Invitation in March
2024 | Gleamings (Newsletter)
Campus Discernment Committee Wants to Talk With You
Cutting to the chase
In 2017, University Friends Meeting convened its first ad hoc
committee for discernment about the future of our campus. That group identified
four main options, which Friends considered in a retreat on September 16, 2017:
1. Sell our property and relocate.
2. Stay and retain the Meetinghouse, Quaker House, and parking
lots as is.
3. Stay on our property and redevelop it entirely.
4. Stay on our property and redevelop part of it.
There are many non- and for-profit institutions that UFM could
partner with for options 3 and 4.
Before we offer any possibilities other than the status quo, the
current Discernment Committee wants to hear the ideas of every member of the
UFM community. We will begin making phone calls to you in the next few weeks,
once we have the most recently updated Meeting directory. We anticipate
conversations of 15-25 minutes, so we'll make appointments to talk if
necessary. Please do not contact the committee by email; we want to talk with
Friends.
Here are the questions we would like to discuss with you:
1. What role do you think our campus should play in supporting the
root work and purpose of University Friends Meeting?
2. What are your thoughts about any or all of the four options? Is
there anything you're particularly concerned or excited about?
3. As UFM discerns what to do with its property, and when to do
it, what do you think is important for us to keep in mind and pay attention to?
We look forward to hearing how everyone in our community feels
about the future of our campus.
Campus Discernment Committee
The Committee Gratitude
and hope.
RantWoman has omitted names because she does not feel like
printing names without asking permission and does not feel like asking for
permission to use names
RantWoman is also cautiously grateful about Friends willing to
serve on this committee, with a couple observations.
RantWoman does not know whether to be relieved or chagrined to see
that this round of discernment includes none of the people involved in the
previous round of discernment. The majority of the previous committee was well
under 60 at the time. The previous committee was clerked by a daring mom who
thought that clerking 3 committees would definitely be doable on top of raising
3 young kids and a schedule that always to RantWoman seemed so entangled with
Seattle traffic that RantWoman just found it impossible even to figure out
mutually feasible timeline for communications.
RantWoman is happy to acknowledge challenge on her part, although
RantWoman also notes that RantWoman speaking of her transportation realities
generated what RantWoman interpreted as a blank stare from a member of the
vaunted Care and Accountability Committee.
RantWoman has come to understand that, although the previous small
committee produced some very useful
research, RantWoman is not the only person who felt excluded, disrespected.
RantWoman would have started out what was certain to be a multi-year process
differently and bitten into scope and range of topics to be considered
differently.
RantWoman is particularly hot about the previous discernment not
even touching major changes in public transportation in the area, both in terms
of opportunities and very real concerns about physical safety and relation to
transportation issues RantWoman sincerely hopes that the new process will take
steps to engender more trust and to engage about transportation issues for a
worship community.
RantWoman also noted a Friend on the previous committee whose name
appeared in many places on the Meeting roster and probably continues both to be
very good at gatekeeping and oblivious to how exhausting and silencing that can
be. If that Friend recognizes their behavior, and is interested in talking further,
RantWoman STRONGLY urges that Friend to see whether we can come to a mutually
agreement about a clearness process for appropriate assistance.
RantWoman does note that all but one of the names on the current
committee are Friends well past 60. RantWoman hopes that people new to the
community will have more of a sense thant RantWoman had last time that their
concerns and insights are at the very least heard, and preferably taken
seriously and valued.
RantWoman notes the passing of several much older weighty Friends
since the previous discernment. RantWoman feels no call to hide frustration
with younger greener Friends attached to previous discernment. RantWoman also
sincerely hopes for a much better sense of mutual learning!
Invitation
accepted!
RantWoman received this
invitation through one of the communications channels she is permitted to
interact with. So RantWoman is going to interact!
Readers may already y
have noticed, RantWoman has A LOT to say. RantWoman may or may not say it all
in one blog post.
IN PARTICULAR, RantWoman
will be VERY happy to interact with one or more of the current committee
members named in the communication RantWoman received.
While RantWoman contact
information has probably been erased from as many resources as possible,
RantWoman is quite sure that people know how to reach her. In the absence of
outreach, Readers are to expect continued commentary in this blog. RantWoman
will TRY to work with followup phone calls, with the following additional
comments.
Processwise, RantWoman cannot deal with the request above to
handle everything with phone calls. RantWoman WELL understands that email can
be problematic. RantWoman’s experience with oral communications is that she
frequently feels unheard and like very important insights are simply blured out
of oral conversations, particularly one on one, and particularly if the point
of contact has a strong tendency toward gatekeeping or is simply at sea with
unfamiliar concepts. RantWoman sometimes finds one on one interactions exhausting
and really appreciates moments where shared wisdom lead to something greater
than any individual brings alone..
Further jumping up and
down about matters of disability, first, RantWoman needs to speak in practical
terms, not just in floods of intellectualized rhetoric. RantWoman reminds
readers that there are many reasons besides need for shared discernment why written
communication can be FAR preferable to phone. So, SORRY not to respond as
requested but also wanting to make VERY clear the fact of this response.
Responding to the
questions:
1. What role do you think our campus should play in supporting the
root work and purpose of University Friends Meeting?
2. What are your thoughts about any or all of the four options? Is
there anything you're particularly concerned or excited about?
3. As UFM discerns what to do with its property, and when to do
it, what do you think is important for us to keep in mind and pay attention to?
RantWoman considers a Quaker worshipping community is a valuable
presence in the University District, both for the value of worship and as a
voice of conscience amid many economic pressures and societal upheavals.
RantWoman is VERY excited that UFM is ready again to take up
questions of property stewardship which have been kicked down the road several
times over past decades.
RantWoman is concerned that discernment recognize the need for
professional resources, including financial management, urban planning, and
administration of whatever results.
Regarding option 1, Sell and move: Work done previously suggests
this decision could have large dollar signs attached to it, with need to
discern about how to steward the resources. RantWoman thinks a Quaker presence
in the University District is really important. RantWoman thinks an interesting
question might be what if some of the community calved off and went elsewhere? RantWoman
has no clear leading to discern about that but is open at least to listening to
others’ opinions.
Regarding Option2: speaking
plainly, a DUMB idea, at least without taking a serious look at financial projections.
Lots of old building issues. Need for greater accessibility. RantWoman is
intrigued to know that after many bumps with previous tenants and then
pandemic, the Friends meeting now has a long-term rental sharing space with a Buddhist
congregation. RantWoman wonders how that would figure in any financial analysis.
Options 3 and 4:
Honestly, if UFM is going to endure all the clamor that would come with any redevelopment,
RantWoman would prefer to do all of the following: design in a worship space,
perhaps on the top floor, redevelop the whole property, with a strong emphasis
on housing, green building standards, and gardening or green space, and finally
as one person previously suggested, get a variance to allow even more usable
space than current zoning does. RantWoman would at least like to hear more
about why the suggested variance would not work or would be a long shot.
Composting old
HURTS
RantWoman DOES NOT APOLOGIZE for interacting in a way that
composts A LOT of old hurts and DOES hope that her observations will be
beneficial to the whole process.
RantWoman REPEATS her
LONGSTANDING concern that it is just
GHOULISH to someone who has gone through a life-changing medical event in
midlife that in the future the only thing in a community that she will be
permitted to interact with is memorials. RantWoman in fact, can easily become
INFURIATED that this stance is considered a KINDNESS. There have been quite a
few memorials. RantWoman misses several Friends who have passed away. RantWoman
does not know how to say kindly, though, that RantWoman is not going to miss a
sense from some beloved figures that if they could not deal with a topic
themselves, it does not need to be dealt with.
RantWoman also
gratefully notes that some concerns have been handled just in the course of
technological evolution and community adoption of new technologies. Still, RantWoman
persists in her call to create an environment that MIGHT be more able both to welcome
the gifts and contributions of others like her and to adapt to changing
realities in the future.
RantWoman gets that for
the sight-dependent, interacting with someone who just CANNOT DO all the things
that sight dependent people take for granted is challenging Further, in the
realm of a single standard of Truth, while modern workplaces come with strong
expectations that people will at least BE WILLING TO LEARN how to work
constructively with many different disabilities and life circumstances, no one
is born knowing how to deal with such challenges. Sometimes RantWoman can be
forgiving. Sometimes RantWoman is simply persistent. Add philosophical about
concerns that afflict many parts of her life and for better or worse are not
unique to Friends.
RantWoman thanks readers
who have the fortitude to make it all the way through these thoughts and offers
sincere good wishes for a productive process.
In Light and
faithfulness
RantWoman
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