Last Updated on 2 years by IMYM Tech Lead
Intermountain Yearly Meeting Representatives Committee Meeting
August 29, 2018
Present by phone:
| Presiding Clerk | Penny Thron-Weber |
| Recording Clerk | |
| Colorado Regional Meeting | |
| CRM Senior Young Friend | |
| Arizona Half-Yearly Meeting | |
| AHY Senior Young Friend | |
| New Mexico Regional Mtg | |
| NM Senior Young Friend | |
| Utah Friends Fellowship | |
| UFF Senior Young Friend | |
| Mountain View Meeting | Eric Wright |
| Boulder Meeting | Barb Stephens |
| Fort Collins Meeting | |
| Colorado Springs Meeting | (Molly Wingate) |
| Tempe Meeting | Becky Schroeder |
| Pima Meeting | |
| Phoenix Meeting | |
| Flagstaff Meeting | Kay Bordwell |
| Santa Fe Meeting | Allen Winchester |
| South Santa Fe Meeting | |
| Albuquerque Meeting | Nancy Rice |
| Durango Meeting | |
| Las Cruces Meeting | Tim Reed |
| Gila Meeting | (Jamie Newton) |
| El Paso Meeting | |
| Salt Lake City Meeting | (Charlene Weir) |
| Logan Meeting | (Brenday Chung) |
| Moab Meeting | |
| IMYM Presiding Clerk | Molly Wingate |
| Arrangements Committee Clerk | Laura Peterson |
| Finance Committee Clerk | Vance Marshall |
| Treasurer | Jerry Peterson |
| Senior Young Friends | Elliott Enochs |
| Young Adult Friends | Ana Ebi ? |
| Nominating Committee Clerk | Gail Toko-Ross |
| Peace & Service Committee Clerk | Jamie Newton |
| Delegates Committee Clerk | Sara Keeney |
| Ministry and Counsel Clerk | |
| Web Clerk | |
| FAP | Brenda Chung |
| Other As Needed | |
| Transition Team Clerk | Charlene Weir |
Clerk Penny Thron-Weber opened with the reminder that the purpose of the meeting is to determine readiness to move to Fort Lewis and make a decision if we should move in 2019 or 2020.
We held brief time of worship.
- Report from Transition Team. Clerk Charlene Weir reviewed the report and took clarifying questions. (Report attached)
Finance Clerk Vance Marshall told us that Pay as Led came within $1500 of breaking even, which was a very positive outcome. However, Ghost Ranch waived some fees normally charged for college staff work, due to the pool being closed, so that also helped balance income and expense.
Friends were curious about exactly how close housing and program space would be and except for Senior Young Friends who would be a bit farther, spaces are close together. The opportunity mentioned in the report for a small amount of camping on campus will probably not be realized.
Charlene reported that the team has not located any child-care programs on campus or in town that IMYM can tap into. The program on campus is a day care and not available to outside groups. She also noted that the team did not see and are not aware of the playground under construction mentioned by Tom Vaughan in an email.
- Comments and Consideration.
Friends spoke of a desire for a simpler program and perhaps temporarily eliminating early days as part of a move. Several representatives from meetings said that their meetings felt the time is now to move. Some expressed the importance of early days to young friends. The SYF’s would like to have one more year at Ghost Ranch. Concerns for extensive preparation needed for children’s programming and how support would be provided were raised. We discussed the recommendation to hire a person to prepare curriculum for youth and/or a set of activities for youth. A Friend noted that this is an opportunity to re-envision the children’s program as was done with the JYF’s after Gretchen Baker-Smith was our keynote speaker.
We found hesitancy to move in 2019 due to the enormity of the task and personnel required to prepare youth programming in a short turn around time, without a support structure in place by now.
Minute: Representatives committee supports moving to Fort Lewis College in Durango in the year 2020. We will hold IMYM 2019 sessions at Ghost Ranch.
Arrangements Committee Clerk Laura Peterson will work through her committee and the Youth Working Group to provide the additional support needed for youth programming before the move to Fort Lewis in 2020.
Charlene and Molly will coordinate with Janie Cravens, Facilities Liaison, about notifying Fort Lewis College and Ghost Ranch of our decision.
We committed to provide extra help and support for those who have difficulty at Ghost Ranch and seek more ideas on what might be needed.
The next meeting of Representatives Committee will be by telephone on October 3 at 7:00 MDT.
We closed with worship and expressions of gratitude for the work of the Transition Team and all present.
Respectfully submitted,
Sara Keeney, Acting Recording Clerk
Transition Team Report for Moving to Ft. Lewis (8/22/18)
Overview
This report contains the work of the IMYM transition team and is intended to be reviewed by the Representatives Committee of IMYM. The transition team has met weekly, collected survey data from campers, and visited and conducted a site visit. We organized the report in 3 general areas: Quaker Experience (the “feel” of the place and the ability to support community), Campers and Camping (addressing the needs and concerns of campers), and Children’s Program (availability and support for the Children’s Program). Each will be discussed in turn below.
- Quaker Experience
The sense of the committee is that Fort Lewis will be able to support the Quaker Experience well. The following areas are identified:
- Dining Room can be organized to support an IMYM area. Regarding food, FLC is superior to GR in quality and lower in cost.
- Marking Quaker Walking Paths – they agreed to small areas for gathering – we can put up tents; 20×20 — $200; 25 x 40 — $500 –Chairs and small tables and trash cans are also available.
- Our living quarters can be co-located except for those where the nursery might be housed. We might need clarification about where apartments and possible camping might be co-located.
- Golf carts are available and appear to be reasonably cost-effective (Leslie)
- We have 3 areas for gathering that are quite nice and smaller areas for interest groups.
Recommendations for Quaker Experience
- Specific plans for marking walking paths, setting up areas to meet (e.g. in tents or shaded areas), and marking the dining rooms should be done.
- Registration materials should highlight community-type activities.
- Campers and Camping
While we will not know for sure about tents for campers until mid Sept. I believe we will get permission for some tents. The decision is still outstanding. For those campers that are willing to move indoors, I recommend they be placed in Centennial C: which has 15 One-Bedroom Apartments: 2 beds per apartment; and 11 Two-Bedroom Apartments: 4 beds per apartment because they have kitchens. Hopefully the tents could be right by this dorm and create the same sense of community the GR campground did. I cannot remember or find the fee for these apartments, but their website says $54 a night for the two-bedroom apartment. When we have talked of campers paying less at Ft Lewis than they did at the GR campground, we were talking of the old, traditional dorms that are dirt cheap. Those dorm rooms with baths down the hall do not have kitchens.
A survey of the campers from last years was conducted. Response rate was about 24/67. They were asked to rank the relative importance of reasons for camping. Cost was the most important reason.
Ranking or reasons: Cost =1.8; Love =2.81; Comfort =3.0; Control =3.0; Community =3.5. Privacy was also mentioned by at least 4 individuals.
Would you take an apartment? (yes=12; no=3; maybe=4; no=2)
Comments:
- Need privacy mainly
- My main motivation is privacy. I like having a “room” or tent where I can go and close the door or zip the fly and be alone for a while. But not too expensive.
- IF WE CAMP OFF SITE AND IT IS INEXPENSIVE ENOUGH, WE MIGHT SHARE A ROOM IN ONE OF THESE APARTMENTS TO HAVE SOMEWHERE TO REST DURING THE DAY. COST IS A FACTOR
- Ok with 20 miles away; yes with cheap apartment
- tent on campus; close to children/happy for a cheap apartment
- only if tent camping on campus is not available. We need to minimize costs. Strong perference for tents on campus
- It’s vital to us, and best for the planet, to avoid having to drive to IMYM activities every day
- No- as a solo attender I don’t think this would work for me.
- Yes – if privacy – Busy Morning person- privacy
- I love camping, but I come to IMYM for Quaker community, not for camping. Because my priority is being with IMYM Friends, I would probably not choose to camp. Certainly not the commuting options– except maybe for the early days, I could imagine camping in the scenic but distant place if there was a sense of Quaker community there (by which I mean organized events– as a newcomer, I’m aware that people who know each other and camp together have a sense of community, but I didn’t really have access to that.)
- I might camp on campus, but without the benefit of being in a scenic campground, camping loses a lot of appeal for me.
- I like to cook my own breakfast, without being with a crowd, so I’d like a living option that had access to a dorm kitchen or something like that.
- I write so much to give you a sense of what my criteria are, not because I am picky! I want to be clear that I would come to IMYM for the Quakers, not for the camping. Whatever you decide is best for our spiritual community will be great.
Recommendations for Camping program
- Hopefully, Fort Lewis can allow for on campus tents. They should be co-located to apartments – the details of sharing kitchen and bathrooms would need to be discussed. Overall, we should discourage camping by subsidizing the apartments.
- The nearby RV park should be highlighted and targeted for Quakers ahead of time.
III. Children’s Program
Children’s’ Yearly Meeting
Fort Lewis College has no structure in place for children at all. They have no playground, no toys, no designated nursery and no college staff available to work with the youth. What they do have are buildings that can work for the different age groups, an outdoor amphitheater to host creativity night, a student union building with snacks and activities and housing that will allow for different age groups.
The children (6 -10) will be able to be based on the first floor of Animas Hall (see map) in a room that is about the size of one of the two rooms they use at Ghost Ranch. The room is adjacent to a large shaded patio and a lawn area where FLC says they can put up a tent that the program could use for activities as well.
The Nursery area will be on the second floor of the same hall. It is not designed as a nursery but an apartment that can work as such. The “tweeners” (3-5 yrs) will not be able to go back and forth between groups like at Ghost Ranch where they would wander to the Nursery to play with the toys. Most likely they will have to be in the same area as the older kids (Tent, patio and first floor room). Access to the Nursery is an elevator in the four-story Animas Hall, a building that other groups could be using as well and would be extremely difficult to monitor. Also, without any toys in the nursery area there will be no reason for them to want to be in that area.
There is an indoor Swimming pool available at $150 per hour we can use for everyone. Another option for swimming is the outdoor pool at the Durango Sports Club or indoor pool at the Durango Recreation center, both of which require transportation to and from.
The children’s program will need a lot more volunteers than the two co-clerks currently appointed. Since Boulder and Fort Collins meetings are in charge of Children’s Yearly Meeting until the rise of meeting 2020, we urge them to recruit more people committed to help with the children.
Junior Young Friends – recommend using West Hall
The JYF’s will have to change their fundraiser for Mountain Friends Camp at FLC so they don’t compete with the offerings in the Student Union. West Hall has a nice lounge area on the first floor of the dorm that is larger than the Cantina area at Ghost Ranch, has foosball and a pool table and would be an excellent gathering area for the JYFs. It is the most removed building from the group of buildings available to us and another group could possibly be using it. So as a backup they could possibly have a tent and the lounge/laundry area of the Centennial Apartment area — not ideal and not air-conditioned, but more centrally located to the other buildings we will have available to us.
Senior Young Friends- Recommend Snyder Residence Hall A
The SYF FAPs submitted a list of requests in housing that we feel will be met with Snyder Residence Hall. There is an adult however who lives in the building at all times as advisor and is required by FLC to be there. However, in describing the SYF activities to FLC they assured us the advisor will be in their apartment and will not be in their way.
Activities for all Age Groups
Durango and its surrounding area have a lot to offer our youth. However most of these activities are not on the campus grounds. As the groups develop their schedules we believe there will be a need to shuttle groups around and it is suggested we rent several high occupancy vans for the week.
Recommendations for Children’s program
- We recommend IMYM hire a person to develop a curriculum for the children’s meeting with activities that are age specific (3-5 yrs., 5-7 years and 8 -10). This position would need to oversee the curriculum at the gathering and work in collaboration with the Children’s Yearly Meeting Clerks, purchase appropriate books, toys crafts etc. that we do not have, and inventory what we do have in collaboration with the CYM Clerks. A job description should be written and a salary agreed to before seeking this person out. It has been suggested we consult with Ana Ebi (Mountain Friends Camp) and also the Friend(s) who attend FGC where developing curriculum for the children is part of the gathering protocol.
- IMYM should consider the policy of continuing to support early days as we were doing in Ghost Ranch. That issue complicates planning for the children’s program.
Respectfully submitted,
Eric Swanson and Cindy Yurth
Clerks, Youth Programs Working Group
Initial List of possible activities/sites in Durango – there are more:
http://durangonaturestudies.org/programs/summer-programs/group-programs/
this organization would welcome a group of kids for a day or two from 10-1 for activities. $5 a kid per day. One chaperone for every 8 kids. They also do classroom ed, so maybe they would come to campus
https://www.purgatoryresort.com/the-mountain/snowsports-school-childcare/pack-2016/
this is designed for one day at a time. Transport to and from Durango — $40 plus $5 for transportation.
http://durangoarts.org/arts-education/ visual arts and performing arts programming. We could talk to them to see if they have an instructor or two who would like a few mornings of employment with kids.
https://powsci.org/about/mission/ The Powerhouse Science Center teaches classes for all ages. Perhaps they have an instructor or two who would like to come to campus or we could arrange to take the kids there.
https://www.crowcanyon.org; this would have to be a field trip and it would be a bit pricey at $45 a kid, but it could be pretty cool for a one-day program. Chaperones required. We would bring a lunch from campus.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
- OVERALL RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE TRANSITION TEAM
- We tentatively support a move in 2019 but only under the condition that IMYM hire sufficient professional staff to develop a CYM curriculum ahead of time, to identify resources, and to support the programs during IMYM.
- We need additional volunteers for this first year – perhaps an ad hoc committee with enough size embedded in Arrangements Committee to focus on the children’s program.
- Consider reducing early days or changing the format (e.g. everybody goes camping together?)
Working Group/Transition Team members: Charlene Weir (clerk), Janie Cravens (facilities liaison), Leslie Stephens (facilities), Eric Swanson and Cindy Yurth (children’s working group clerks), Laura Peterson (arrangements committee clerk), Molly Wingate (IMYM clerk, ex officio)