Bennington Friends Meeting

Bennington Friends Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business

January 19, 2020

Present: Timmy Bullock, clerk, Alberta Galusha, Lucy McKee, Juliet Wright, Alison Levie, Edward Cady, and Michael Wajda.

The meeting opened with a period of worship during which the clerk read the following 1978 quote from William O. Brown:

When we are humble, we are able to wait and be silent. We can wait, for we do not expect that we should immediately understand each question from within or have a response to    each query from without….. Being able to wait enables us to listen.  We are good listeners when others have something to say,….But even more, we are good listeners to our own inner voices which often speak slowly and indistinctly. 

The minutes of our December 15, 2019 meeting for business were read for information.

2020-01. The clerk has received a lovely note of appreciation from Marj Davis thanking us for the arrangements we made for Bain Davis’ memorial meeting here on January 5, 2020. The clerk will bring the note to another meeting for business.  As is our practice, the clerk also will send Bain’s memorial minute on to Northwest Quarterly Meeting who will forward it to New England Yearly Meeting.

2020-02. The meeting’s letter to Rosemary Zimmerman brought to our last meeting for business was edited and mailed to Rosemary as planned.  

2020-03. The clerk brought a question about our interest in helping with one Sunday community dinner this year at the Bennington Second Congregational Church. The Interfaith Community takes responsibility for these dinners, which are held every Sunday at the Second Congregational Church.  The meeting is interested in serving this way if our First Day School or another small faith group would want to participate.  The clerk will ask the First Day School about their interest and we will revisit this question at a future meeting for business.

2020-04. Alison Levie reported for the ad hoc committee to consider the distribution of $4,000 of our reserves to charitable causes this calendar year.  Alison listed the current organizations receiving contributions through our budget.

The ad hoc committee reviewed that list and reached unity about the following additional distributions:

• $300.00 to the meeting’s children to decide where it should be given.
• Funds to support these three concerns: FCNL, Quaker Earthcare Witness, and local organizations addressing food and security needs in the community: BROC, GBICS Kitchen, and HIS Pantry.

The committee did not have time to suggest amounts for those groups.

Other ideas raised by the committee were holding some funds for the homeless to be considered later this year and giving some funds to those Quaker organizations which nurture our meetings directly, e.g. Powell House, Friends General Conference (FGC), Quaker Religious Education Collaborative (QREC), Friends Journal, Woolman Hill, and New England Yearly Meeting (NEYM). 

After some discussion, the meeting supported an approximately equal division of the funds (excluding the money allocated to the children) to be given to the social service groups listed above and those groups which nurture our meetings directly.  

The meeting decided that the final allocation of the $4,000 this year will be:

FCNL $500

Quaker Earthcare Witness $500

BROC $300

GBICS Kitchen $300

HIS Pantry $300

Powell House $300

FGC $300 

QREC $300

Friends Journal $300

Woolman Hill $300

NEYM $300

Plus the $300 to the children for them to decide.

The meeting approved these distributions and the Treasurer was advised of this decision.

The meeting closed with a period of worship.

Michael Wajda 

recording clerk