 November/December 2000 (XXXVIII 5) |
etter to light one candle than to curse the darkness." All of us are familiar with these words. This year 50 Meetings each lit a candle in responding to the Budget Survey sent out by the PYM Financial Stewardship Committee. Their light reveals the direction that Friends in the Monthly Meetings want to see in PYM during the next budget year.
Budget Survey 2000 reaffirms and refines the results of the1999 survey. Last year Monthly Meetings told us, in broad terms, that the top priority areas for the General Fund budget were religious education for children and youth; peace; education (schools); spiritual nurture; and outreach. These are also the areas that appear in responses to this year's effort to get more specific detail.
Survey 2000 listed 27 PYM services or programs. Monthly Meetings were asked to indicate which services and programs they use now and which they expect to use in the future. Compilation of the responses gives a picture of what Monthly Meetings are expecting from PYM in the months to come and how that expectation differs from the status quo.
Friends clearly want PYM to continue its support for adult classes and First-day school teachers, its financial assistance to Friends' children attending Friends schools, its library, its help with deepening spirituality, and its activities in support of Friends' peace testimony. Over half of the Meetings responding said they expect to use each of these PYM services in the year to come.
When services and programs are compared in terms of expected increase in use, we see that Meetings are looking to PYM to provide significantly more training in the Quaker way of doing things and to further the understanding of leadership in the manner of Friends. Specifically, they want training for clerks, for overseers, for the use of clearness committees, for helping attenders become members, for help in dealing with death and dying, and for help with stewardship and fund raising. Not every Meeting responding feels these needs, but all of the above items showed an increase in expected use of more than 50%. Workcamps also showed an anticipated increase of more than 50%.
The survey also included questions about regional programs and electronic communications. Regions or Quarters with coordinators gave resounding approval to regional programs. There is a growing interest among Meetings for PYM to do more with electronic communications.
Thus, Survey 2000 has given us additional insight into what we as a Yearly Meeting are called to do. Committees have already begun moving in directions indicated by the survey results.
Each year we seek to increase our understanding of how PYM can best serve our religious community. We welcome suggestions from individual Friends or Monthly Meetings in this endeavor.
Jacqueline D. Bowers
Falls Meeting (PA)
Clerk of Financial Stewardship Committee
Last modified: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 at 08:19 AM