Welcome to the Runway to Annual Sessions 2021!
The Runway to Annual Sessions is filled with virtual workshops, gatherings, Business Q&As, an All Ages Gathering, and a Collaborative Fair! The Runway begins on Tuesday, May 4 and runs through July 24, 2021.
Wrestling with Israel – Palestine: Equality, Rights, Justice, and the Future
June 17, 2021
The complex issues of Israel and Palestine cloud the vision of moving toward peace with justice and equality. The workshop will begin with attention to the experience and connections that attendees have to the region in a worship sharing manner.
We will show a short film to focus on one aspect of the issue. Discussion following the film will lead us to consideration of further aspects for a vision for a comprehensive peace.
Facilitators: Dr. Sandy Rea and the Middle East Collaborative
Uncovering What Covers Us: Our Clothing
June 24, 2021
More people’s hands have touched our clothes before they reach us than any other products in our daily lives. Who are these people?
In the film,” The True Cost,” we will meet Shima, a garment factory worker with a young child in Bangladesh, who had to make a painful life decision, and Larhea, a cotton farmer in Texas, who decided on a major shift in her cotton production following a great loss in her life.
We will also learn how the clothing industry puts profit above all and how consumers indulge in an abundance of cheap clothes while being oblivious to the tremendous cost to those who make them and the environment.
The question before us is what role we want to play, continuing to support our current practice, or departing from it.
We will listen to the voices of those who made our clothes and seek to respond. What is the alternative to the unsustainable model we live by? As individuals and as a group, we will explore ways to replace it with what is just.
Facilitator: Yoko Barnes
Collaborative Fair, 10:00am – 12:30pm
July 24, 2021
Are you interested in learning more about PYM’s eight dynamic collaboratives?
Perhaps you would like to be a part of a collaborative or maybe even create a new collaborative?
Come join us to learn about the work and witness of PYM’s Collaboratives. We will hear from the clerks in a large group sharing before we break into small groups and at which time you may choose to visit with just one or as many as all eight collaboratives!
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s current Collaboratives:
- AntiRacism Collaborative; Wanda Wyffels, clerk
- Eco-Justice Collaborative; Pat Finley and Ruth Darlington, co-clerks
- First Contact Reconciliation Collaborative; sandra boone murphy, clerk
- Indian Friends Collaborative; Jack Waltz, clerk
- Legislative Policy Collaborative; Deb Hejl and Sylvia Bronner, co-clerks
- Middle East Collaborative; Dr. Sandy Rea, clerk
- Nuclear Disarmament Collaborative; Bill Cozzens, clerk
- Spiritual Formation Collaborative; Susan Thompson, clerk
PYM Representatives to other Quaker Organizations, 1:30pm – 3:00pm
July 24, 2021
Please join the appointed Philadelphia Yearly Meeting representatives to other Quaker Organizations as they share their reports about their work with these organizations: Quaker Peace Teams, Friends General Conference (FGC), Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), Friends World Committee on Consultation (FWCC), Arch Street Meeting House (ASMH), and Quaker Earthcare Witness (QEW).