Standing Aside--After the Fact: minutes conniptions.

Bless us oh Lord

This post brought to you by the phrase "standing aside," as offered in an email about minutes and NOT picked up in the resulting minutes.

This post dedicated to Melania Trump, lately enduring slings and arros from the press because her English is less than idiomatic. RantWoman dares any of the people commenting about Melania's English to conduct a whole media event in their second language. Monolingual commenters have NO CALL to comment on Melania's English.

This post further dedicated to a Russian > English interpreter for a Putin press statement as part of the credentials presentation for 19 new ambassadors to Russia. THis event also featured Putin's comments about the US election: he seems pleased. The interpreter's grasp of terminology was excellent; he just made almost every mistake native Russian speakers tend to make about syntax in English

What with the rampages of the new Groper in Chief on the horizon, more torrents seething from her recent "Really, God, Really? " exercise among the blind, and the latest mutations of family medical melodrama. RantWoman's queue of options for conniptions, crankiness, and overly generous irascibility is already too long.  RantWoman did not realize until now that it still is not long enough and RantWoman is called to cough up yet further fulmionation, this time in relation to MINUTES and Quakerese, in particular the phrase "Standing Aside."

Did Gawd Herself write the phrase "standing aside" on some Quaker stone tablets somewhere? Will the entire flow of all that is holy grind to a halt if the minutes do not use that exact phrase? Wherein lies the source of RantWoman's call to conniptions? Should RantWoman just chill out, go home, feed the cat and go to bed so shecan come back to other urgent concerns tomorrow?

Apparently not.

The situation as rendered in draft minutes with nom de blog and RantWoman's proposed corrections [in square brackets].
Approval of Monthly Meeting Minutes
The minutes from the September meeting were approved as distributed and modified. Friend who Offers Strong Ministry respectfully expressed his concerns about [ASKED TO BE RECORDED AS STANDING ASIDE FROM]  the minute passed [APPROVED] during ninth month regarding the use of the Washington State Parks for Navy SEALs training.

(Editorial comment: the minute under discussion came from another Monthly Meeting. The presentation had overtones of "but of course we all agree..." At least on Planet RantWoman life is more interesting when no, in fact, we do not all automatically agree. )

The longer version, borrowing from the archives of the Still Didn't Get The Memo Committee on Email Immoderation, wherein the Recording Clerk was specifically supplied with the precise intended Quakerese, and in context too.. Readers can you find it?

Dear Friend Who Offers Strong Ministry

Thank you again for asking to be recorded as standing aside from the
minute about training flights from Whidbey Island over state parks.  I
am sharing this with Clerk, Recording Clerk, and Clerk of Peace and Social Concerns just to satisfy my process fussiness.

As Clerk said, it is kind of unusual to record something like that
after Meeting has already acted, but in this case, I think it is
entirely appropriate to record that in this month’s minutes.

The next just process point: do you get the bulletin by email? If so
you should also be getting the documents for business meeting. I
personally really appreciate the opportunity to think about things
before Business Meeting. But I also think it’s important to have
complete discussions in business meeting. If someone cannot be at
Business Meeting for something they have concerns about, it is
worthwhile to ask to postpone the item.

For myself. Part of the value of discussions in Business Meeting is
learning the range of people’s views and experiences related to the
military and the Peace Testimony.  For example, I understand your
point that if the Navy is going to rely on expensive extremely complex
technology, they need to practice. However, I do not automatically
feel safer if the navy cannot have conversations about carbon
footprint and the ecological impact on wildlife and on people’s
enjoyment of the parks. I consider it my patriotic duty to exercise
the rights I have to question my government. I also think it is good
for the navy to have to work within real life constraints.

Often in Business Meeting hearing the substance of people’s concerns
is only part of the task; the other part of the task is figuring out
what we want to sign onto and what we ask of ourselves as a Meeting.

Sometimes as in this case, if a minute has been written by someone
outside our Meeting, we might or might not want to try to fuss too much with
the wording. Sometimes I like having our Meeting do its own minute that first
mentions the outside minute and what we ask Friends to do with it
(keep studying, unite in  agreement…) . I do not remember for this
minute whether we did things like ask the clerk to send copies to our
congressional representatives or publicize on our website.

Anyway, If you want to talk further about this specific topic,
probably more than one person on the To list would be glad to talk
further. But maybe it is also just worth thnking about the process
points as other topics come up in the future.

In the Light.

RantWoman

And since when is standing aside over different understandings of  the Peace Testimony a task for "Go Ask your Search Engine?"  Of Course! When people rely on the interwebs and accessibility tools rather than Holy writ in print form.

The first definition offered by Google:
stand aside
phrasal verb of stand
1. take no action to prevent, or not involve oneself in, something that is happening.
"the army had stood aside as the monarchy fell"

Some other dictionary references
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/stand-aside

http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/stand+aside

'mkay. Juding by the first page of search results, not a specific Quaker usage, but what about Faith and Practice? What about it. RantWoman generally favors precise terminology and is pretty sure Standing Aside IS mentioned in Faith and Practice, but darned if RantWoman is going to go check just now..

Next conniption topic?