Paid part-time position as LEYM Worker
Posted by leymworker in Job Openings, News on February 23, 2019
Could you or someone you know be the next Yearly Meeting Worker?
A paid part-time position working from home – currently 120 hours a year
If you know someone who might be interested in the position,
please bring this job opening to their attention.
The Lake Erie Yearly Meeting worker’s primary task is serving as webmaster, which includes an annual update of the website following LEYM’s Annual Meeting in late July – early August. The Yearly Meeting worker manages listservs (email lists) and gmail accounts for LEYM clerks and others as needed. Other tasks are ongoing or done on an annual basis, such as collecting annual statistical reports from each meeting and worship group. Additional projects are assigned at the discretion of the presiding clerk, who oversees the Yearly Meeting worker. The position requires a self-starter who can work independently and keep track of when particular tasks need to be done. Reports on work done and issues that have arisen are made to Executive Committee and Annual Sessions.
This is a collaborative position which involves working with others, particularly the database manager. Familiarity with Lake Erie Yearly Meeting Friends and business is needed, so attending most Representative Meetings and Annual Sessions is a good idea, especially in order to track when changes need to be made to LEYM’s Policies and Procedures manual. While some tasks need to be done in a timely fashion, particularly the work following Annual Sessions, others can be done at the worker’s discretion.
Hours and Pay. Currently, the position is for 120 hours a year at a rate of $20 per hour. The position is that of an independent contractor rather than an employee. The worker provides the computer and common software, and works from home. Reimbursement is available with receipts for out-of-pocket expenses such as copies provided for a meeting.
Applying for the Position of LEYM Meeting Worker
Applicants should write a letter describing their interest in the position to the clerks of Lake Erie Yearly Meeting and send it by March 8, 2019. The following information should be included:
- An explanation of the applicant’s expertise and experience relevant to the tasks described in the position description.
- A description of the candidate’s connections to Lake Erie Yearly Meeting or any of its constituent meetings and worship groups.
- Names and contact information for two references.
Applications are invited by MARCH 8, 2019.
Submit to:
Nancy Reeves, clerk (LEYMclerk@gmail.com)
Jo Posti, assistant clerk (jo.posti@gmail.com)
Peter Wood, recording clerk (peter.wood@comcast.net)
New LEYM minutes posted
Posted by leymworker in News on February 15, 2019
LEYM minutes in both Word and PDF formats from 2016, 2017, and 2018 are now available on the LEYM Minutes page under the Resources tab.
A new searchable file with all of the minutes from 2001 through 2018 is also available at the bottom of the page.
White Privilege Conference March 20-23, 2019
Posted by leymworker in Anti-Racism, Events and Opportunities, FGC on February 14, 2019
This year’s White Privilege Conference (WPC) will be March 20-23, 2019, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. As usual, FGC is offering discounts to all Friends. This conference has been attended by a large contingent of Quakers for a number of years. There will be a Quaker Hospitality room at the conference. FGC is working on ways to support Friends with less expensive overnight housing.
Find out more and register with FGC to receive a discount
You will still need to register with the White Privilege Conference
What is the White Privilege Conference?
1. WPC is a conference that examines challenging concepts of privilege and oppression and offers solutions and team building strategies to work toward a more equitable world.
2. It is not a conference designed to attack, degrade or beat up on white folks.
3. It is not a conference designed to rally white supremacist groups.
4. WPC is a conference designed to examine issues of privilege beyond skin color. WPC is open to everyone and invites diverse perspectives to provide a comprehensive look at issues of privilege including: race, gender, sexuality, class, disability, etc. — the ways we all experience some form of privilege, and how we’re all affected by that privilege.
5. WPC attracts students, professionals, activists, parents, and community leaders/members from diverse perspectives. WPC welcomes folks with varying levels of experience addressing issues of diversity, cultural competency, and multiculturalism.
6. WPC is committed to a philosophy of “understanding, respecting and connecting.”
Who attends the WPC?
The conference is unique in its ability to bring together high school and college students, teachers, university faculty and higher education professionals, nonprofit staff, activists, social workers and counselors, healthcare workers, and members of the spiritual community and corporate arena. Annually, more than 1,500 attend from more than 35 states, Australia, Bermuda, Canada, and Germany.
Friends General Conference pre-registration for the White Privilege Conference is open. You must complete the Friends General Conference pre-registration form in order to receive the FGC group discount. Instructions for how to complete the whole registration process are provided on our pre-registration form. Additionally, folks requesting home hospitality will have the opportunity to sign up on this form.
Find out more and pre-register with FGC to receive a discount
You will still need to register with the White Privilege Conference
We encourage you to complete the registration form on the White Privilege Conference website as soon as possible because completing the FGC pre-registration does not reserve you a spot at the Conference. Your spot at the WPC will only be confirmed after you complete registration on their website.
Contemplation & Joy: A Contemplative Retreat in the Manner of Friends, April 11-14, 2019
Posted by leymworker in Events and Opportunities on February 13, 2019
Please join us for “Contemplation and Joy: A Contemplative Retreat in the Manner of Friends,” April 11-14, 2019, at the Siena Retreat Center in Racine, Wisconsin. This retreat will be led by April Allison and Sharon Frame of LEYM’s Red Cedar Meeting and Roger Hansen.
The Siena Center (sienaretreatcenter.org), on the Lake Michigan lakefront, will be beautiful as we move into the season of rebirth and growth. During this retreat, participants will experience the distinctly Quaker manner of knowing solitude in community.
We offer individual silent time for prayer, reflection, rest, walks, and contemplative interaction with scripture and other spiritual resources. There will also be opportunities for speaking out of the silence in groups, as well as an invitation to meet one-on-one with a retreat leader. Meals will be taken in silence, and an evening spent in “active silence,” where we will gather comfortably to read, journal, do handwork or artwork, or engage in similar quiet activity. The center is barrier free.
This retreat is offered through The School of the Spirit (schoolofthespirit.org). April (Red Cedar Friends Meeting) is a School of the Spirit board member, retreat leader, and spiritual director. Roger (Milwaukee Friends Meeting) has helped to lead retreats in Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania, and formed spiritual nurture groups in several monthly meetings. Sharon Frame (Red Cedar Friends Meeting), is a graduate of the School of the Spirit’s “On Being a Spiritual Nurturer” program, and has served as director, Beacon Hill Friends House (Boston) and as resident friend at Friends Meeting at Cambridge.
Registration is open; learn more and register at:
http://www.schoolofthespirit.org/programs/silent-retreats-2/wi-retreat/
Annie Patterson, Quaker activist folk singer, in concert
Posted by leymworker in Events and Opportunities, News on February 12, 2019
Annie Patterson, who co-authored the Rise Up Singing and Rise Again song books, is touring the Midwest with Charlie King. Join them for an evening of powerful singing with two of North America’s best activist folk singers. Charlie’s witty political satire and his uncanny ability to find endearing songs about struggle and the human experience are a natural fit with Annie’s own performing and sing-along work.
They’re giving concerts in the following cities within Lake Erie Yearly Meeting in March:
- Saturday, March 23 – Ann Arbor
- Sunday, March 24 – Detroit
- Wednesday, March 27 – Toledo
- Thursday, March 28 – Oberlin
- Friday, March 29 – Cleveland
Click on a city to find out more.
Participating in God’s Power: A new Quaker program
Posted by leymworker in Events and Opportunities, News on February 8, 2019
Do you yearn to open more deeply to a greater sense of God’s presence, power, and guidance? Do you ache to live from the Divine Center? To live a life both deeply grounded and on fire with the Spirit?
The School of the Spirit board joyfully announces the launching of a new program, Participating in God’s Power. After more than a year and a half of shepherding its beginnings, we celebrate the launch of the website and registration.
Living in solid connection with the Divine is transformational. But when that Inner Teacher points us to places that aren’t easy to go, what keeps us from following God’s leadings fully and courageously? The School of the Spirit’s newest program – Participating in God’s Power — models a resilient and thoughtful set of tools for exploring how we let our own brokenness get in the way of a robust trust in God’s guidance.
Participating focuses on ways in which we unconsciously resist being with God’s love, how unhealed or unrecognized aspects of ourselves inhibit our being fully present and alive, and how we can release what obscures our Inner Light. The program also explores ways of repatterning our lives to support living in ongoing transformation.
Through engagement in four residencies and three webinars led by core teachers Angela York Crane and Christopher Sammond, this program will build self-awareness and capacity for wise, brave, Spirit-led risk-taking. Through Quaker worship, structured exercises, and small group practices you will be invited to open more deeply and honestly to God’s presence, guidance, healing, and power.
This year-long program is particularly geared for Friends (and others) who have already participated in a spiritual formation program or the like and who want to go deeper yet, or who seek some renewal in their spiritual lives.
We will begin with an opening retreat in New Hampshire in August 2019; our closing retreat will be in the Philadelphia area in September 2020. Come and be a part of this movement of the Spirit. And please share this widely with those who you think might be seeking just this opportunity.
The School of the Spirit is a ministry of prayer and learning from a Quaker perspective. For more information, visit their website. A number of LEYM Friends have gone through their year and a half “On Being a Spiritual Nurturer” program.
FGC announces discounts for families, teens, and young adults for the 2019 Gathering
Posted by leymworker in Events and Opportunities, FGC, News on February 2, 2019
Is this a year for you and your loved ones to go to the Gathering?
Thanks to a very generous donation to support family and youth attendance, FGC’s Gathering team has announced that the cost for attending the 2019 Gathering for families and teens has been substantially lowered. The Gathering, FGC’s highly-anticipated week of workshops, worship, and community for all ages and from all over North America, will be held at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa from June 30-July 6, 2019.
There will be substantial discounts on program fees as well as the availability of more scholarships for families, teens, and young adults, including:
- Children and teen program fees are WAIVED
- 50% of children and teen meal costs are COVERED
- More scholarships are available to families and teens
- Young adult Friends (age 18-35) receive a $55 discount on their program fee
Anti-racism update from FGC
Posted by leymworker in Anti-Racism, News on February 1, 2019
How are people in Friends General Conference (FGC) creating community that is accessible, equitable, and transformational? FGC’s task force on our “Institutional Assessment on Systemic Racism within FGC” offered this summary of the ongoing work as of November of 2018:
“Two years after Friends General Conference’s governing body approved the initiation of an institutional assessment on systemic racism within FGC, a summary with recommendations and a full report are now available.
Based on these, FGC’s governing body, Central Committee, has approved a minute to commit FGC to becoming an anti-racist organization in a multi-year process. There was strong unity in the body, which gives hope to many.”
The full report notes that “This will be a multi-year process to uproot from within ourselves the on-going reality of white supremacy that spiritually harms us all.”
Last weekend, FGC’s Executive Committee approved the names for a task force charged with implementing the recommendations and moving the work forward within FGC and with FGC Friends. Stay tuned for further developments.
You can read an interview with the co‐clerks of the original Task Force from the January 2019 issue of Friends Journal.
Marvin Barnes (Birmingham) and Caroline Lejuste (Red Cedar), Lake Erie Yearly Meeting Friends, served on the Task Force. LEYM and individual LEYM meetings have contributed generously toward FGC’s Institutional Assessment. A number of LEYM Friends serve on FGC working groups, committees, Central Committee (the governing body), and Executive Committee.
Young Adult Spiritual Nurture Series
Posted by leymworker in Events and Opportunities, Young Adult Friends on February 1, 2019
This new six-part series of retreats for Young Adult Friends (ages 18 to 35-ish) provides opportunities to connect with each other in faith and community, build skills related to Quaker process and practice, and enrich their faith and understanding as Friends.
Offered by New York Yearly Meeting (NYYM), Friends outside of NYYM and virtual participants are enthusiastically encouraged to take part!
Visit the Young Adult Spiritual Nurture Series website to learn more and register for upcoming events.
Develop your ability to follow leadings with the School of the Spirit
Posted by leymworker in Events and Opportunities on November 30, 2018
For several years, the School of the Spirit board has wrestled with our emerging sense of additional call – that God has more work for us, in addition to our baseline programs of On Being a Spiritual Nurturer and our growing calendar of Contemplative Retreats. We are now excited to announce Participating in God’s Power, a one-year program under the leadership of Angi York Crane and Christopher Sammond as its core teaching team.
Angi and Christopher will invite us even deeper into the question of what keeps us from following God’s leadings fully and courageously in ways that challenge and transform our lives. They model a resilient and thoughtful set of tools for exploring the places in which we let our own brokenness get in the way of a robust trust in the Inner Teacher.
Students and teachers will gather in weekend residencies over a twelve-month period. The new program is designed to take place primarily on holiday weekends, to enable working people to participate with a minimum of time-off. And it will alternate between Pennsylvania and New Hampshire locations in hopes of being more accessible to Friends from New England, Philadelphia, and Baltimore YMs, and beyond.
Many grads of the Spiritual Nurturer program who have settled into the contemplative rhythms of living (and nurturing others to live) as God’s beloved, may find this opportunity a compelling next step. If you are intrigued, please send your contact information to GodPower@schoolofthespirit.org.
The School of the Spirit is a ministry of prayer and learning from a Quaker perspective.
