On Saturday, June 14, the three councils that support Philadelphia Yearly Meeting—Quaker Life Council, Administrative Council, and Nominating Council—held their meeting in the joint format. In this structure, all three councils meet together as one Joint Council to worship, discern, and conduct business collaboratively. This allows the Joint Council to share the minutes in a news story with the PYM community in the week following the meeting.
Each month the council chooses one thing from their agenda or conversation to highlight. This month they are highlighting that The Joint Council will continue the experiment of meeting as one group.
Members of the Governance Advisory Committee joined for an agenda item about the experiment to help discern whether it would continue, be made permanent, or stop so the councils would meet separately again. Everyone participating found the new format more engaging & energizing, and is in favour of continuing the experiment. One thing it was agreed needs improvement is timeliness: meetings in the Joint Council format often run over time. Governance Advisory Committee is recommending that the experiment continue, with another check-in planned during the next PYM year, after Annual Sessions when the councils begin meeting again.
