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FALL, 1997: Volume 2 Issue 3

Friends Peace Teams Project Holds Annual Meeting

The Annual Meeting of Friends Peace Teams Project (FPTP) was held June 26-28 at Harrisonburg, Virginia, on the site of the Friends General Conference Gathering. It was attended by nine representatives of seven Yearly Meetings (YM); two people who have participated in the Coordination Council (CC) for several years; and four observers, three representing the Quaker Volunteer Service, Training and Witness (post-conference) group, and one who is a member of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT)---and one baby.

During our first session, we shared reports of work done within our Yearly Meetings and by Friends elsewhere, and oriented new members to the CC. In later sessions, we reorganized the Task Groups (committees) and structure of the CC to reflect the closing of the office at Baltimore YM (although Baltimore YM will continue to maintain a forwarding address, telephone and fiscal sponsorship of FPTP.) We decided to recruit and support some volunteers to CPT, who will be the first FPTP volunteers. We made concrete plans to do more outreach to college students by holding our CC meetings in different parts of the country and near Quaker educational institutions. We hope to proceed with developing plans for training in skills needed for Peace Team work, not only for members of Monthly Meetings, but also as part of peace education programs at colleges and universities. Other goals on which we agreed were:

  • to coordinate our work with the growing movement to develop/increase/coordinate Quaker volunteer service opportunities. Mary Lord will be our liaison with the group working on this that came out of the April Conference in New Jersey on Quaker Volunteers Service, Training and Witness;
  • to develop a list of Quakers and others who are prepared to do peace team work in situations of crisis domestically and internationally;
  • to increase outreach to Monthly and Yearly Meetings and to individual Friends;
  • to develop the FPTP CC further so that its work may be more effective, new members can be better oriented and communication within the CC can be improved;
  • to encourage and assist Monthly Meetings and Friends Churches in becoming centers for peace training in their own communities.

Currently we have adequate funds to operate FPTP, since we have received generous support from several YMs, especially BYM, the Chace Fund (PhYM) and since a volunteer will do or coordinate all of the office work. We are requesting that each YM provide some funding of FPTP. If each matched BYM's donation, that would be $.25/member, in addition to supporting the expenses of their representative to attend meetings of the CC. We are aware that additional fundraising will be necessary to support the volunteers that we send to CPT, and a plan to do so will be discussed during future conference call meetings, the first of which is in September. A dedicated fund honoring Elise Boulding will be established to support Friends involved in peace team training and work.

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