Swarthmore Friends Meeting

Swarthmore, Pennsylvania

State of the Meeting Report for 2009

Part One:  Overview of 2009

 Swarthmore Monthly Meeting has joys and concerns as a worshiping community.  Meeting for Worship is spiritually enriching.  First Day School is providing an active and dynamic program for children, including Faith and Play once a month, and is reaching out to the community to share it.  A number of members, including some relatively new, have stepped into leadership roles this year as we transitioned to a new Clerk of Meeting and several new clerks of Committees.  We met our 2009 goal for financial contributions.  Our Nursery School continues to serve families of young children in the immediate and surrounding communities, including children with learning differences. We are blessed by the presence of the Swarthmore College students who attend meeting.   A Hospitality Working Group was established to encourage and support the use of our facilities by other Quaker organizations.  In addition to this focus for our outreach efforts, initial groundwork was done for the establishment of a Meeting/College Relations Working Group.

 Concerns include the fact that fewer people attend Meeting for Worship and Meeting for Business, although our actual membership has not dropped in the same numbers.  Our First Day School has  few children in the younger age group with sporadic attendance.  There are needs for new leadership and members on some Committees.  Most of our contributions come during the last third of the year, although expenses run all year.    We have begun examining the exact nature of the Meeting’s relationship to Swarthmore Friends Nursery School .  Although the Nursery School is “under the care” of the Meeting, there is not clarity about what that means now that the school is governed by a Board and not a Meeting Committee. 

 Part Two: Committee Activities

 Budget and Finance

In 2009, for the third year in a row, the Committee had to make appeals on a weekly basis to reach our goal. This was despite having lowered our contributions budget by $5,000 and decreasing our commitment of funds to Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, as of July 1, 2009. We also note that our per-household expectation of $500 on average is lower than that of many similar meetings in PYM. This has led us to ask: How do our members steward our Meeting, especially with financial support? Our discussions on this topic have resulted in several initiatives.  One is a monthly “Meeting Portrait” in the newsletter describing an activity or situation within the Meeting. Another is a forum on financial stewardship, scheduled for January 31, 2010.  Finally, the Committee helped present two forums in 2009, one on estate planning by Edmund Jones and one on needed building repairs and maintenance that was given jointly with House & Property.

Care and Counsel

Care and Counsel manages membership and marriages, fosters communication with Young Friends who have moved away, sends birthday cards to older members and has renewed the custom of writing Memorial Minutes for deceased Meeting members.  Our service items include publishing articles in the newsletter on programs available (such as PYM counseling services). We have added several people to the Visiting Working Group, including two who are active members of Care and Counsel, and we send monthly updates of people-in-need to all members of the Working Group.  In addition to sponsoring the Christmas potluck, we invite all returning students, faculty, and administration to a welcoming tea for college freshmen, and we facilitate the hosting of  Friendly Gatherings in the spring. We miss several of our dependable Committee members who have either moved away or have been gravely ill, but we are fortunate to have a new member.

  First Day School

In 2010, the First Day School has been small and active.  About 10 children come each week to the 4 or 5 classes. Middle school is now led by a group of parents and the programs are exciting.  Faith & Play,  a deep, dynamic method for the youngest classes to explore their ideas of faith began in September.  FDS hopes this will draw new families with young children to Meeting.  A lively color brochure has just been made for FDS, which will be posted on local community bulletin boards and places where families with young children go, again hoping to attract new families.  FDS hopes that a new clerk and new committee members will come forward.    FDS has partnered with SFNS in a fundraiser for the year.

 House and Property

This year, House and Property Committee began a survey of Whittier and Rushmore rooms to anticipate expenditures necessary or desirable over the next five years or so.  Some areas of concern were identified and preliminary estimates of potential costs were obtained.  Discussions were held within the Committee and with members of Budget and Finance, at several Meetings for Business, at a Clerks’ Meeting, and at a November threshing session. All discussions are still in an exploratory phase and further opportunities for participation and involvement by members of the meeting are anticipated.  The House and Property Committee is NOT making specific proposals or recommendations at this point. Additional discussions and consideration of alternative ideas are expected in the coming year.

Jumble Sale

Jumble came together in 2009, as it always does, for a glorious day of community and sales.  The Jumble yielded $8,000 which was below the Committee’s hopes but on target with the Meeting budget.  It was a particularly good showing considering the times and our donations.  As always, the Joy of Jumble is the sharing time and effort with wonderful people.  We are planning for next year, hoping to improve the quality of donations and increase the available quantity of our much-in-demand lunches, baked goods, and plants.  The Committee wishes to thank everyone for their help and support.

 Library

The Library Committee has been largely inactive this year, though the addition of two new members later in the year is a hopeful sign. There is clear unwillingness on the part of the Meeting as a whole to lay this Committee down.  Care of the Meeting’s library collection and use of the library space are issues to be addressed in the coming months.

 Nominating

Nominating Committee is faced with the difficult task of filling undersubscribed Committees in almost all areas. Most Committees are working with a less than optimal number of members. Nominating Committee asks all Meeting members and attenders to prayerfully consider their level of commitment. Nominating Committee is particularly grateful this year to Meeting members who moved out of their comfort zones on certain Committees and are providing vital service to other Committees in need of their talents, as well as to those Meeting members who serve on more than one Committee.  The Committee will continue to encourage members and attenders to serve on committee as testament of their commitment to their Meeting. 

 Nursery School

Swarthmore Friends Nursery School is in the midst of another exciting school year working with 74 children.  We added two new teachers and are very pleased with how quickly and easily they have become integral members of our team.   Our budget is very tight, however, necessitating a 5% tuition increase for 2010-11.

Our service project this year is raising funds for four worthy causes.  September through December, we collected coins for the Cooking for the Homeless project of Swarthmore Meeting and were able to donate $296.21

This past year the Nursery School has been focused on resolving the issues remaining from our separate incorporation from the Meeting with the help of our attorney, Susan Garrison.  We finally received our 501c3 exemption from Federal income tax in the fall of 2009.  Our thanks to the Meeting and our Board of Directors for their help in resolving this matter.

 Peace and Social Concerns

For 2009, the Committee reports the continuing success of the Cooking for the Homeless program on the third Saturday of each month. The local CROP walk raised nearly $1,000 for this program, which enjoys support throughout the meeting and wider community. We hosted forums about work partly sponsored by the Anne Bernstein Richan Peace Action Fund in locations such as Nicaragua and Colombia . The Peace Action Fund offered small grants for worthy initiatives. Another highlight was the very well attended talk by Afghan women's rights activist Suraya Pakzad. Hundreds attended and also made donations for Pakzad's organization, Voice of Women (VOW).  The presentation attracted our Meeting, nearby residents, the college community, and the Philadelphia Afghan community across age, gender, ethnic and religious spectrums. After this, we established a "Community Forum" series to sponsor an annual evening talk by a visiting speaker. In 2009, the two-for-one Discretionary Fund, which matches individuals' contributions to causes discerned each year, focused on Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), and the VOW.  The campaign raised $1545 and donated $3,045 to the three organizations, including $1,500 in matching funds from the Discretionary Fund.

 Personnel

Personnel Committee had a non-eventful year in 2009.  Moving forward, and with a new clerk, the Committee plans to revisit job descriptions for our paid staff.  The Personnel Committee is committed to supporting our staff, and looking forward to innovative ways of doing this.  A Computer Support Working Group was established to deal with computer problems in the Meeting office. 

 Worship and Ministry

In 2009, the Committee sought to enrich the quality of Meeting for Worship and the sense of connection of everyone who participates in it.  We raised the issue of preparation for Meeting and arriving on time. We again organized a number of well-received religious education sessions and opportunities for community, including sharing of the arts, "Grateful Bread" baking and several personal spiritual journeys.  We supported the student breakfasts, fellowship hours, Seekers’ Sessions, and the prayer shawl ministry. We included "holding Friends in the Light" as part of Meeting for Worship, and we experimented with arranging the benches in the Meeting House in a more intimate way.  We invited college students to let us know what they value about our Meeting and ways we could be more effective in reaching out to them.  We are leading the Meeting to explore committing to the initial steps of a Quaker Quest program.

Approved by Swarthmore Meeting for Business, February 14, 2010