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Swarthmore
Monthly Meeting State of the Meeting
Report for 2010
Part One: Overview of
2010
The annual State of the Meeting Report is an opportunity to review
summaries of our activities and to discern our character as a religious
community. Last year, Swarthmore Friends put considerable energy in 2010 into
building community through out-reach and in-reach.
Out-reach
In 2010, we pursued a stronger partnership with
Swarthmore
College
and established a Working Group on Meeting-College relations. We arranged to
meet with the new College President and to attend and support college
activities. Meeting Members hosted student breakfasts, a Welcoming Tea, and
warmly acknowledged alumni and visiting parents. We sponsored many groups who
used our facility – wellness and fitness programs, the Rise up Bakers,
self-help groups, concerts and recitals, college theme dinners (e.g., German,
Japanese, and Chinese), Young Adult Friends’ weekend retreats, and others.
We offered three groups from Friends General Conference (FGC) overnight
lodging, food, and companionship.
In 2010, we again recognized our special connection to Philadelphia Yearly
Meeting (PYM), Pendle Hill, and Friends World Committee for Consultation, Quaker
schools, and the
Swarthmore
Friends
Nursery School
through financial support, promotion of grant options, and/or personal
contributions.
Members worked on Cooking for the Homeless, the National CROP Walk, the
Luminaria Project for the Swarthmore ABC house for at-risk students, the Chester
Children’s Chorus, and the Women in Black vigils, among other community
activities. Our Meeting fielded a choir of singers for Swarthmore Interfaith
Ministry’s (SWIM) Thanksgiving Celebration hosted by Congregation Ohev Shalom.
In-reach
Although our numbers have dwindled over the years, Swarthmore Friends'
commitment to its members and its Meeting House has been a barometer of our
spiritual character. During 2010, we witnessed members recover from serious
illness, go off to college, move to continuing care facilities, change jobs,
leave jobs, obtain jobs, and undergo emotionally-draining life changes. We
sought to show our love and support for these Friends as a guiding principle.
Last year, we welcomed four new and transferred members, lost five friends
to death, and granted a transfer request to another. We supported faithful
Friends who reduced their activity levels, after many years of service, and who
need transportation and other assistance. We have a growing concern about how to
support our aging members, whether they stay in their homes or relocate to care
facilities in the area.
We continuously explored how best to welcome students, new members,
attenders, seekers, visitors, and the greater community. We used multiple ways
to communicate, through intimate gatherings, an evolving website, regular
potlucks, and other means. We clerked two member Weddings joyously and several
member Memorial services sorrowfully. We took the delightful early-morning bird
walk.
We attended to the physical
condition of the Meeting House so that our Meeting facility would reflect our
welcoming attitude. We reserved periods for singing and fellowship, First Day
sessions for children, and religious education for adults to explore spiritual,
intellectual, and political topics, and themes on peace and the environment.
We struggled to reach
Meeting budget goals. We introduced efficiencies for giving to the Meeting to
make it easier on families and to avoid a year-end rush. Many members and
attenders have rallied to support our Meeting in this challenging economy
through contributions of time, physical effort, money and goods, spiritual
ministry, and loving witness.
Part Two: Committee Activities
Budget and Finance
Committee
2010 has been a busy year. We established an on-line process for accepting
contributions, and although few Meeting members have signed up, there has been a
recent increase in adoption and we hope for more. We sponsored a forum on
stewardship with Bill Ravdin of Kendal Meeting, organized monthly “Meeting
Portraits” in the newsletter of activity made possible by the Meeting budget,
and collaborated with Care and Counsel to reach out to members who have not
given to the Meeting financially. We also promoted the use of Meeting funds
designated for specific purposes, including education, peace work, and
attendance at conferences. Finally, we discussed the challenge of maintaining
our budget and fostering Meeting members' understanding that financial
contributions of any size are significant, valued, and important in sustaining a
sense of shared commitment.
Care and Counsel Committee
We have been a congenial and hardworking, though small, group.
We took the Visiting Working Group and Memorial Working Group under our
wing. We divide our tasks into two
main avenues: 1) membership issues
and 2) care of Meeting members and attenders.
One of our increasing concerns is care of our aging membership. We
advertise opportunities from Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and other local
agencies. We organize Friendly
Gatherings at people's homes in mid-winter, and we seek new ways to welcome
visitors. We process new
memberships, transfers, and marriages; help write Memorial minutes; and address
the Meeting database organization. In
2010, with the help of the Meeting Secretary, we have updated and correlated
entries of the current database with the Recorder's record book.
First
Day School
Committee
First Day School attendance consists primarily of a middle school aged
group and a K-2 group, with the occasional participation of a fourth grader.
We have two to six middle school students each week.
Six adults take turns leading the group, including a trip outside to see
where they could “find God,” and to take photographs and write about them.
It is a challenge to provide a vibrant curriculum with inconsistent
attendance by middle schoolers. The
volunteer teachers create lessons based on their interests, which seems to be an
effective use of our adults, and provides variety for the
students.
The K-2 class has been most comfortable gathering in the child-care room
with the very young children. The
teacher and a rotating adult helper give the children (usually three to five
students) time to play followed by a lesson, often inspired by a picture book or
a life story. Once a month the K-2
group and the younger children participate in Faith and Play, which is sometimes
attended by an additional student who comes only on those days.
Numbers in this group range from five to twelve
children, plus adults. It has been very well received by students and their
parents, who occasionally attend, as well as several high school students. The
gentle spiritual messages portrayed in these stories and the children's
reactions are often very moving. In fact, this year's Christmas pageant was
written by the children based on their response to a Faith and Play session.
This year we tried to take weekly attendance, hoping to improve our
awareness of who is attending so we can improve our planning and contact parents
of students who attend on a regular basis. FDS has also been scheduling high
school students for child-care during Meeting.
Each week there are one to four very young children in the child-care
room.
House and Property Committee
We focused our efforts on cleaning the kitchen and the windows and carpets
in Whittier House and arranging for
much needed repairs, such as the water-damaged entrance to Whittier House from
the playground. The cracked window panes were replaced in Whittier Room and the
office. Plexiglass panels were built
to deflect water from the windows of the lower level of Whittier House on the
library side of the building. In 2011 the water-damaged window frames will be
repaired. We did research in preparation for the purchase of a new refrigerator
with a large freezer. The malfunctioning freezer was removed from the kitchen.
We contacted
Swarthmore
College
about coordinating work needed to deal with flooding and the painting of the
Meeting House porches.
Jumble Sale Committee
We were very happy with a successful Jumble Sale in October; which brought
in over $10,300--an increase over the previous two years.
New this year: signed books, to-go portions of soup and chili, magical
scented soaps made by Meeting members, a fine arts department, and more
donations solicited for the silent auction.
We also rapidly responded to requests to pick up furniture to sell.
However, the work was physically punishing, and more help is needed next year.
We endeavored to have fun while working hard, including a trip to
Cape May
and a Kabob fest in the summer.
Library Committee
Work is being done to cull the current collection, and new works are being
added. Members of the committee are
assembling sets of books from among our holdings to be displayed and promoted at
Meeting events and gatherings. We
anticipate working with Yearly Meeting Library to catalog our collection and
have it posted online for use by others outside of our Meeting.
Nominating Committee
All Committees are active
and functioning, although we continue to struggle with shrinking numbers of
members and attenders from which to recruit.
This year, we organized the roster to clarify terms and classes, and we
restructured the format.
Nursery School
Swarthmore
Friends
Nursery School
is bustling with activity, noise and fun. This
year we are serving 81 children, have said good bye to a long time teacher and
friend, and have welcomed a new teacher. The children are busy, engaged, and
making friends, and the staff has adjusted quickly to their new positions.
We raised tuition 5% this year, which resulted in a record-breaking
number of applications for financial aid. We are identifying more children with
developmental gaps for testing, as early intervention has been shown to make a
positive difference in educational futures. We have also noticed a trend toward
later potty training and independence which has impacted our three year old
class. We are collecting coins again
this year which will be donated to Cooking for the Homeless.
Peace and Social Concerns
Committee
We have been gratified to provide opportunities for our community to
engage with the peace testimony. In
February we organized a Called Meeting for Peace, a worship sharing attended by
some 25 people. In April and
May we hosted three Quaker activist speakers:
Julian Brelsford on surviving the earthquake in
Haiti
, Zawadi Nikuze on her work with Friends Peace Teams
in the
Congo
, and Hollister Knowlton on living in a way consistent with commitment to the
environment. This last inspired us
to hold an environmental forum at the end of May, during which a dozen Meeting
members and attenders explored the role of environmental stewardship in their
lives, actions and beliefs. In
response to the BP oil spill, we co-sponsored a vigil on alternative energy with
a local peace group. We ended the
year with a plan to honor of the 350th anniversary of the public articulation of
the Quaker Peace Testimony.
We allocated funds from the Anne Bernstein Richan Peace Action Fund to
support a promising
Swarthmore
College
student effort in
Colombia
working with children and arts to foster healing from violence.
(This program then received a Davis Projects for Peace grant, a
reflection of its merit.) Our Discretionary Fund continued a successful
two-for-one matching campaign, donating $3,785 to five groups:
American Friends Service Committee (AFSC); Friends Peace Teams African
Great Lakes Initiative (AGLI); Voice of Women Organization (
Afghanistan
); the Central Asia Institute; and the Brandywine Peace Community/Delaware
County Peace Center.
Personnel Committee
This year we
strengthened our support of the Meeting Secretary by assigning her a monthly
contact person from the committee and including her in our regularly scheduled
committee meetings. We also clarified the job description of the
Facilities Monitor.
Worship and Ministry
Committee
We continued to provide opportunities for spiritual enrichment through
religious education programs, including a spiritual journey, a session on
discernment, one on vocal ministry, and other programs.
The Committee supported an all day session, complete with children’s
program, for the meeting to explore the Quaker Quest program in depth, but it
was decided not to pursue the program at this time.
Although attendance has dwindled at Meeting for Worship, it is
nevertheless meaningful and deep. The
2009 experiment of re-arranging the meeting benches has resulted in a more
intimate feeling in the Meeting House. The
Fellowship Working Group, under the care of Worship and Ministry, recruited a
family to help with 2 student breakfasts monthly.
In cooperation with Care and Counsel, we experimented with moving the
Welcome Tea for
Swarthmore
College
students to late September. However, so many College students attended Meeting
on their first Sunday on campus, that it was decided to revert to welcoming them
during Orientation weekend in 2011.
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