Accept? Accept with Gratitude?

RantWoman begs readers' indulgence in advance. RantWoman has torn herself away from #insurrection twitter. RantWoman is trying to calm the regular pandemic mental rattles. RantWoman is trying to manage the outrage and grief of the January 6 insurrection at the White House. Sundry other seasonal cyclical concerns are rattling  through RantWoman's brain. And RantWoman is sitting with a conversation about Business Meeting's reactions to the AdHoc Disabilities committee report.  

To wit, one Friend, in fact the Recording Clerk, among other hats pointed out that in recent months Business Meeting has accepted several reports with gratitude. So the question became should it be recorded that the report was accepted or accepted with gratitude.

An amaryllis
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Ding, ding, ding. RantWoman could kiss the Friend out of gratitude for even raising the question. RantWoman, RantWoman is a Show your work recording clerk who, if the question had come from anyone other than the recording clerk, would certainly have recorded the question. Since the present norm is to proclaim loudly how much everyone is concerned about disability but not to show minutes to a person who keeps raising issues of disability, RantWoman is not sure what was decided in the first place. 

In the second place, when RantWoman is recording clerk / notetaker, she often has trouble recording her own contributions to conversation. So RantWoman will be faithful to her light about where the question leads her.

Did the Friend mean she is not grateful for the report? 

Did the Friend mean she is grateful for the work but she is wondering what the next steps should be? 

 RantWoman could go on making up positive or negative interpretations of the question, but instead RantWoman is going to grab it as an opening to talk about a previous round of the Oversight / Oops Well / now Care and Counsel committee writing a report about disability. RantWoman thinks she has said before that she is grateful one member of the committee now realizes how incomplete the previous effort was. RantWoman's point here: RantWoman is pretty sure that report was accepted with gratitude and everyone but RantWoman went clap clap clap and did not think about next steps. 

RantWoman has heard a "that's just not fair" complaint from someone involved in that work. RantWoman is aware that there were some disability related matters handled confidentially, but RantWoman is also clearer and clearer about ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT!

Back to the most recent Meeting For Business. One informant's interpretation of the proceedings was that recommendations in the report were approved. Did no one ask any questions? RantWoman emphatically would prefer to adjust the wording of one recommendation and is trying not to say the words "ableist BS" about no one thinking to include RantWoman in drafting the report or to ask RantWoman about recommendations. RantWoman is also vexed: the need ALWAYS to talk about access needs and new software does not appear to have taken root in one Friend's head despite now multiple encounters with the topic. 

For instance a question about Zoom was added to the survey after RantWoman last saw it, but the person who added the question did not think to include anything about software accessibility issues and Zoom. For one example: there is currently only one video conferencing / screen reader combination on the planet where the contents of screen share is accessible to screen reader users. RantWoman is familiar with the phrase "use alternative methods." RantWoman is also familiar with several different measures that help people with hearing issues. The recommendations contained in the disabilities committee report say nothing about any of these topics even though RantWoman now has considerable experience talking about them in several different contexts.

RantWoman is also peeved because part of the work on the survey so far also included a proposed list of projects the Ad-Hoc Disabilities committee might work on. RantWoman has so far seen NO mention of this list in Meeting for Business and addressing that point would seem like a logical next step to RantWoman.. 

RantWoman is also peeved because she had hoped that each committee might be invited to consider the survey results and how they might apply to that committee's work. RantWoman is clear that she would be glad to assist each committee one committee at a time with particular measures to work out access needs for each conversation. RantWoman is also clear that these conversations need to include vocabulary RantWoman keeps trying to insert into the discussion and that keep getting written out of steps so far. Think of the vocabulary lessons as an unsolicited donation of technical assistance.

Doing the same thing over and over is a recipe for insanity: on one hand, RantWoman can still find plenty to gripe about in terms of key figures being impossible to reach by phone, people contacting RantWoman on a Saturday midafternoon before business meeting. On the other hand, this post is RantWoman doing exactly that, trying to get important lines of thought into the conversation but at the last possible second. Guess what, if people think they don't have to talk to RantWoman anyway and RantWoman is clear about several layers of leading, perhaps Friends can do the best they can with what's here.

in Light and Faithfulness.

RantWoman.