Minutes for Meeting for Business July 17, 2011
Posted: under Minutes from Meeting for Business.
Bennington Friends Meeting
Minutes for Meeting for Worship on the Occasion of Business
Senior Citizens Service Center, Bennington, Vermont
July 17, 2011
“What is required is a willingness to listen to what others have to say rather than to persuade them that one’s point of view represents what is right and proper. It also requires restraint. The reiteration of one point by several Friends each in their own way lends no weight to the point. What the meeting must learn to discern is its rightness, not how many people support it.”
John Punshon, 1987 The Spirit of Quakers by Geoffrey Durham, page 191
Present were Timmy Bullock, Juliet Wright, Bain Davis, Priscilla Tracy, Auberta Galusha, Arnold Ricks and Beth Cheadle.
Out of the silence the clerk read the above quotation from John Punshon, 1987 The Spirit of Quakers by Geoffrey Durham.
2011-38 The recording clerk read the minutes for meeting for business June 26, 2011. They were approved with corrections.
2011-39 Priscilla Tracy reported on behalf of Ministry and Counsel. The minutes are appended.
2011-40 Business meeting affirmed the outline of the planned September 17 retreat and encourages Ministry and Counsel to develop the planning in more detail.
2011-41 Arnold Ricks reported on behalf of Finance Committee. The minutes are appended.
2011-42 Meeting for Business reviewed the budget and noted that contributions are up from where they were at this last time this year. In light of this, the treasurer, Sheila Mann, will disburse funds for all of our outstanding annual contributions, with the exception of the $200 rent assist to GBICS, to be paid when due in October.
2011-43 The meeting recommends that the clerk ask those who had donated funds for Ehsan Noori’s education if they would instead approve their portion of the $500.00 donation to go to the Canadian Friends Service Committee for the support of its work with asylum-seekers.
2011-44 Meeting approved the recommendation that the treasurer, Sheila Mann, provide a tally of her hours and propose where she would like the cash equivalent to be donated.
2011-45 Meeting for business recommends that Ministry and Counsel reflect on the first and third Sunday changes in worship and discuss how we should proceed in the coming year. In the mean time, we will continue the change in worship on the first Sunday of the month.
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Minutes for Ministry and Counsel
Present: Timmy Bullock, Priscilla Tracy, Co-Clerks, Bain Davis, Auberta Galusha, Beth Cheadle
Pastoral Concerns were discussed.
13.11
Ministry & Counsel tentatively developed the following approach and format for our September 17 retreat, to be amended and extended.
After a worship period of approximately a half hour, build morning on reflections on three Friends testimonies. Clerking to be shared; whoever opens the retreat to remind us that ‘you have permission not to protect yourself.’
Three presentations, approximately 10 minutes by 3 different persons on following questions; the presenter/clerk then leads the discussion. The discussion would ask us to ask ourselves what is an action of this testimony? And what do we struggle with? Where is this testimony a struggle for me/us?
1. What is simplicity?
2. What is peace?
3. What is it we speak to when we speak of “that of God in each of us?”
(Bain open to opening retreat and would like to lead either #2 or #3.)
Presentations and responses to these three estimate at about one hour or one hour plus.
LUNCH
Some light touch: singing, a game?
Still very tentative: How can we witness these testimonies (above) in the world? Perhaps using the specific of the environment? And emphasize specificity? And, to reiterate, what “canst thou/we say?” How can we push ourselves to deepen these testimonies?
Close with a short period of worship.
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Jul 21 2011