How has your meeting been changing?
We are emerging as a local model for environmental stewardship of our buildings and grounds. In 2024 we completed a conversion to green technology for Nursery School and Social Hall buildings. For these two connected buildings, we installed a geothermal heat pump for HVAC and installed solar panels on the roof. We also installed a hybrid electric/air source heat pump water heater. The two new heat pumps have enabled us to eliminate boiler and fossil fuel usage for both buildings. In August 2024, we hosted Bucks Quarterly Meeting in the Social Hall, where we showcased several of these new features and gave a presentation on environmental stewardship.
For our grounds, we purchased a cyclone rake to collect our own leaves and create our own mulch. Going forward, we are considering possibilities for conversion of some of our land to promote regeneration of native species in accordance with suggestions from Doug Tallamy’s book Nature’s Best Hope. Our public outreach has strengthened. In 2024 we hosted our 300th anniversary celebration and began a series of “Friday Friends” afternoon gatherings, open to the public – but not promoted – and began planning for the first public “coffeehouse” event since COVID. The Coffeehouse, featuring music and poetry, was held in early 2025. It was a huge success, and we plan to hold more in the future.
Our large public 300th anniversary celebration on May 4, 2024, involved significant outreach to neighboring businesses and organizations as well as to local government. We created a timeline of the Meeting’s history, displayed historical photographs and reproductions of historical documents, offered tours of our buildings and grounds, and provided live entertainment. Of the 300+ people who attended, a few were newcomers; most were members of our extended community who came back to reconnect with the Meeting and/or reunite with friends and family. Our state representative, state senator, congressional representative, and township supervisors offered commemorative citations.
After the event two members of the Wrightstown Historical Commission, one of whom is a professional archivist, asked to borrow some of our materials for an upcoming display in the Township Building about the Meeting’s role the early history of the township. Several productive meetings with them led to the high resolution scanning of some of our founding deeds and historical documents, to the long-term benefit of both the Meeting and the Township. We hope the display, to be mounted sometime in 2025, will generate public interest and appreciation for the Meeting.
We have also held more events within the Meeting to strengthen our sense of spiritual fellowship. Monthly Spiritual Exploration Group meetings have been well attended. After a lengthy suspension during COVID, programming such as the recent One Meeting/One Book discussion is once again part of our monthly Meet and Eat post-worship gatherings.
Where are you headed in the next few years?
It’s impossible to say; this question is inseparable from the question of how our Meeting has been changing. Ideally, we will continue to work toward achieving carbon-neutral status for our campus, as this seems to be the area of spiritual witness around which we feel most strongly as a community. However, given the twin challenges of succession planning and membership-building, we are apprehensive about our ability to continue as a self-sustaining entity. Annual contributions have declined over the last two years; most of the active work of the Meeting continues to be done by a small group of people. Some of these folks continue in leadership roles, or take on new ones, simply because no one else is willing or available. We have had no First-Day School program since 2020, and that seems unlikely to change. Though stewardship of our buildings and grounds is strong, our corporate witness in other areas of social justice is dormant. We have laid down our Peace and Social Concerns committee, but we have a plan to continue discernment of annual donations to charitable organizations.
Thanks to our connection with Wrightstown Friends Nursery School and the energetic outreach efforts of one or two of our members, several new people began attending Meeting in 2024. However, few families with children attend, and there have been no new applications for membership for several years.
For the core of 20-25 people who come to Meeting for Worship on a given Sunday, vocal ministry has been steady and spiritually sustaining. We remain hopeful and cheerful in the face of the challenges facing our nation and our Meeting.
Please share any triumphs or troubles you have had regarding the climate witness.
Our accomplishments regarding campus sustainability are described above.
