Minutes 9/19/21 Meeting for Business
Posted: under Minutes from Meeting for Business.
Bennington Friends Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business
September 19, 2021
Present: Timmy Bullock, clerk, Auberta Galusha, Juliet Wright, Alison Levie, and Michael Wajda.
We gathered in the Senior Center for meeting for worship with attention to business again wearing masks for safety during the pandemic. The meeting opened with a period of worship during which the clerk read the following 1908 quote from Hilda Clark:
One thing I understand now is that one’s intellect alone won’t pull one through; and that the greatest service it can perform is to open a window for that thing we call the divine spirit.
The recording clerk read the minutes of our July 18, 2021 meeting for business for information.
2021-17. The meeting affirmed its willingness to assist with the December 12 community meal at the Second Congregational Church by at least providing food. We will wait to hear if the meals are being held indoors again and about the need for servers.
2021-18. Juliet Wright read the minutes of the September 12 meeting of Ministry and Counsel. The committee recommends that the meeting consider holding a Quakerism 101-like class in the near future. One suggestion was to consider asking Phil Fitz from Northampton Meeting to facilitate a course that he has developed entitled “Elements of Quakerism,” possibly using a combination of online and in-person sessions. We agreed to explore the options with our full meeting list, especially our new attenders, and with Phil. We also might open it more broadly to the Bennington community. Michael will write an email to our whole listserve to begin to assess the interest and Timmy and others will also follow up personally with members and attenders.
2021-19. Our Treasurer, Juliet Wright, presented a report of our current finances. We are completely in balance with our budget. We’ve received $6,200 in contributions that match our $6,090 year-to-date expenses. This does not include a recently received $10,000 bequest. We have almost $231,000 in assets.
The clerk asked what our current financial picture suggests to us about the future. Should we be seeking a vision for our future now or is this a time simply to pay close attention to the health and vitality of our meeting? The meeting feels that now is a time to stay close, to strengthen what we have, and to know that we can be generous with the needs of our meeting and community as led. We may well want to turn our attention to considering a vision for our future in the coming months.
2021-20. The clerk circulated a report from 350VT.org, where they listed their immediate goals: education, advocacy, and activism. We may want to invite 350VT to make a presentation to the meeting sometime soon. We also want to ask our younger members and attenders if they would be interested in coming to such a presentation. We will revisit this topic again at our next meeting.
2021-21. The clerk read the following minute that she wrote sharing her appreciation for
Auberta Galusha’s long service to the meeting:
I want to formally acknowledge and thank Berta, who recently resigned from Ministry & Counsel. Present, faithful, seeking, those are the words that come to mind in describing Berta. There’s also much in the way of simple, needed, workaday service Berta gives, and has given, to the meeting: detail work in the library that checks in every pamphlet; the mail, every week; the news of what changes are possible here at the center. And then the questions Berta raises. Often when we seem to be steaming toward a foreordained conclusion, Berta comes at whatever is under discussion from an entirely different angle. And it can disconcert and unsettle, but it’s also often the trigger to step back and not-so-fast make that decision. It’s a gift to us.
With gratitude, thank you Berta.
The meeting strongly unites with sentiments expressed in this minute.
The meeting closed with a period of worship.
Michael Wajda
Recording Clerk
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Sep 22 2021