YOUNG FRIENDS' GUIDELINES
The Young Friends' community is very special. The community requires each of us to nurture the group, to be aware of each other and to care for one another. This must be an active act of caring: doing your part of the cooking and cleaning, listening when others are speaking, working to include others into the group, not using put downs, respecting each other's boundaries, and cheerful cooperation even if you are cleaning toilets.
The community is also very fragile. When trust is betrayed it is hard to reestablish. If you cannot live with the guidelines or if you are not coming to be an active participant in the community -PLEASE DO NOT COME.
1. The COMMON SENSE RULE: Everyone is required to use common sense and to intervene with others who do not. There is no way that we will be able to enumerate a rule to cover every bizarro thing that someone can think up to do. All of the other "rules" really follow from this rule.
2. NO ILLEGAL DRUGS: This includes EVERYTHING you would be arrested for having, doing, selling, giving away, or borrowing. If a prescription drug is NOT YOUR prescription then you should not have it.
3. NO ALCOHOL in any form.
4. NO INAPPROPRIATE SEXUAL ACTIVITY. This means: No hooking up, petting, making out, or ANY KIND of sex. If you're in doubt, ask somebody. If you're still in doubt, don't to it.
5. NO ONE MAY LEAVE THE CONFERENCE WITHOUT THE PERMISSION OF THE CONFERENCE LEADERS; i.e. Cookie Caldwell or Lauren Baumann. Young Friends over age 18 and Friendly Adult Presences, are adults and can leave at anytime, but we expect that you will check out so that we know that you are gone and we are not looking for you.
A Reminder: We, PYM
Young Friends, see our community as a safe accepting home where we love
and appreciate one another for what each of us brings to the community;
however, as a community we are vulnerable and imperfect. We have labored
greatly with spiritual struggles in the past to keep our community healthy
and whole. Through this we have discovered that the best way to uphold
the integrity of our community is to remind one another what exactly this
community is to us. We ask that we remember and share openly our understanding
of the community, especially at the beginning of gatherings, with new
comers, and with those who need reminding.
Young Friends Tobacco and Smoking policy
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting's Young Friends have been concerned with smoking in our community for as long as we can remember. We have labored with each other, with our parents, and with God, to build a spiritual community that fosters tolerance and love. We have wrestled with the larger issues of good Quaker process, right order, and clearness, as well as with our responsibilities to our community and our Yearly Meeting.
The Young Friends' smoking policy has been a constant concern in our community, just as smoking by young people has been a concern in the greater society. After two years of struggle, the Religious Education Committee recommended that we try a one-year ban on smoking.
That one-year experiment yielded some significant, unintended consequences. We missed the Young Friends who could not, in good conscience, spend an entire weekend or week without breaking our no-smoking guideline. Young Friends who struggle with nicotine addictions felt that Young Friends' ministry no longer extended to them. Many young Friends whose parents evidently forbade attendance at Gatherings because of our old smoking policy still found other reasons not to come. The resulting 30% to 40% drop in attendance meant that the quality of our ministry to young people was severely compromised. Also, the process by which the smoking ban was initiated (by the Religious Education Committee) effectively disenfranchised Young Friends. A key part of why Young Friends is such a uniquely safe place for our Yearly Meeting's young people is that the community develops its own guidelines. The controversial no-smoking guideline made many feel disillusioned with the rest of our guidelines as well. The Smoking Issue has been the major agenda item in our business meetings and Concerns Group meetings for the past three years. We do not want Young Friends to smoke, but the reality is that some do. We need to meet Young Friends where they are, not where we want them to be. We have had programs at Gatherings about addictions and community, and we have revised our minute many times over. Ask any Young Friend what it means to worshipfully reach consensus, and he or she will tell you about the clearness process we used to formulate our smoking guideline.
The Young Friends of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting finally came to clearness about our smoking policy at the Meeting for Worship for Business at our Christmas Gathering in December 1999. After years of process and struggle, we've arrived at the following smoking guideline for our Gatherings that reflects our community's concerns and capabilities:
Young Friends Minute on Smoking 12/30/1999 Philadelphia Yearly Meeting's Young Friends have been concerned with smoking in our community for as long as we can remember. We acknowledge Friends' concerns about smoking, and indeed, share those concerns. Banning smoking at our Gatherings is unfaithful to our community and to our testimonies of tolerance, acceptance, and unconditional love. Philadelphia Yearly Meeting's Young Friends ministry extends to all Young Friends, including those who are addicted to nicotine. We permit smoking at our Gatherings, subject to the following guidelines: a. Smoking is a solitary event. Those who are addicted to nicotine may, during unscheduled time, go outside and smoke a cigarette by themselves, then return to the rest of our community. b. There is no bumming, borrowing, renting, buying, or selling of tobacco products at a Young Friends Gathering. c. We do not want Young Friends or adults to smoke, but we will support them to quit when they are ready, and help them to not smoke at Gatherings. d. The Young Friends community accepts the responsibility for enforcing this policy. Reminder to Parents: There has been a lot of discussion between the Young Friends community and the greater Yearly Meeting about young people's tobacco usage. We hope that Friends who have not participated in our process will respect the length and depth of our discussion and the good Quaker process we've modeled in reaching this agreement.
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