{"id":3153,"date":"2025-04-08T19:00:53","date_gmt":"2025-04-08T19:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pym.org\/state-of-the-meeting\/?p=3153"},"modified":"2025-08-11T20:20:41","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T20:20:41","slug":"wilmington-monthly-meeting-2024-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pym.org\/state-of-the-meeting\/wilmington-monthly-meeting-2024-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Wilmington Monthly Meeting 2024-2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

How has our meeting been changing?<\/strong>
\nThe Meeting continues to grow as a faith community. Meeting for worship is well and faithfully
\nattended and we are nourished by the depth of the spoken ministry and the gatherer silence.
\nMonthly Quaker Conversations (formerly Adult Religious Education) offer the opportunity for
\nshared communal seeking and the opportunity to know each other better. Social gatherings after
\nworship, monthly potluck lunches, and the annual pancake breakfast are popular and joyful
\nintergenerational events. First Day School is growing by leaps and bounds and has welcomed
\nseveral families from Wilmington Friends School. The hardworking coordinator and Religious
\nEducation Committee provide stimulating activities tailored to the wide range of ages of the
\nparticipants. Young Friends (grades 8 \u2013 11) have been actively engaged in following their
\ninterests in climate action, gardening, baking, crafts, and music, as well as engaging in positive
\nways with younger children.<\/p>\n

Our participation in events of Concord Quarter has increased, including families.
\nOur outreach to the community continues with the annual Berry Festival and preparing meals for
\nEmmanuel Dining Room and Family Promise. In addition, the Meeting approved a request by
\nSTELLAR Associates to relocate its tutoring services to the meetinghouse. We heartily welcome
\nthis non-profit group, which is dedicated to increasing children\u2019s literacy. We are pleased that our
\nbuilding is being used to good purpose.<\/p>\n

Where is Wilmington Monthly Meeting headed in the next few years?<\/strong>
\nThe past year has been characterized by a sense of possibility, energy, and spiritual seeking,
\nNew attenders, both individuals and young families, have found fulfillment in meeting for
\nworship and have participated enthusiastically in social activities and in the work of the meeting.
\nOur meeting is evolving, and we are grateful for the opportunity to get to know one another,
\ndeepen our faith, and live into our testimonies.<\/p>\n

Last spring we began a process to discern the nature of our meeting community, what we must
\ndo to sustain it, and how we can ensure that it moves forward into the future. Two worship
\nsharing sessions were held in which participants reflected on and responded to several queries.
\nThe open, spirit-led sharing was meaningful. At the end of the second session, it was decided to
\nhave a third once a sprint group had gathered information about what we already do and how the
\nwork of the meeting gets done. The sprint group asked committees to fill out a survey and will
\nreport results once all surveys are received.<\/p>\n

Triumphs or troubles we have had regarding our concern for Climate Witness:<\/strong>
\nOur active Peace and Social Justice group is working to increase awareness on climate issues not
\nonly as regards the stewardship of the meeting but also in our personal lives and communities.
\nWe have had a wonderful year of progress in many small ways. We have eliminated the use of
\npaper and plastic products during social time and potlucks, switching to cloth napkins and
\ntraining many (including young friends) to use the commercial, efficient dishwasher. Young
\nfriends built and monitor our in ground vermicompost (worms) bin to which Friends in the
\nmeeting bring their food scraps weekly. They are also responsible for a vegetable garden, which
\nthey plan, plant, harvest and share with the meeting. They journal the growth, success and
\nchallenges weekly.<\/p>\n

The Property Committee has worked over the past 15 years to increase the energy efficiency of
\nthe meeting house, although it will always be a challenge in a 200+ year old building, which has
\na historic building designation. A high efficiency gas heater cut the energy bill in half and the
\ninstillation of water efficient appliances has significantly reduced our water consumption.
\nDelaware Interfaith Power and Light also conducted an energy audit. Although we learned solar
\npanels may be feasible, it should be done when the roof is replaced (which is not in our
\nimmediate plans). We are exploring other options for moving away from fossil fuels to
\nrenewable energy.<\/p>\n

Toward that end, we also have members who have moved to electric vehicles, and we continue to
\nhold most committee meetings either by video conference or before or after worship, being
\nmindful that multiple independent trips by car contributes to harmful emissions.
\nProperty and REC have also been engaged in a years long effort to replace plants around the
\nmeeting with native plants, including those that attract pollinators, butterflies and moths. The
\nmeeting grounds encompass a full city block and provide a beautiful green space in the middle of
\nWilmington. We tend carefully to our trees to preserve the canopy, which provides much needed
\nshade and breeze to help alleviate the heat generated by the city\u2019s sidewalks, buildings and roads.
\nWe provided sponsorship for the Delaware Youth Environmental Summit<\/a> in February. YES! is a
\nstatewide summit for all Delaware high school students with an interest in protecting our Earth.
\nThe Summit is free for Delaware high school student teams and their advisors. A young friend
\nattended as a member of the Wilmington Friends School Team and a Friend from the meeting
\nalso attended.<\/p>\n

Peace and Social Justice hosted a vegetarian potluck in February which was very well received.
\nA Friend created a wonderful pamphlet on the impact of our food choices on the plant (copies are
\navailable!) and recipes are being collected. Peace and Social Justice also hosted a presentation
\nby Eco Plastic Products of Delaware<\/a> whose mission is \u201cto reinvent how the world views plastic
\nwaste \u2013 transforming what\u2019s discarded into purposeful products while fostering education,
\ninspiring community action, and providing opportunities for people of all abilities.\u201d Our young
\nfriends have adopted plastics recycling as another project and a recycling container for #2, #4,
\nand #5 plastics is now in the meeting house.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How has our meeting been changing? The Meeting continues to grow as a faith community. Meeting for worship is well and faithfully attended and we are nourished by the depth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":437,"featured_media":2522,"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":5,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"quarterly_meeting":[53],"year_of_repprt":[65],"class_list":["post-3153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reports","quarterly_meeting-concord-quarter","year_of_repprt-2024-2025","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pym.org\/state-of-the-meeting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3153","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\/437"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pym.org\/state-of-the-meeting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pym.org\/state-of-the-meeting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pym.org\/state-of-the-meeting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pym.org\/state-of-the-meeting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pym.org\/state-of-the-meeting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pym.org\/state-of-the-meeting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3153"},{"taxonomy":"quarterly_meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pym.org\/state-of-the-meeting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/quarterly_meeting?post=3153"},{"taxonomy":"year_of_repprt","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pym.org\/state-of-the-meeting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/year_of_repprt?post=3153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}