Okay RantWoman admits it: she is procrastinating and would rather be somewhere else than her current daily diet of only occasionally diverting dramas.
RantWoman is still trying to get her brain home from Annual Session, also known as Quaker summer camp. RantWoman admits, part of this mental straggling has to do with NPYM being a geographically large but very unevenly populated Yearly Meeting. Being together in person really means a lot for many Friends even if this means long distance travel or organizing ourselves to communicate a lot of the time in new media.
Remember how RantWoman wrote ad copy about "it's Quakers go to camp, Business Meeting every day?" RantWoman had a great time regardless. Here RantWoman pokes at dances of the Holy Spirit as more or less corralled into plenary business sessions and other kinds of intentional and unintentional activities.
Opening Musings:
Weighty Friend who teaches Clerking sometimes points out that one can be dealing with both issues of process and issues of content or agenda. For me the entire issue of doing business at Annual Session falls into that category. I would like to outline some observations and see where they lead.
The structure committee originally intended to facilitate both doingbusiness at Annual Session and spreading out the work of the community across more committees. I think both ARE occurring; some comments about the second before tackling the question of Business at Annual Session.
There were a couple diverse committees including many different names and Meetings created last year; from the sounds of their reports some of them did a lot of spirit-led work. A couple other committees needed to come to plenary even if all they found out is their work needs more seasoning.
It was wonderful last year to hear the number of different names of Friends led to work on the structure evaluation and the question of relationships with Friends from other groups of yearly meetings.
I have enjoyed hearing bits and pieces of the work done by the Committee on the Discipline including all the consultations the committee did at annual session this year with Friends of different ages.
I like that the Youth Committee was clear to act on pretty tight timeline and to bring forward a proposal to hire a children's program coordinator. I think exactly what gets assigned to that position needs some adjustment and I would like to have better understood some numbers points about who participates in Annual Session and the impact of adding a fourth day, but I like being able to make decisions even if uncertainty is involved! I like that there is a full slate of Friends led to work on Outreach and Visitation.
I am not necessarily distressed that a standing Peace and Social Concerns committee has not coalesced. Friends are active in so many different ways that creating a standing committee might draw energy away from all the other ways Friends are engaged. On the other hand, between the geographic coverage of the coal trains issue and the fact that Sen. Murray D WA is the chair of the Senate Budget committee, I am going to continue to season some thoughts related to FCWPP and FCNL andNPYM.
I have been VERY impressed with the work done by M&O over the past several years. Meaning no disrespect to the people newly nominated to M&O, I have a continuing concern that M&O really needs the gifts and Light of Friends from Meetings in communities of different sizes and I hope that Nominating Committee and M&O will discern about ways to work with that concern.
[Comment added as this goes to blog: RantWoman means to foward to Nominating Committee and Young Adult Friends a list of about 5 standing committees where RantWoman would be thrilled to see added the name of 1 or more Young Adult Friends.]
[Further reflections due at some point on RantWoman's experience arriving at her Meeting at YAF age but never with any strong leading or draw to connect to Young Adult Friends.]
Turning now to Annual Session, different topics might require different strategies as far as shared seasoning. Friends need to attend to a sense somehow among at least a substantial number of Friends that structure is threatening to squeeze out Spirit. What do we need to do to preserve a greater sense of Spirit moving among us?
Such Light as has arrived to RantWoman, subject of course to all manner of RantWoman-derived distortions:
Agenda items are currently presented in plenary with framing one day and action after a couple days and opportunity between for God to work and for Friends to season and talk amongst ourselves before things come back to Business Meeting.
I rode back from Annual Session in a car with two other Friends and we ALL talked about how we are only now starting to get the hang of the presentation, season, discern in plenary cycle and by extension how we hope work occurs between Annual Sessions.
One thing that I think would help Friends understand the logic of the scheduling at Annual Session is to remind Friends of this multiple times multiple ways, when stuff is emailed out, in plenaries, etc. One Friend in the car was not crazy about the term framing, but maybe something like "opening a container" would be an interesting option. The container is partly blocks of time, partly environment, plenary or otherwise, partly the contributions of Friends' seasoning. If one block of time container gets full, another is needed but if might be a different container as far as room, timeline....
A second thing I think would help is to be REALLY explicit about a time and place for people to meet outside plenary with the committee when further seasoning is needed.
--The have everyone mob the speakers' area thing that has gone on for two years is really hard for anyone with physical limitations. Having a specific time and place announced is inviting, not exclusive, maintains a sense of worshipful space not just friendly mob. The idea would be that more seasoning is frequently needed but not by a whole plenary.
--Or if a new adhoc committee is needed, having an open meeting space gives a way for people to gather in person and worship briefly even if they wind up working a lot by conference call over the next year.
A third thing to think about: A Friend from the Youth Committee mentioned that the Presiding Clerk did a conference call with the people needing to present in plenaries before Annual Session I think this in general is a good idea. Maybe I misheard as far as who participated in the call though: the people presenting already know their topics well and the question of how to present in plenaries MIGHT benefit from fresh ears. Maybe a set or two of fresh ears would just offer questions that the Clerk or those presenting could listen for. Maybe the fresh ears would suggest that some items might need more time in plenary than others. Who knows? The idea is just to have some fresh ears to think about and uphold during sessions.
This year, ironically, one agenda item where I clearly saw the seasoning between plenaries pay off was the Relations with other branches of Quakers committee, the one that got postponed because God needed to work on Saturday. I heard the co-clerk's frustration about having done a lot of work to fix concerns which arose during framing and being disappointed that they could not present on Saturday. I am sorry their co-clerks had to leave, but I think we were well-served even when the plenary attempted some word smithing. Also, RantWoman heard one Friend talk about the work of the committee over the year and how she felt it had been rewarding to stick things out and work through some rough spots as a committee.
Where would time for open committee meetings come from?
One option that comes to mind is to have one or more meeting rooms during interest group time. People might have to give up an interest group but see an additional idea.
Another option: during service project time even though that also is a conflict.
A third: get rid of a plenary.
--There is one day where there were 3 plenaries. Cut back to two and do open committee meetings, several at once during that the time that would have been the third plenary. That means people can only go to one. Oh well.
--Have a separate space or maybe use the main plenary room for open worship and people holding the work in the Light. OR do a mix of open committee and interest groups so that there are three time slots with interest group options. ALWAYS make an open worship option during Interest group times.
--Also consider some kind of intergenerational freeform craft activity where people can get together and DO and talk at the same time but also in a way that is a break from other busyness.
--Part of the thinking is explicitly to take advantage of Friends all being together and to do at least some Business in smaller groups than the whole plenary.
What would I subtract from the plenary agenda if we cut back by one?
--There should be at most 1 or two Quaker alphabet soup presentations at plenary. Everyone else gets interest group options or the Quaker fair. MAYBE spend some time thinking about ways to make the Quaker fair a little bit less of a mob scene.
--One interest group option: the Alphabet soup interest group with short presentations by several groups. Maybe ask people who present in plenary what their efforts yieleded this year and whether they are satisfied. Then use those thoughts in planning how presentatins are done next year.
--Another option, just repeat some of the interest groups and maybe create room for one or two more, especially if way were found for a third interest group time.
Another important discipline is just to focus on decisions that absolutely have to get made such as approving the budget.
Money
This year, I heard great lack of clarity about financial concerns including tradeoffs of different choices regarding length of Annual Session, whether Annual Session is covering its costs, financing Annual Session partly through assessments or expecting it to be self-supporting, how to ensure that different parts of our community are able to attend, spending from reserves and general budget balancing.
Some of the time I think it is reasonable for Finance and Legal to prepare one budget; sometimes I think it would be more helpful to present a couple alternatives with tradeoffs clearly spelled out in the first framing session and then expect people to have gotten clear about recommended choices in time to approve at a subsequent plenary.
For myself, I come from a large Meeting but I think a smaller percentage of our community regularly attends Annual Session than from other Meetings. This is a point I think about when thinking about large dues increases and how to finance Annual Session vs other choices of activity for the Yearly Meeting. I have no clear answers but I do think about it and I am grateful for time to season big changes with my Meeting in time to offer meaningful input over a series of years at Annual Session.
Thank you all for your work.
In the Light
(RantWoman)
Link to apage full of documents, including epistles from other Yearly Meetings.
http://www.npym.org/as/index.html
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