Interim Meeting - May 14, 2011
Letter from Clerk Thomas Swain (5.5.2011)
Dear Friends, Our work ahead of us is clear: listening to God. We need to do this together.
You are getting this additional mail today because there is one other item on our agenda for which you do not have advanced materials – The Proposed Minute Of Instruction For Our Yearly Meeting Discerning & Planning Group. They completed their work Thursday morning, at the Clerk’s request, so we could have our first consideration on Saturday’s Interim Meeting. You will find three sheets attached.
There were some embarrassing mistakes in my original cover letter and I am sending this along with some corrections. This follows.
In a conversation with Sallie Jones, Alternate Clerk, she lifted up that in our engagement with our budget and its process, there are some encouraging signs for our working as a community. There is an acknowledgment of and appreciation for the enormous responses from individuals and groups in the Yearly Meeting about the budget concerns.
It is helpful and good to feel this energy, to hear from so many Friends, and to know that this attention can be utilized in practical problem solving and in prayerful seeking of God's plan for us.
Our response needs to involve the many Friends who want to take part in the conversation and discernment regarding the new budget and its implications. That participation is welcomed and encouraged. This is happening on many levels.
We acknowledge how difficult and unsettling it has been for Friends to hear and try to understand the news of our budget deficit and the inevitable cuts and changes that will have to be made, but what it is important (a fundamental expression of integrity) is that
1515 Cherry Street Philadelphia, PA 19102 voice 215-241-7000 www.pym.orgwe adopt a balanced and sustainable budget going forward. We approved this at our April Interim Meeting.
The difficult budget news is complicated by the fact that it has come at the end of the current fiscal year when there is not as much time as we need to plan for how to best make the necessary cuts and changes and what our working with a reduced budget will mean for the things that matter most to us as a Yearly Meeting. This makes our already difficult work more difficult.
The process underway has both short-term and long-term components. Short-Term: The most important item in the short-term is the 2012 budget. Many groups, including Standing Committees, are offering alternate suggestions to the budget proposed in April by Financial Stewardship. Financial Stewardship will meet several times during the month of May to prepare the 2012 budget to be presented at Interim Meeting in June and then at annual sessions in July for Yearly Meeting’s approval. We may need to think of the 2012 budget as a stopgap measure. This would give us the financially sustainability to proceed for one year knowing we will be devoting a lot of time, thought and prayer in 2012 seeking how we can best use the resources we have.
Long-Term: The Clerks of the Yearly Meeting and the General Secretary are currently working on the steps for a “Discerning and Planning” concern that will look at financial projections, the organizational structure, and the needs of members and monthly meetings (This is what is attached). This last part is what is crucial. The plans for the longer-ranging work for our Yearly Meeting will have initial plans presented to Interim Meeting this month with subsequent and frequent reports.
We can encourage ourselves to invite Monthly Meeting members to attend Interim Meetings and Annual Sessions. How wonderful it will be to have a strong representation in July to approve a budget that will reflect who we are and what our united witness in our world is.
My prayer is that we will find the Light to guide us in moving into a new normal for Friends of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.
More love,
Thomas Swain, Clerk
