Meeting For Worship:
Chester River Friends continue to meet in the Board Room of the Chestertown Presbyterian Church since the sale of our Meeting House, now, quite a few years ago. We still greet an occasional Attender and infrequently, Members of other Friends Meetings, who continue to somehow find us, while visiting, in and around Chestertown. We continue to be a small rather quiet, gathered group of Friends during Meeting for Worship. We continue our tradition of “continuing/afterthoughts,” along with introductions, at the rise of Meeting.
Meeting’s Business/Organizational Structure:
Upon the long-needed retirement of our long-standing Clerk this past May 2025, thank you Nina, we continue with a full time Treasurer, three Trustees that have not really found a need to meet, and this writer, who refers to himself as the “Clerk in Absentia”. We have therefore, sort of, become a “Worship Group” with a “Business as Needed” approach.
Our Cecil Burial Ground
This year, the Cecil Burial Ground Landscaping Plan with Unity Nursery, required several, not really, “Called Threshing/Business like” Meetings.
We completed Phase I, in early June, of our landscaping plan with the planting of eleven (11) new trees in our Cecil Burial Ground. Phase II is pending, as without a water source and the inability to haul adequate water, long term, to support our new trees and future phases of our plan, we decided to install an irrigation well.
This writer, who is also the current caretaker and maintenance person of the Cecil Burial Ground, learned firsthand how difficult decision making can be without the Meeting’s Business/Organizational Structure. Several attempts to communicate electronically and thus, not allow any time for ideas and proposals to “season” about necessary Business, with Members and Attenders, resulted in several rather “UnFriendly” responses. This is perhaps a message for all of us!!
Our Continuing Dilemma:
As our Members are growing older and fewer in numbers and we lack a structural/organizational framework and thus, no apparent leadership development process, or Quaker Business Practices, decision making falls to a “few”, and yet “all” seem to wish to be included.
I will repeat and add to last year’s closing remarks. Without a leadership team and Quaker Business Practices to provide consistency in follow-through, especially when challenging issues and/or queries arise, there is a void. And in this void, without grounded face-to-face opportunities for discernment and clearness, there continues to be active criticism rather than the constructive consideration of the efforts of a few hard-working Members. Frankly, without leadership, Quaker Faith and Practices and continued maintenance, this whole situation is unsustainable. Unfortunately, I have grown weary and will not attempt, on my own, to return to our Trustees’ question/query from last year, “Might Chester River Friends be better suited to be the Chester River Worship Group”?
Respectfully Submitted in Faithfulness,
Bob Denison
