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Each Fall, Representatives Committee, in conjunction with the presiding, arrangements committee, and representatives committee clerks, asks monthly meetings and their affiliated worship groups to consider queries about issues before the Yearly Meeting. This year there are three very different concerns.
Please address as many of the Fall Queries as you can or wish to. You do not need to come to unity on any of these queries, although we’d like to know if you do. Please have your representative or clerk send your responses to the
presiding clerk (Molly Wingate, clerk@imym.org) by January 10, 2018. She will compile all the responses for the Representatives Committee February 2-4, 2018.
Query 1:
At the 2017 Annual Gathering at Ghost Ranch, IMYM approved a minute supporting Friends General Conference’s internal audit of their institutional racism. We hope that Query #1 will follow up on our support and bring this concern to our local monthly meetings and worship groups. Many meetings have been working on this concern for some time, and we look forward to their wisdom.
How is your Meeting engaging with issues of racism and white privilege? What is the best thing you’ve done so far? We hope to catalogue best practices.
Query 2
Friends General Conference has asked IMYM to consider hosting the FGC Gathering in 2019 or beyond. The FGC Gathering was held in our region in 2013 at Greeley, Colorado. The co-clerks, Andrew Banks and Sarah Beutel, found it a deeply enriching experience. They felt well supported by FGC and local Friends. The co-clerks were named by a nominating committee from FGC that included IMYM Friends. Approximately 30 IMYM Friends served on sub-committees and heling with local arrangements. In 2013, the co-clerks worked on the gathering for 18 months (10 hours a week average) while the subcommittee volunteers had a 12-month commitment. FGC chooses the site for the Gathering, and they are open to suggestions.
Having the FGC Gathering in our region, gives us:
– the opportunity to connect with the wider Quaker community in our own area
-stimulating speakers and program, chance to grow as a Quaker, in spirit and in practice
– a great model of a youth program and a good opportunity to connect for Quaker youth
-a strong model of Quaker process
-opportunities to increase our knowledge of and relationship with FGC, which strengthens our Quaker community and the national Quaker community.
Does your Meeting support hosting the Friends General Conference annual gathering in our region in 2019 or beyond? How would people in your meeting be willing to participate?
Query 3
This summer, Shelley Tannenbaum of Quaker Earthcare Witness attended our annual gathering and again offered us the opportunity to affiliate with QEW. At least two Friends are interested in serving.
QEW has been the grassroots voice for environmental stewardship for Friends in North America for the past thirty years. QEW shares resources with Friends and Yearly and Monthly Meetings, speaks out on these issues at the national and international levels, and showcases actions that Friends are taking in their presentations, publications and on their website. Overall, QEW serves to inspire Friends to spirit-led concrete actions on earthcare, and QEW shares their stories as a way to inspire and empower Friends to be bolder and more effective.
IMYM could have up to two members on QEW’s steering committee which meets twice a year. The cost of attendance $120-400 (depending on the locations) plus travel expenses. Many yearly meetings contribute to QEW annually; meeting contributions (Monthly and Yearly) make up about a third of QEW’s budget. Not all of these Yearly meetings send representatives to the steering committee. Contributions from Yearly and Monthly meetings range from $50-1000.
Does IMYM wish to affiliate with Quaker Earthcare Witness?