February 2020 Meeting for Business Minutes
Posted: under General News.
Bennington Friends Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business
February 16, 2020
Present: Timmy Bullock, clerk, Alberta Galusha, Juliet Wright, Alison Levie, Edward Cady, and Michael Wajda.
The meeting opened with a period of worship during which the clerk read the following 1987 quote from John Punshon:
What is required is a willingness to listen to what others have to say rather than to persuade them that one’s own 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.
The minutes of our January 19, 2020 meeting for business were read for information.
2020-05. The minutes of the February 9, 2020 meeting of Ministry and Counsel were read. Alison Levie has agreed to take over the management of the meeting directory. She and Juliet Wright are working out the details for transferring the management of the Google groups also to be under Alison’s care.
2020-06. We revisited the question of the meeting helping with one of the Sunday community dinners held at the Second Congregational Church in Bennington. Michael learned that at present there is a need for servers on three dates in 2020. Would our meeting like to do this as a way of learning better the responsibilities involved for the dinners? Timmy spoke with Amy Newbold and she offered that April 19 would work for her. The meeting is interested and asked Michael to offer us as servers for April 19 and to explore whether they would also appreciate our bringing desserts for that meal.
2020-07. The meeting has received a request from the New England Yearly Meeting Committee on Ministry and Counsel for our meeting to prepare a State of the Society report this year. The request includes some useful queries to use as guide in preparing a report. The meeting definitely wants to enter a process to prepare a State of the Society report and would like to take some time to review carefully the queries offered and to consider other queries that may be particularly relevant to our meeting at this time. We decided to use the next meeting of Ministry and Counsel to look at queries and to decide when and how we will prepare our report. The next Ministry and Counsel meeting will be open to all who want to attend.
2020-08. Juliet Wright gave the Treasurer’s report. She is learning this new job and requests our patience as she transitions into the role. She has sent all the contributions from the special $4,000 allocation that we agreed to at our last meeting and will work on the best way to distinguish them from regular contributions to those organizations that were already in our budget. Overall, she doesn’t see any concerns with our finances.
The materials presented include a 2020 budget that has not yet been reviewed or approved by the meeting. The Finance Committee will consider a budget for 2020 and bring it to a future meeting for business.
The meeting expressed its deep appreciation to our new Treasurer.
2020-09. Alison reminded the meeting that Northwest Quarterly Meeting has asked all of its constituent meetings to consider the Quarter’s minute on Israel and Palestine and specifically to consider supporting the AFSC project “No Way to Treat a Child.”
Bennington Meeting affirms the deep leading of Friends in the Quarter who have raised the concern of relations between Israel and Palestine and respects those who want to support the “No Way to Treat a Child” campaign. However, Bennington, as a small meeting, has a practice of supporting our members wanting to address particular social concerns to do so individually. We also recognize that currently as a meeting we are being strongly led to address concerns about the environment and issues in our local community.
2020-10. Michael reported that the Greater Bennington Interfaith Counsel continues to wrestle with the challenge of caring for the homeless in our community. We deeply appreciated the “Speaking of Religion” column on this issue published this week in the Bennington Banner.
The meeting closed with a period of worship.
Michael Wajda
Recording Clerk
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Feb 23 2020