Report
from Peace and Social Concerns Committee regarding oversight of the Friends
Concerns portion of
(also available as a Word file)
Our Committee was asked to develop a process for overseeing the general
process of communicating among ourselves about our individual and corporate
engagement with Quaker-related groups and organizations. We did so, and on
The procedure is: (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 be asked to submit a Newsletter article describing the work of the group, to use a portion of the Peace and Social Concerns bulletin board for a display about the group, and to present a brief report in the Meeting for Business about the group. At that Meeting, the Committee may recommend a contribution to the group (for “Other Organizations” but not for "Local Concerns,” for which contributions are proposed by the Finance Committee.)
We understood this procedure to apply to some of the “Local Concerns” organizations (currently AFSC of Western Massachusetts, Alternatives to Violence Project, and Woolman Hill Conference Center, though not to the Amherst Interfaith Service Council nor the Martin Luther King Breakfast) and to all of the “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.)
The procedure worked as expected and we were very pleased with the cooperation of the advocates who made presentations on behalf of the organizations. For one organization (QUNO/Quaker House) no advocate came forward, and consequently that organization was not recommended by our Committee for inclusion in the budget. We invited “new” organizations to come to our Committee to be considered for inclusion, and one did – the GI Hotline group. After this group’s presentation to our Committee, we agreed to recommend it for inclusion in the budget, and subsequently the Meeting agreed. Since it seems reasonable to include this as one of the “Local Concerns” we expect that the Finance Committee, not our Committee, will make a budget recommendation for it in future years.
We believe that this procedure has proved feasible and valuable, and we recommend that it be followed in future years, continuing under the oversight of our Peace and Social Concerns Committee.