there is no group charged with establishing policy or methods.  Gleamings is a stand-along (sic) enterprise.  There is no one responsible for the Announcements listserv, the website has a webkeeper but no oversight group, and our Office Coordinator, with help from individuals is responsible for vetting people who want to be included in our mailing lists.

 

This proposal is for a Communications Committee that becomes the home of IT, Gleamings, the website, announcements and mailing lists, and the Google Drive. 

 

Given normal Quaker process, the committee will be charged with filling out its charter so that it incorporates anything that this proposal missed or new things that need to be included.

 

June 2021 

 

RantWoman comments:

--Even though RantWoman thoroughly approves the idea of creating such a committee RantWoman STRONGLY recommends holding over approval of the minute until Friends have had the opportunity to season what instructions they want to convey to Nominating Committee and what they expect of the committee going forward.

 

--Considering LONGSTANDING patterns of ignoring RantWoman’s concerns about accessibility, recent repetitions of that pattern, and in particular the current Clerk of Nominating Committee’s individual patterns which RantWoman is happy to elaborate, RantWoman has ZIP confidence that simply sending this minute off to Nominating Committee without clear instructions from Meeting for Business will speak to all the needs on RantWoman’s mind.

 

--Some things RantWoman would like to expect:

 

            Recognition that RantWoman really WANTS to hear the voices of other Friends and to work toward a blessed community, even on days when a “bless your hearts” community is where people are resolutely mired.

 

  Articulation of clear policies, inclusiveness in creating the policies, and transparency about what they are.  NOTHING ABOUT US WITHOUT US. People do NOT get just to blabber in email about “you are not welcome here.”  NO ONE welcomes life-changing medical events in midlife or frankly any other time.  RantWoman has NO patience with all the different forms she hears of “It’s not good for the community…” or “maybe the community can’t handle…,” this latter from a person with a disability who sounds like the community is supposed to handle that Friends disability but not RantWoman’s.

 

 

Inclusion in the policies explicit commitment to some standards of accessibility that meeting the varying needs, communications patterns among Friends, and evolving technologies. RantWoman here applies the same single standard of truth she is applying in a much bigger forum: people are not born knowing basic accessibility standandards but if they are standards, people learn them in the course of ongoing work. AND if people are open to continuing revelation, there is also room for programs like QuEST to nurture awareness of disabilities issues in the course of regular activities.

 

            Space to lament the laying down of weekly First Day School. RantWoman meant to go on separately about that but maybe needs to leave room for Friends to digest these comments, partly in hopes that if adults practice communicating better that will create space to foster spiritual grown for more young families and evenMAYBE possibly create a less ableist world for some young Friends RantWoman has noticed.

 

In Light and faithfulness.

 

RantWoman.