Campus Friends Meeting
Saturday, March 22, 2008
CALENDAR OF COMING EVENTS- April 2008
Weekend Apr 3-6
FWCC Section of the Americas
Morgantown, IN
Sunday, Apr 6
9:15 am Fellowship breakfast, Kelly Room 10
Discussion of FCNL legislative priority list
10:30 am Meeting for Worship,
Quaker Heritage Center Meetinghouse
Greeter/Breaker: Patricia Thomas
Friday, Apr 11
9:30 am Ministry and Counsel
Dale Hayes
427 N South Street
Sunday, Apr 13
9:15 am Inner Search, Boyd Lobby
10:30 am Meeting for Worship,
Quaker Heritage Center Meetinghouse
Greeter/Breaker: Richard Coleman
Wednesday, Apr 16
7:00 pm Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business
Ellis Room, Friendly Center
Sunday, Apr 20
9:15 am Inner Search, Boyd Lobby
10:30 am Meeting for Worship,
Quaker Heritage Center Meetinghouse
Greeter/Breaker: Canby Jones
Hymn singing at the rise of meeting: Jim and Millie Ramsey(?)
Sunday, Apr 27
9:15 am Inner Search, Boyd Lobby
10:30 am Meeting for Worship,
Quaker Heritage Center Meetinghouse
Greeter/Breaker: Bob Powell
Weekend of May 2,3,4
Spring Retreat: “Living the Sacramental Life (in the manner of Friends)” ¶ 4:12 PM 0 comments
Weekend Apr 3-6
FWCC Section of the Americas
Morgantown, IN
Sunday, Apr 6
9:15 am Fellowship breakfast, Kelly Room 10
Discussion of FCNL legislative priority list
10:30 am Meeting for Worship,
Quaker Heritage Center Meetinghouse
Greeter/Breaker: Patricia Thomas
Friday, Apr 11
9:30 am Ministry and Counsel
Dale Hayes
427 N South Street
Sunday, Apr 13
9:15 am Inner Search, Boyd Lobby
10:30 am Meeting for Worship,
Quaker Heritage Center Meetinghouse
Greeter/Breaker: Richard Coleman
Wednesday, Apr 16
7:00 pm Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business
Ellis Room, Friendly Center
Sunday, Apr 20
9:15 am Inner Search, Boyd Lobby
10:30 am Meeting for Worship,
Quaker Heritage Center Meetinghouse
Greeter/Breaker: Canby Jones
Hymn singing at the rise of meeting: Jim and Millie Ramsey(?)
Sunday, Apr 27
9:15 am Inner Search, Boyd Lobby
10:30 am Meeting for Worship,
Quaker Heritage Center Meetinghouse
Greeter/Breaker: Bob Powell
Weekend of May 2,3,4
Spring Retreat: “Living the Sacramental Life (in the manner of Friends)” ¶ 4:12 PM 0 comments
Monday, March 17, 2008
Monthly Meeting for Business
February 20, 2008
Ellis Room, Friendly Center
Unapproved Minutes
PRESENT: Patricia Thomas, Richard Coleman, Lenna Mae Gara, Canby Jones, Dale Hayes, Ron Rembert, Bob Powell
Friends gathered with a time of centering and a query from WYM Queries.
Minutes of the January meeting
were approved with the following addition to the Ministry and Counsel report, paragraph entitled “Dale Hayes ministry oversight committee”:
“Campus Friends Meeting continues its endorsement of Dale’s gifts of ministry for health care chaplaincy.”
Treasurer’s Report – Dale Hayes – attached to these minutes
No expenditures were made in the previous month. Consequently, the balance sheet looks much better, although it should be noted that a significant amount of the income is earmarked for the fund for sufferings.
The yearly meeting assessments have come in significantly lower than expected. Dale will analyze the impact of this and report back to meeting for business.
Both yearly meetings are changing to a fiscal year aligned with the calendar year. The meeting approved the treasurer’s recommendation to plan a transitional budget for Campus Friends Meeting to do the same.
The report was approved.
Ministry & Counsel – Bob Powell reporting for Roger Schroeder
State of Society Report
Bob Powell presented a draft of the State of Society Report, which generated a great deal of discussion. Ministry and Counsel eventually unified behind a draft to bring to meeting for business.
Spring Retreat
Ministry and Counsel chose as the theme of the retreat “Living the Sacramental Life (in the Quaker sense).” Discussions and activities will revolve around spirituality and work. Ministry and Counsel ask meeting for business to appoint a committee to commence planning.
Fifth Sunday
Roger will speak at the first Fifth Sunday in March. We will try the simple logistics plan: Patricia Thomas will provide coffee and Dale Hayes will bring cookies.
Health of members was reviewed
The report was approved.
Old Business
Spring Retreat
The meeting approved The theme “Living the Sacramental Life (in the manner of Friends)”. Patricia Thomas and Ron Rembert were asked to serve on the committee and accepted. The meeting suggested Linda Sears be a member of the committee also. Patricia will contact her. The committee will report progress.
Minute on Corporal Punishment
Lenna Mae Gara presented a draft minute as requested. The minute is attached to these minutes for further consideration and seasoning by friends. The minute will be reconsidered at the March meeting for business.
State of Society Report
The draft report, attached to these minutes, was approved with two small changes.
New Business
Your Father’s Kitchen
Our turn comes up again on 1 March. Some Friends expressed concern that we have come to rely too heavily on Linda Sears and her family. Patricia will continue to consult with Linda about her family’s wishes.
Draft 2 of WYM Faith and Practice
The new draft will come before Wilmington Yearly Meeting in the summer (24-27 July). The Task Force incorporated as many comments from the monthly meetings on Draft 1 as they felt were within their mandate. Further, the Task Force isolated a number of questions which they believe require action by WYM. The present issue is whether to adopt Draft 2 as the new official Faith and Practice and continue to work toward unity on the remaining questions, or to delay publication until all the difficult issues are settled.
The meeting decided to take advantage of the remaining time to seek mature judgement. Friends may contact Patricia Thomas for a copy of Draft 2. The meeting expressed an expectation that we will approve the new draft no later than the June meeting for business.
FCNL Legislative Priority List
Lenna Mae Gara reported that the Friends Committee on National Legislation is seeking input from monthly meetings for drawing up the legislative priorities for the next Congress. Friends may contact Lenna Mae for the current list. The meeting decided to discuss the list at the Fellowship Breakfast meeting on 6 April.
FWCC Capital Campaign
Patricia Thomas reported that the Friends World Committee for Consultation is close to completing their fund-raising campaign. Friends may wish to help close out the campaign successfully by sending donations.
The meeting concluded with a period of silent worship.
NEXT MEETING FOR BUSINESS –Mar 19, 2008-7:00PM - ELLIS ROOM
Patricia Thomas, Presiding Clerk
pcthomas42@hughes.net
Bob Powell, Recording Clerk
rdp1710@gmail.com
State of Society Report
March 2008
We took as the framework for this year’s report two queries posed by Wilmington Yearly Meeting, based on John 5:2-9, “Do you want to be made whole?”
1. What does your monthly meeting need to be made whole?
2. How is your monthly meeting encouraging individuals who desire to be made whole?
In our deliberations, we found these questions to be so intertwined as not to be easily separated. We therefore address them jointly.
We are very aware of the small size and advanced age of our meeting. We long ago discontinued First Day School. We sense that the invigoration of new members would help make us more whole. While some students and other younger people have worshipped with us as members and attenders over the last few years, none has joined fully in the life of the meeting. We mourn their loss from our community and continue to examine how God is active in our relationships.
On the other hand, we understand that the size of the meeting is not the be-all and end-all; faithfulness is. We have everything we need right here and right now to be faithful. However, many of us feel a deep need for the nurture and support of a meeting community and cannot help but be distressed at the thought that one day the meeting might not be there for us. In any case, we need to search ourselves and our activities to see if we are doing anything to drive people away. We desire to be a community faithful to the guidance of the Divine Spirit. The path of faithfulness is not always clear or easy.
In order to deal with these issues, we need to muster the courage to “take up our bed and walk.” We must avoid the comforting notion that we can always be the meeting that we have grown accustomed to. We must guard against the fallacy of thinking that we can achieve growth without making any changes.
Change comes through insight, growth and spiritual leadership. We must have the courage to lead by example. When we live Christian lives, others will notice and want to share in them. In making the changes necessary to be made whole, we need to foster an atmosphere of openness. We must constantly ask ourselves what God wants us to be, always be open to the leadings of the Spirit, and be willing to consider changes and adopt them whenever it seems pleasing to God.
We continue to see Meeting for Worship as the centerpiece of all our community life. Worship grounds us and helps us to witness to our Quaker testimonies both as a meeting and as individuals. The ongoing vigil for peace that is held monthly on the Wilmington College campus finds growing support from members of other faith communities. We also continue to serve others and support various ministries to disadvantaged youth, the needy, the elderly and the infirm.
Individuals wishing to be made whole and who make the meeting aware of their needs, are provided a Circle of Care, composed of members of the meeting with whom the individual is comfortable. The Circle of Care offers various kinds of support, thus serving as a ministry of accompaniment through the challenges confronting the individual.
We held a very successful retreat at Quaker Knoll Camp last spring and a second in the fall. We are already in the planning stages for another for this spring. The meeting retreats provide powerful opportunities for community building and a chance to appreciate our diverse backgrounds. The themes of our retreats offer intellectual challenges as well as opportunities to share ideas about incorporating spirituality into social and political concerns. The retreats have also pulled non-Quaker spouses into our circle, which has the effect of rounding out our views of each other.
We also instituted a series of “Fifth Sunday” programs. There are usually four months in the year that have five Sundays, so that once a quarter we have a special program where one or two of our members speak informally about their lives and journeys. We encourage friends to share with us some aspect of their lives and personalities that other members are probably not aware of. We are still tinkering with the time and logistics, but basically we have found that the Fifth Sunday programs increase our appreciation of the diversity of gifts that resides within the meeting.
We continue to be concerned to conduct meeting for business in a worshipful manner. This has been a long-standing challenge in our meeting and the source of some divisiveness. We realize that we need help to call the Inner Spirit to collect us and guide our outward actions.
Proposed Minute on Corporal Punishment
Campus Friends Meeting affirms its belief that seeking that of the Divine in every person applies equally to family dynamics, civic responsibilities and international relations, and should therefore impact parenting decisions as well as public policy regarding corporal punishment in schools. Corporal punishment of children, while accepted in most cultures, is susceptible to abuse, and models the very behaviors it is intended to discourage, for it validates violence as an appropriate response to inappropriate behavior.
Parental responsibility for setting limits and requiring children to accept the consequences of their actions can be met without the use of physical or psychological violence. Information about constructive approaches to conflict and the creative use of positive discipline is available to parents and teachers. Such methods require patience and time, but offer the hope that children exposed to them will become adults who can manage their own discipline.
Corporal punishment in schools or othr institutions in which children are under the control of non-parental adults removes the element of loving concern for the child that is usually present in the family. Believing that Quaker faith and practice neither justifies nor condones the intentional infliction of pain on a child for any purpose, we oppose the disciplining of children in schools and other institutions through the use of corporal punishment. ¶ 5:25 AM 0 comments
February 20, 2008
Ellis Room, Friendly Center
Unapproved Minutes
PRESENT: Patricia Thomas, Richard Coleman, Lenna Mae Gara, Canby Jones, Dale Hayes, Ron Rembert, Bob Powell
Friends gathered with a time of centering and a query from WYM Queries.
Minutes of the January meeting
were approved with the following addition to the Ministry and Counsel report, paragraph entitled “Dale Hayes ministry oversight committee”:
“Campus Friends Meeting continues its endorsement of Dale’s gifts of ministry for health care chaplaincy.”
Treasurer’s Report – Dale Hayes – attached to these minutes
No expenditures were made in the previous month. Consequently, the balance sheet looks much better, although it should be noted that a significant amount of the income is earmarked for the fund for sufferings.
The yearly meeting assessments have come in significantly lower than expected. Dale will analyze the impact of this and report back to meeting for business.
Both yearly meetings are changing to a fiscal year aligned with the calendar year. The meeting approved the treasurer’s recommendation to plan a transitional budget for Campus Friends Meeting to do the same.
The report was approved.
Ministry & Counsel – Bob Powell reporting for Roger Schroeder
State of Society Report
Bob Powell presented a draft of the State of Society Report, which generated a great deal of discussion. Ministry and Counsel eventually unified behind a draft to bring to meeting for business.
Spring Retreat
Ministry and Counsel chose as the theme of the retreat “Living the Sacramental Life (in the Quaker sense).” Discussions and activities will revolve around spirituality and work. Ministry and Counsel ask meeting for business to appoint a committee to commence planning.
Fifth Sunday
Roger will speak at the first Fifth Sunday in March. We will try the simple logistics plan: Patricia Thomas will provide coffee and Dale Hayes will bring cookies.
Health of members was reviewed
The report was approved.
Old Business
Spring Retreat
The meeting approved The theme “Living the Sacramental Life (in the manner of Friends)”. Patricia Thomas and Ron Rembert were asked to serve on the committee and accepted. The meeting suggested Linda Sears be a member of the committee also. Patricia will contact her. The committee will report progress.
Minute on Corporal Punishment
Lenna Mae Gara presented a draft minute as requested. The minute is attached to these minutes for further consideration and seasoning by friends. The minute will be reconsidered at the March meeting for business.
State of Society Report
The draft report, attached to these minutes, was approved with two small changes.
New Business
Your Father’s Kitchen
Our turn comes up again on 1 March. Some Friends expressed concern that we have come to rely too heavily on Linda Sears and her family. Patricia will continue to consult with Linda about her family’s wishes.
Draft 2 of WYM Faith and Practice
The new draft will come before Wilmington Yearly Meeting in the summer (24-27 July). The Task Force incorporated as many comments from the monthly meetings on Draft 1 as they felt were within their mandate. Further, the Task Force isolated a number of questions which they believe require action by WYM. The present issue is whether to adopt Draft 2 as the new official Faith and Practice and continue to work toward unity on the remaining questions, or to delay publication until all the difficult issues are settled.
The meeting decided to take advantage of the remaining time to seek mature judgement. Friends may contact Patricia Thomas for a copy of Draft 2. The meeting expressed an expectation that we will approve the new draft no later than the June meeting for business.
FCNL Legislative Priority List
Lenna Mae Gara reported that the Friends Committee on National Legislation is seeking input from monthly meetings for drawing up the legislative priorities for the next Congress. Friends may contact Lenna Mae for the current list. The meeting decided to discuss the list at the Fellowship Breakfast meeting on 6 April.
FWCC Capital Campaign
Patricia Thomas reported that the Friends World Committee for Consultation is close to completing their fund-raising campaign. Friends may wish to help close out the campaign successfully by sending donations.
The meeting concluded with a period of silent worship.
NEXT MEETING FOR BUSINESS –Mar 19, 2008-7:00PM - ELLIS ROOM
Patricia Thomas, Presiding Clerk
pcthomas42@hughes.net
Bob Powell, Recording Clerk
rdp1710@gmail.com
State of Society Report
March 2008
We took as the framework for this year’s report two queries posed by Wilmington Yearly Meeting, based on John 5:2-9, “Do you want to be made whole?”
1. What does your monthly meeting need to be made whole?
2. How is your monthly meeting encouraging individuals who desire to be made whole?
In our deliberations, we found these questions to be so intertwined as not to be easily separated. We therefore address them jointly.
We are very aware of the small size and advanced age of our meeting. We long ago discontinued First Day School. We sense that the invigoration of new members would help make us more whole. While some students and other younger people have worshipped with us as members and attenders over the last few years, none has joined fully in the life of the meeting. We mourn their loss from our community and continue to examine how God is active in our relationships.
On the other hand, we understand that the size of the meeting is not the be-all and end-all; faithfulness is. We have everything we need right here and right now to be faithful. However, many of us feel a deep need for the nurture and support of a meeting community and cannot help but be distressed at the thought that one day the meeting might not be there for us. In any case, we need to search ourselves and our activities to see if we are doing anything to drive people away. We desire to be a community faithful to the guidance of the Divine Spirit. The path of faithfulness is not always clear or easy.
In order to deal with these issues, we need to muster the courage to “take up our bed and walk.” We must avoid the comforting notion that we can always be the meeting that we have grown accustomed to. We must guard against the fallacy of thinking that we can achieve growth without making any changes.
Change comes through insight, growth and spiritual leadership. We must have the courage to lead by example. When we live Christian lives, others will notice and want to share in them. In making the changes necessary to be made whole, we need to foster an atmosphere of openness. We must constantly ask ourselves what God wants us to be, always be open to the leadings of the Spirit, and be willing to consider changes and adopt them whenever it seems pleasing to God.
We continue to see Meeting for Worship as the centerpiece of all our community life. Worship grounds us and helps us to witness to our Quaker testimonies both as a meeting and as individuals. The ongoing vigil for peace that is held monthly on the Wilmington College campus finds growing support from members of other faith communities. We also continue to serve others and support various ministries to disadvantaged youth, the needy, the elderly and the infirm.
Individuals wishing to be made whole and who make the meeting aware of their needs, are provided a Circle of Care, composed of members of the meeting with whom the individual is comfortable. The Circle of Care offers various kinds of support, thus serving as a ministry of accompaniment through the challenges confronting the individual.
We held a very successful retreat at Quaker Knoll Camp last spring and a second in the fall. We are already in the planning stages for another for this spring. The meeting retreats provide powerful opportunities for community building and a chance to appreciate our diverse backgrounds. The themes of our retreats offer intellectual challenges as well as opportunities to share ideas about incorporating spirituality into social and political concerns. The retreats have also pulled non-Quaker spouses into our circle, which has the effect of rounding out our views of each other.
We also instituted a series of “Fifth Sunday” programs. There are usually four months in the year that have five Sundays, so that once a quarter we have a special program where one or two of our members speak informally about their lives and journeys. We encourage friends to share with us some aspect of their lives and personalities that other members are probably not aware of. We are still tinkering with the time and logistics, but basically we have found that the Fifth Sunday programs increase our appreciation of the diversity of gifts that resides within the meeting.
We continue to be concerned to conduct meeting for business in a worshipful manner. This has been a long-standing challenge in our meeting and the source of some divisiveness. We realize that we need help to call the Inner Spirit to collect us and guide our outward actions.
Proposed Minute on Corporal Punishment
Campus Friends Meeting affirms its belief that seeking that of the Divine in every person applies equally to family dynamics, civic responsibilities and international relations, and should therefore impact parenting decisions as well as public policy regarding corporal punishment in schools. Corporal punishment of children, while accepted in most cultures, is susceptible to abuse, and models the very behaviors it is intended to discourage, for it validates violence as an appropriate response to inappropriate behavior.
Parental responsibility for setting limits and requiring children to accept the consequences of their actions can be met without the use of physical or psychological violence. Information about constructive approaches to conflict and the creative use of positive discipline is available to parents and teachers. Such methods require patience and time, but offer the hope that children exposed to them will become adults who can manage their own discipline.
Corporal punishment in schools or othr institutions in which children are under the control of non-parental adults removes the element of loving concern for the child that is usually present in the family. Believing that Quaker faith and practice neither justifies nor condones the intentional infliction of pain on a child for any purpose, we oppose the disciplining of children in schools and other institutions through the use of corporal punishment. ¶ 5:25 AM 0 comments
