Friends Concerns process

In July 2007 an ad hoc committee reported on how they believed the Meeting should deal with organizations in the "Friends Concerns" portion of the budget. The Meeting adopted the report and asked Peace and Social Concerns to come up with a procedure, to try it out for a year, and to report back. Here is a Newsletter article (11/07) describing the process, slightly amended from the printed article to increase clarity:

The Meeting asked the Peace and Social Concerns Committee to oversee the general process of communicating among ourselves about our individual and corporate engagement with Quaker-related groups and organizations. The Committee has decided that: (1) for groups in the "Friends Concerns" part of our budget, an advocate or liaison person should be found; (2) the Committee will schedule two groups per month for special treatment; (3) during the designated month, the advocate will: (a) submit a Newsletter article describing the work of the group, and (b) use a portion of the Peace and Social Concerns bulletin board for a display about the group, and (c) present a brief report in the Meeting for Business about the group. At that Meeting, the Committee may recommend a contribution to the group (but not for the "local concerns" groups, for which contributions are proposed by the Finance Committee.)

Groups currently in the Friends Concerns category and proposed for this procedure are: ("local concerns":) AFSC of Western Massachusetts, Alternatives to Violence Project, Woolman Hill Conference Center; ("other organizations"): AFSC national office, Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Quaker Bolivia Link, Quaker Inner City School Endowment Fund, Quaker United Nations Office/Quaker House, and Right Sharing of World Resources.

If nobody can be found to act as advocate for a group in the "other organizations" section of Friends Concerns, the group may be dropped from our budget. If you - you out there reading this - are willing to be a group's advocate, please contact Roger Conant as soon as possible so the process outlined above can get started. If you believe another organization should be included and want to be the advocate for it, please come to the Committee to discuss that.