1. In the past year, how has your meeting worked to create and strengthen the reality of a Beloved Community? How has your meeting fostered an environment in which members and attenders of all ages know they are loved, cared for, trusted, and respected?<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2022 Offered hybrid Zoom weekly worship \u2013 Guaranteed connection with out-of-state members and attenders. 2. How have you sought to be neighbors and in relationship with other communities?<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2022 Supported FCNL by regular sharing of their communications to all members and attenders; 3. How has your Meeting been called to address issues of racism?<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2022 Formed a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity Committee. 4. How has the Spirit guided your work on climate change? How has your meeting addressed the five action areas identified in the Climate Change Sprint Report? Has your meeting appointed a Climate Change liaison?<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2022 Participated in the Concord Quarter Climate Action Working Group (CAWG). The CAWG formed after a Quarterly Meeting hosted by Westtown which focused on the sprint report. After a discernment process, the CAWG members felt called to prioritize preparation for and resilience in the face of extreme weather events. 5. What learnings and yearnings particular to your meeting would you like to share?<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2022 Learning: \u201cPlanting Seeds and Growing Leadership\u201d \u2013 Monthly forum; 6. What are things the Yearly Meeting might do to support your monthly meeting?<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2022 Streamlining communications: Help us ensure new members are added to contact lists for PYM. Approved by Westtown Monthly Meeting during Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business 2\/19\/2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 1. In the past year, how has your meeting worked to create and strengthen the reality of a Beloved Community? How has your meeting fostered an environment in which members […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":2884,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"quarterly_meeting":[53],"year_of_repprt":[63],"class_list":["post-2885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reports","quarterly_meeting-concord-quarter","year_of_repprt-2022-2023","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pym.org\/state-of-the-meeting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pym.org\/state-of-the-meeting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pym.org\/state-of-the-meeting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pym.org\/state-of-the-meeting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pym.org\/state-of-the-meeting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pym.org\/state-of-the-meeting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pym.org\/state-of-the-meeting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pym.org\/state-of-the-meeting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pym.org\/state-of-the-meeting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pym.org\/state-of-the-meeting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2885"},{"taxonomy":"quarterly_meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pym.org\/state-of-the-meeting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/quarterly_meeting?post=2885"},{"taxonomy":"year_of_repprt","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pym.org\/state-of-the-meeting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/year_of_repprt?post=2885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u2022 Launched an annual Juneteenth Interracial Celebration at the Westtown Lake.
\n\u2022 Engaged in Trust Circles \u2013 4 training sessions for 28 people with Clinton Pettus, followed by four monthly Trust Circle practices.
\n\u2022 Added Quarterly Intergenerational Worship in the form of Godly Play: Storytelling worship sessions for all ages.
\n\u2022 Piloting Tri-Clerks rotation (3 times per year): Leadership striving to model the concerns of our DEI committee.
\n\u2022 Formed DEI committee as an ad hoc committee.
\n\u2022 Offered Hybrid Christmas Eve Candlelight Service so that all could join.
\n\u2022 Hosted a Labyrinth Walk on New Year\u2019s Day to welcome the new year.
\n\u2022 Planned potluck Lake Suppers during summer months.
\n\u2022 Scheduled Hymn Sing 10:10-10:30 am before MFW with greater diversity in the hymn selection.
\n\u2022 Strengthening the faculty and curriculum for weekly Children\u2019s Meeting; Hired and trained new Children\u2019s Meeting facilitators and expanded training materials.
\n\u2022 Organized ongoing support for a family who lost their child to violence.<\/p>\n
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\n\u2022 Offered ongoing education about peacemaking, and presence in, Israel\/Palestine;
\n\u2022 Planned to host the annual meeting for the International Friends Peace Teams, (May 4, 5 and 6, 2023.)
\n\u2022 Oak Lane Day Care \u2013 Meeting members sit on the Board of Advisors of that institution.
\n\u2022 Book swap (including toys and games); Outreach to community members.<\/p>\n
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\n\u2022 Attended the Mayor\u2019s Conference on Reparations, (two Westtown representatives) and reported to the monthly business meeting.
\n\u2022 Held our first annual Juneteenth Celebration.
\n\u2022 Created Kwanzaa informational emails that were shared with the entire meeting membership by a DEI committee member during the days of Kwanzaa.
\n\u2022 Rotating tri-clerkship with BIPOC (Black Indigenous People of Color) representation.
\n\u2022 Promoted MLK volunteer day in cooperation with Westtown School.
\n\u2022 Engaged in Trust Circles with Clinton Pettus focused on issues of race.
\n\u2022 Share Land Acknowledgment statement before start of worship each week.
\n\u2022 Applied for and received funding for training to support clerks of Meetings and committees to design and clerk\/facilitate equity centered meetings. Entitled \u201cBeyond Meeting for Business\u201d and funded by the Shoemaker Fund, this program will include a training program in April 2023 and a peer support program to assist and guide up to 20 clerks in exploring ways in which we conduct our business so that it can be best aligned with our spiritual and social justice commitments to equity. This program is administered through our Peace and Justice Committee and has robust participation from our own clerks.
\n\u2022 Applied for and received funding for a program \u201cMore than Neighbors\u201d, to bring school and meeting pairs together to engage in the difficult conversations to address our shared mission of becoming anti-racist faith communities (funded by the Tyson Fund). Our meeting members coordinated this program in which five school\/meeting pairs participated (Lansdowne, Germantown, West Chester, Haverford and Westtown). We created a robust school\/meeting team to develop on-going relationship building and strategies to address racism and bias.
\n\u2022 Held a Labyrinth Walk on New Year\u2019s Day in conjunction with Church of the Loving Shepherd.
\n\u2022 Offered a presentation on Indigenous Land (Lenni Lenape) which was facilitated by Vanessa Julye, former Westtown School student.<\/p>\n
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\n\u2022 Coordinated by a member of our meeting, a multi-part series was created to support Concord Quarterly Meetings in their development of a Disaster Preparation plan. We hope to approve our plan in the spring of 2023. The CAWG determined to attend to carbon footprint reduction in 2023 with a focus on land and building stewardship. As our buildings and grounds are under the direction of Westtown School, we will consult with the school regarding opportunities for improvement and advances in both areas.
\n\u2022 Sharing by our Peace and Justice Committee, in terms of witness, about opportunities for advocacy through FCNL and important state issues.
\n\u2022 Seeking a Climate Change liaison and a person to be a liaison with the Concord Quarterly meeting is being led by our equivalent of the Nominating Committee.<\/p>\n
\n\u2022 Yearning: Learn how other Meetings handle maintaining a clerk\/clerks. Westtown is experimenting with \u201ctri-clerks\u201d sharing the responsibilities of clerking the Meeting;
\n\u2022 Learning and Yearning: Listening to understand (deep listening);
\n\u2022 Yearning: Streamline communications; Ensuring that announcements at rise of Meeting include connectional information with Quarterly and Yearly meeting;
\n\u2022 Yearning: Redesign WMM website to be a central place for sharing information with all;
\n\u2022 Yearning: Plan and hold a threshing session around reparations.<\/p>\n
\n\u2022 Support our continued work on Racism, Climate Change, indigenous respect, and peace building in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
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