Meeting Care Day: A training & consultation gathering for Friends serving their local Quaker meeting
Do you serve your local Quaker meeting? Are you looking to connect with others serving in similar roles to discuss challenges and explore best practices? Join us for Meeting Care Day, an in-person event featuring multiple workshop options related to specific service areas. Before and after the morning and afternoon workshop sessions, we will gather for worship and fellowship, making for an energizing day.
Schedule
9:00 Arrivals, fellowship, coffee & refreshments
9:30 Welcome & opening worship
10:15 Morning workshop session
11:45 Lunch
12:45 Afternoon workshop session
2:15 break
2:30 Closing worship
3:00 Goodbyes
Workshops
All workshops are three hours, broken into two 90-minute Sessions. Participants choose one workshop to participate in throughout the day.
This year's workshops are:
Best Practices in Nominating
Nominating is an essential way we draw out gifts and grow leadership in our Quaker communities. Nominators sit at the intersection of the meeting's needs and individual spiritual journeys. This work is deeply relationship-based and involves seeing the "big picture" of our ever-evolving meeting communities as well as the details involved in getting various tasks done. In many of our meetings, nominators quietly and lovingly engage in the one-on-one conversations that help our meetings thrive. This workshop, which will be of special interest to Friends serving on nominating committees, will provide a place to share best practices and unpack challenges in nominating. Facilitated by Lucy Meadows (Beacon Hill) and Jackie Stillwell (Monadnock).
Quaker Group Discernment: Clerking, recording, and active participation
Join New England Friends’ new Presiding Clerk Phillip Veatch (Fresh Pond) and other Friends to develop and deepen skills in Quaker group discernment and decision-making processes used in our meetings, organizations, and committees including the particular functions of clerk and recording clerk. This workshop is designed to be of use to both those new to and experienced with Friends’ practices. Whether you are currently serving as clerk or recording clerk in a local meeting or on a committee or you are hoping to strengthen your participation in discernment outside a particular role, you are welcome.
Emerging Conversations About Ministry and Eldership in Our Meetings
What practices regarding ministry and eldership are happening (or not happening) in our meetings? What guidance, practices, and resources are Friends able to offer one another in seeking to enrich the spiritual life within our meetings? What new questions and conversations are emerging, as we live into these unsettled times? Whether you serve on your meeting’s Ministry & Counsel committee or otherwise hold a concern for the spiritual health of your meeting, we invite you to join an exploratory conversation and resource-sharing opportunity. Facilitated by NEYM’s Ministry & Counsel Shepherd Janet Hough (Cobscook).
Setting the Table for Newcomers
In each of our local communities, there are spiritually hungry seekers yearning to connect. How can we extend a living invitation and set the table to feed newcomers and long-time Friends alike? Join us for a conversation about outreach, welcome, religious education, building belonging, renewal, and change in our Friends communities. Conversation starters will include Emily Mason who followed a leading to begin the Orchard Hill Worship Group in New Hampshire and Phil Fitz who was led to develop the Elements of Quakerism course to move Friends past Quakerism 101 in his home meeting in Northampton, MA and beyond, and Regina McCarthy who has been a part of Wellesley Meeting's varied efforts to welcome newcomers and families.
Registration, Fee, and Health
This event is offered on a pay-as-led basis (sliding scale), with a suggested fee of $35 for workshop participants. Please pay the amount that seems right for you and your budget. No one will be turned away for lack of funds. Coffee, tea, and light refreshments will be provided. Participants are asked to bring their own lunch.
Stay home if you are experiencing COVID, flu, or stomach bug symptoms. Refunds are available. Masks are optional and the choice to mask will always be respected. There will be indoor and outdoor dining spaces.
Questions or suggestions? Contact Program Director Nia Thomas.