Friends who attended Annual Sessions in person or on Zoom know that the council tri-clerks invited questions about how council functions. More questions were received than could be answered in the time available. The clerks prepared written responses in the weeks that followed, and those responses are being shared here. The clerks met their commitment to answer promptly; the delay was only in distribution.
Key to abbreviations:
AC = Administrative Council
QLC = Quaker Life Council
NC = Nominating Council
JC = Joint Council
Please draw a simple organizational chart of the…
The structure of the PYM governance can be found on page 006 of the governance handbook found at https://www.pym.org/our-organization/governance-structure-handbook/ . It can also be found on the PYM website at https://www.pym.org/our-organization/
Do people on each area discern separately?
Members of the Council work together, discussing and discerning as a group. We consider the recommendations of committees when they are brought forward. Nominating discerns appointments separately.
Can attenders serve, or only members?
Faith and Practice https://www.pym.org/faith-and-practice/ tells us that All Members of constituent Friends Meetings are also members of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. The Handbook does not specify membership; rather it talks about the authority, responsibilities and characteristics of those who serve the yearly meeting. (See Governance Handbook page 15 -33 for specific information regarding the various clerks of the yearly meeting.) In describing our organization (see “about us- our organization”)). https://www.pym.org/our-organization/governance/
Administrative Council is described as follows:
AC functions best when there are people serving on it who have these skills or experiences:
· Know Quaker principles and practice.
· Maintain an active and grounded, spiritual life, and have the ability to articulate their ministry of administration.
· Understand the greater directions to Philadelphia yearly meeting.
· Have strong communication skills and be able to communicate complex administrative information clearly, and with Joy.
· Be willing to travel to monthly meetings, council meetings, and events.
· Demonstrating the ability to deal with healthy conflict, and to collaborate with others.
· Be able to make hard decisions, to say no when necessary.
This emphasizes the characteristics needed for the work rather than a static label; those nominated to council have conversation with a member of nominating council and may also discuss the work with a current member of the group for which they are being considered.
How is the new process different from the old?
In 2023-24 (and earlier) councils met separately to consider issues rising based upon the type of business. AC considered matters concerning finances, property, personnel, development, granting, and policy. AC also supported the committees under their care. QLC considered ministry and care, collaboratives, programming needs, sessions support, conflict resolution and the spiritual state of PYM and the MM/QM. QLC also supported the committees under their care. NC met people, identified their gifts and skills and helped them to find clearness in their leading to serve.
In the current working experiment, JC meets together, listens, and discerns as one group. With diverse gifts and skills our members’ decisions are seasoned with more depth and understanding compared with individual council discernment.
The exception to this is the nominating process. NC continues to meet separately for nominations to avoid a self-selective JC. For more information, please see page 20 –21 in the governance handbook https://www.pym.org/our-organization/governance-structure-handbook/ .
What are the pros and cons of the change?
In evaluating the experiment, Council members notice that there is a great deal of work to be done each month and meetings are long. Some feel that focus should be given to specific issues by individual council members without melding the issues. Many note that consideration of a topic can be accomplished once by all council members instead of twice or more in the single council method. Many recognize the benefit of multiple points of view as represented by members of the three councils. Individuals who are engaged in service understand the needs of the yearly meeting more completely than when they served on an individual council. Perhaps most important, a variety of expertise can be brought to consideration of a single topic. There is still work needed to refine our techniques. To read more about the reflections please see https://www.pym.org/january-2025-joint-council-update/ .
How do you feel about the success of this effort? What advantages have you found?
In addition to those already noted, there appears to be a better consolidation of information, and more fluid agenda planning when different considerations are shared in the planning process. The energy level in the meeting appears better. A variety of viewpoints are shared, and most council members participate actively.
Why do we need to do business between continuing and annual sessions?
There are several reasons. Among them can be the desire of the body to move work forward in a more timely manner than waiting until the next session. The work we have designated to the Climate Stewards with oversight from the councils might provide one such example. Another reason would be where the work is timely and/or urgent. Many would suggest that an example of such a situation would be our decision to enter into the lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security.
For additional information please see the Governance Handbook p. 20 https://www.pym.org/our-organization/governance/ : “the body gives two councils … significant authority and the ability to be more quickly responsive on behalf of the yearly meeting.”
Who appoints the clerk of each council?
NC continues to bring forth names for AC and QLC clerks for approval by the PYM Body in Sessions. So, PYM Friend at sessions appoints the clerks and members. AC nominates the NC clerk, which is approved by the Body in Sessions. Please see pages 26-27 in the governance handbook https://www.pym.org/our-organization/governance-structure-handbook/ .
Do the separate councils meet at another time, too? Or does the joint council discuss all business that comes up? Do the joint councils ever meet separately?
The full JC discusses all the business on the agenda. Remember that committees do a significant portion of the ‘work’ and bring their discernment to JC for consideration. There is a trusting relationship between Committees and Council (see pages 28-29 of the governance handbook https://www.pym.org/our-organization/governance-structure-handbook/ ). So, in essence, there are many more Friends, outside of JC members, making recommendations for PYM throughout the year. Please visit the PYM website for more information at https://www.pym.org/our-organization/ . The NC meets separately for the particular needs of nominating.
What is the role of the joint council?
The JC—comprising QLC, NC, AC, and recording clerks—meets monthly to worship, discern, and conduct business together. In this collaborative format, minutes are approved during the meeting, allowing them to be shared promptly with the community. This is an intentional choice to improve the transparency of our work to PYM Friends. JC has also included elders in our meetings to maintain the spiritual grounding of our discernment. https://www.pym.org/our-organization/joint-council/
How is the work of individual councils being completed?
Collaboratively by JC and by the appropriate committees. Please remember that AC and QLC both have committees under their care to do some of the “heavy lifting”. One benefit of this is that even more Friends from around the YM are actively involved in discernment and decision making. These committees are an excellent way for Friends to serve with a smaller time commitment than Council service entails. https://www.pym.org/our-organization/#committees
NC meets separately to identify Friends with gifts and skills to serve the Yearly Meeting, reaching out to identified Friends and helping them to find clarity in their leading to serve or not to serve.
If social justice is a human right, then how is the administrative council supporting social justice campaigns?
Social justice is a deeply held value to many Friends on the council and not on council. Appointment to the Council does not offer a special voice for social justice advocacy, nor does it silence individual council member’s voices on issues as they are led.
Friends act on their Spiritual leadings, as individuals, at their Monthly and Quarterly Meeting levels, and at the Yearly Meeting, if they are so led. Through Collaboratives or Climate Witness Stewards, Councils create the container for the work of Friends. The Councils’ function is not to do the work of Friends.
Some examples of the work of JC’s support of social justice issues through the Collaboratives, Granting Committee, the Climate Witness Stewards, the DHS Lawsuit, and through the changes at Unity Meeting. Please review the PYM Newsletter to read about these and more. https://www.pym.org/news/
What functions are joint and what are separate?
(See above answers) Sounds like a return to interim meeting.
While the new governance structure differs from the previous iteration, in many ways it is similar. The councils have authority to bring to the body at its sessions topics for discernment and decisions regarding actions and policies to be undertaken by the yearly meeting. This process has not significantly changed. The process for how these topics is brought forth has: it has been streamlined to create greater clarity and timeliness at the request of the body.
Are these closed sessions or is there opportunity to observe (only observe)?
Because of the extent and volume of the work before Joint Council, only people specifically invited to observe and contribute their work were present at its deliberations. Quaker discernment and process is not a spectator event; it is deep, gathered work in which all present actively listen to Spirit and each other.
The January Update on the PYM website says: “The councils will continue meeting in this format through July. Has this term end for the experiment been extended? If so, shall we celebrate that the experiment has been successful enough to warrant extending it?
Members for Governance Advisory Committee visited JC in June 2025 and listened to JC members as they reflected on queries about the functioning of the JC over the past year. The Governance Advisory Committee recommends that JC continue for one more year with modifications that will be discerned at the JC retreat in September. The goal is to move towards a more permanent council structure. https://www.pym.org/june-2025-joint-council-update/
What actions result from the deliberations of the Joint Council?
The work of the committees under JC are examples of this. These include grant making (more than $1 million are granted each year), personnel policies, financial decisions, support for the collaboratives and PYM programs. You may read the minutes of our Meetings here https://www.pym.org/our-organization/joint-council/
JC has acted to raise Sprints such as the Listening and Lobbying Sprint, Sessions Sprint, General Secretary Search Sprint, and the action required for the DHS lawsuit. Sprints are another vehicle for increasing Friends’ involvement in and service to PYM at the Yearly Meeting level. You may explore sprints here https://www.pym.org/our-organization/#sprints
How are members of Joint Council chosen? Is it truly representative of our meetings? How could it be made more transparent?
Members of JC are identified through NC. This process is clearly laid out in the Nominating Council Handbook. For more information see: https://www.pym.org/nominating-council/ . If Quarterly Meetings were more diligent in nominating Friends to serve on NC, (this nominating process lies with the Quarters) their members would have more people in the life of their meetings connected to the work of JC.
How do you feel spirit moving during this experimental time?
I feel spirit grounding our work together. Through individual Friend’s preparation for JC meetings by reading and sitting with advanced documents as well as Spiritual grounding supported by elders during the meeting we work collaboratively in a Meeting for Worship with attention to business. I also feel members of JC listening to spirit and to each other as we do our work. This has been evident in the work of Sprints and the committees as well as during the monthly work of the council.
How would you like it to move among you in the future so more real discernment can take place? Perhaps less training?
“Real discernment” has always and will continue to require deep worship and the willingness to wait upon the Spirit as we work together. Council members have taken this time in worship to labor together no matter the topic before us. We are committed to continuing this “real discernment”. Spirit encourages us to use all our knowing and all our learning along with listening to Spirit through one another to discern way forward. This continues to be our way, listening for Spirit to continue to guide the work.
What is the Joint Council doing to address the diminishing numbers of Liberal Friends?
Monthly Meeting membership is not one of Joint Council’s duties and charges. We do support a Granting Group that specifically supports membership development with resources for Monthly and Quarterly Meetings to use to do outreach. https://www.pym.org/grants/membership-development/
How to make the meetings less crowded.
We are uncertain what this means…Is it that there are too many Friends at the JC table, or there is too much work, or perhaps too crowded an agenda?
The council has a lot of work on the agenda each month. As we have become more efficient in working together, the meetings have become somewhat less rushed and flow better. We need to continue to explore how to focus our work while also giving ample room for spirit to move, and for the range of Friends’ opinions to be expressed.
There is space for many more Friends to serve on JC, and yet we have a crisis of participation within PYM. We do know that many Friends already serve PYM at the Yearly Meeting level on Sprints, Committees, Climate Witness Stewards, and Collaboratives. Friends are invited to reach out to NC or JC clerks if they are led to serve PYM in a role that does not require 3+ hours per month required to serve on JC. There are many seats at the table.
Many meetings are looking at changes to their committee structure. Any learnings from your experiment that we might find useful too?
Yes: Meetings, when conducting their business, can use Sprints to accomplish specific tasks instead of forming and/or charging a meeting committee to undertake the job. This can be very effective at getting discrete tasks completed and helpful to meetings struggling with fewer members and/or newer members reluctant to commit to a term of service on a committee.
Is it working?
Yes, the willingness of Friends to serve on Sprints has been very positive and they have been successful at fulfilling the work of our yearly meeting.
JC is also working to bring more seasoned discernment to the issues found on our agenda. The combined gifts, skills, and wisdom has brought a depth to decision making that was lacking previously. It is not perfect, but we are working to improve the process.
How is the joint council different from representative meeting?
PYM was severely challenged by the world financial crisis that began in 2008, the Great Recession. In the years leading up to the creation of the present governance structure (2014) PYM laid off half of its staff, downsizing from approximately 40 to 20.
Its budget could no longer support their work and that of the many working groups and committees they served. The generation of Friends who donated generously and regularly to support yearly meeting was passing. The yearly meeting was facing a new financial and demographic reality at the turning of the new century. It needed a new vision.
Beginning in 2012, PYM undertook a formal process of internal reflection on its own sustainability based on the realization, among others, that the governance structure of interim meeting was no longer tenable, practically or financially.
It was too bureaucratic: diffuse in its priorities and lacked significant accountability (both spiritual and fiscal) to the larger body. Creating a vision of a new governance structure that aligned with current financial reality and responded to the movement of the spirit at the dawn of the twenty-first century became the task at hand.
At that time, yearly meeting discerned as a body through a diverse and multi-formatted series of gatherings its priorities and strategic directions for the coming years. Belonging, Communicating, Connecting, Witnessing and Functioning were identified as the five areas where PYM as a body would direct its energies and resources for the future. These areas would also guide the work of our governance.
https://www.pym.org/sessions/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2023/11/PYM-Strategic-Directions-PDF.pdf
The Administrative, Quaker Life and Nominating Councils would streamline the work of yearly meeting by providing consistency, continuity and thus greater coherence to our life as a yearly meeting. The five strategic directions would also serve as guideposts to hold ourselves accountable to one another (again spiritually and fiscally) as we seek to fulfill our vision for a peaceable world.
Creating a coherent vision for the life of PYM has enhanced the work of governance by providing greater clarity regarding priorities and therefore greater direction among those called to serve as part of the governance structure, the Joint Council. While we continue to engage in deep and careful discernment, and the struggle it often entails, the results of our work have been greater unity and the joy it brings. And it is this experience which calls forth our continued dedication to the work of governance.
How can we get prompt minutes from the joint councils?
Read the PYM newsletter, published and electronically distributed every Thursday. Friends may subscribe and receive it in your email inbox weekly. It can be found here https://www.pym.org/news/ .
How can we get a prompt copy of the general secretary’s report to the joint council?
Read the PYM newsletter, published and electronically distributed every Thursday. Friends may subscribe and receive it in your email inbox weekly. It can be found here https://www.pym.org/news/ .
What are we doing about losing our democracy in the US?
JC members are accountable to their individual leadings from Spirit. As a group, we encourage and hold in the Light leadings from Spirit. Drafting the Guidance on Advocacy and Lobbying, a framework for Yearly Meeting Group’s advocacy and lobbying, clearly describes the path for PYM collaboratives, council, and/or committees to activism. Please remember that the Guidance on Advocacy and Lobbying does not hinder individual Friends, MM or QM from advocacy and lobbying. https://www.pym.org/sessions/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2025/02/PYM-Guidance-on-Advocacy-and-Lobbying-Spring-Continuing-Sessions-2025.pdf
One very relevant example of corporate action is the lawsuit PYM versus DHS. https://www.pym.org/pym-involvement-in-dhs-lawsuit/
Have the three councils become self-appointing since nominating is part of it?
No. The NC continues to bring new names for approval by the body in session. The presence of NC members on the council has allowed those members a deeper understanding of the work for which they are seeking nominations. This enhanced understanding has helped NC members to match gifts and talents to the needs of AC and QLC and their work.
Is there space for council members to add to the agenda to bring new items from the body?
At the end of each JC meeting we have specific time on the agenda for the sharing of joys and concerns from around PYM. The intention of this time is for JC members to raise issues for JC’s awareness to address. If warranted, the issue will be added to a future agenda with timing based upon the urgency of the issue.
If there is an issue Friends would like JC to be aware of, please communicate this with a JC member who is from your QM. If there are no Friends from your QM on JC know that each QM has a seat on NC, and therefore JC.
Has anything been lost in the change?
The silos have been lost.
Would like to know more about structure of Joint meetings—cross pollination—break out sessions—mixing councils.
All members of all three groups meet together as a committee of the whole, taking up business as a body.
Is it appropriate that AC and QLC have people on NC? But I hope that when nominations are made to AC and QLC that these on NC from those two recuse themselves from discussions or nominations to the councils that nominate them. Otherwise, we could repeat the in-group control of two centuries ago that led to the …..
Please remember that all council nominations come to the body at sessions for approval. PYM members at sessions approve the NC slate of candidates.
The NC works through the QM and MM to identify potential JC members, elders, clerks, recording clerks, and Climate Witness Stewards. They have a big responsibility to the YM and are working below the preferred number of members considered full capacity. The reason there are some members who serve on NC as well as another council is because we do not have enough Friends willing to take a seat at the table for NC. Friends, please ask your QM to appoint a NC member.
Can it be made clear what kinds of decisions have come from Joint Council in comparison to other avenues of decision making?
This is always clarified when reports come to the body. It would be hard to determine in advance what kind of avenue discernment will take. Friends have access to the minutes of JC within 10 days of the JC meeting (the time required for preparing it for the newsletter). Friends, this is one of the significant changes made by JC as compared to the 3 separate councils. We have recording clerks who read the minutes at the JC meeting and they are modified and approved in the faced of JC meeting. This is an intentional step towards transparency and informing the PYM body of the issues arising at the YM level. Please read the newsletter weekly https://www.pym.org/news/ .
