Minutes of MtToby Peace and Social Concerns Committee, 10/5/2015

Present: George M, David G, Carol L, Daniel G, Roger C.

1. George will clerk the next meeting, on November 2.

2. Dan will oversee letter writing on November 8.

3. Roger presented information about Quaker Voluntary Service (quakervoluntaryservice.org.) QVS finds young people offering to give a year of volunteer service to organizations working for peace and justice, and puts them up in a communal living arrangement, provides mentors in a nearby Friends meeting, and finds work opportunities for them in local organizations. To see the 8 placements in QVS’s Boston location, go to https://www.quakervoluntaryservice.org/current-placements/#Boston. Alma, of the Sanchez-Eppler family, recently spent a year with QVS in their Philadelphia location. We agreed to recommend Quaker Volunteer Witness for the Friends Concerns:Other Organizations budget line. Roger will contact Andy to put it on the agenda.

4. Our date for the 11:40 on Feb 28 has been approved, and Roger will work on it. The topic is the BDS campaign – see our July minutes.

5. Listserv: Roger will list the guidelines on the listserv as a reminder of what is appropriate there and will ask for feedback on them. If some participants appear to be posting items not of general interest or only on the fringe of the guideline criteria, Roger will suggest that they may create their own personal lists for those messages, in order not to burden listserv members with too much email.

6. The first MtToby Concert for Peace and Social Change was held on Septembe 19, with Charlie King, and it was a great success, with 80 people attending and over $1000 collected at the gate, 90% of which went to Charlie. The next concert is on Thursday October 22 with John McCutcheon, expected to be well attended since 51 people have already made reservations. Diane needs help for that concert in setup, ticket-taking, setting up chairs, refreshments, lighting, and such. The concert is at 7pm. Roger and Carol and David will come at 5:30 to help. We hope to bring in chairs from the shed a day before so they can be warming. Roger will check to make sure the heat will be on. John and his manager will want to be taken to dinner: Thai food is recommended. We believe that Diane is pulling together a group of helpers but we will try to help also.

7. George will remind people about food for the shelter and diapers, and will emphasize in the reminder that our committee is grateful for those who have donated. The best time for such a reminder, we believe is on the second Sunday since then it can be tied to the Fellowship Lunch on the third Sunday. We hope find a way to build a community of intention around food donations. The common meeting of those contributing to the Voluntary Carbon Tax fund was a successful model for this.

8. We hope that the service opportunity on second Saturdays, 9:30-2:00, at Not Bread Alone will flourish and we will continue to look for ways to encourage participation.

9. David agreed to get together with Beth to formulate a proposal for us to consider about his vision. It seemed that having a definite proposal would give us something concrete to talk over (See minute 4 of our July minutes.)

10. Beth who was unable to attend sent this: “ The educational program proposal for next Spring, featuring David Tallpine, is self-explanatory. I will organize it and hope that it could be sponsored by PSC Committee. (and other area organizations) David Tallpine is a Nipmuk from the Southbridge/Palmer area.  He teaches the Nipmuk language and cultural ceremonies to his people. He has spoken at Nolumbeka Project's events, including more recently, the Pocumtuck Homelands Festival on August 1. He is also on the Board of Earthlands in Petersham and was active in the Eighth Fire Gatherings starting in 2009 where I first met him.” We agreed that when Beth has organized this program proposal we will consider it for sponsorship by our committee.

11. Beth also sent this: “The November (soon) trip to Conandaigwa(sp) is something that Don Campbell would lead, and I would help plan.  It will involve two overnights, departing here and staying overnight on Nov. 11 & 12(returning Nov. 13.   It involves attending an annual commemoration of the Iroquois(Haudenosaunee) Confederacy, known as a "peace constitution" upon which the U.S. Constitution was founded.  Don Campbell has much knowledge about this to enlighten us with.” We recall that Don announced this trip during announcements yesterday and asked interested Friends to contact him. We do not see any action appropriate for our committee from this announcement.

12. Beth also sent this (abbreviated here): “Regarding PSC recommending that our Monthly Meeting "sign on" to this letter from New York Yearly Meeting to the Pope, (or develop its own letter/minute?) NYYM's letter can be accessed via the following link (http://www.nyym.org/sites/default/files/NYYMPressRelease-LettertoPopeFrancis-2012minute-DoctrineofDiscovery_2015-09-18.pdf) … I do not understand clearly what the process would be regarding our Meeting's moving a Minute forward, but I would like to suggest that we do that.” Our committee in discussing this did not find it appropriate to “sign on” to the letter at this time (or what that would mean since the NYYM letter has already been sent) but we seemed clear that there is a clear need for education in our community about the “Doctrine of Discovery” which is the central point of the NYYM letter. We propose that it be the topic of a second 11:40 hour in the spring and Roger will contact the 11:40 Hour Committee to request that.

We opened and closed this meeting with times of silence.