The 2021 LEYM Representative Meeting will be held online this year, beginning on the evening of Friday April 2 (for the Executive Committee), followed by the broader gathering of Friends on Saturday, April 3 from 10am to 3pm.
This year we will be hearing from the ad hoc Visioning Committee on their work considering an updated structure for LEYM. It will be a great opportunity to provide feedback that will be helpful to the Yearly Meeting. Registration for the 2021 Representative Meeting (no cost) can be found at theRepresentative Meeting page, along with additional meeting-related documents when they become available.
The American Friends Service Committee invites you to join them for a week of events and workshops on the occasion of AFSC’s 2021 annual meeting, a virtual program exploring different dimensions of “Making New Worlds: Pursuing Peace with Justice,” from Sunday, April 11 through Thursday, April 15, 2021.
In six workshops, one panel presentation, and one plenary address AFSC will explore questions including: What does it mean to dismantle systems to create justice? What is the Quaker historical perspective on working for liberation, and what is the vision of contemporary Quaker organizers? How is AFSC working to end injustice and the institutions that perpetuate it—and create alternatives based on care and a solidarity economy?
We will explore approaches to working toward peace with justice and ways that AFSC and Quakers are striving to build new worlds. Workshops and programming: Join AFSC for one or two sessions or attend the whole program!
The program will begin on Sunday, April 11 at 7 p.m. ET with a panel presentation, “Quakers, AFSC, and abolition: Then and Now,” featuring historians Marcus Rediker and Katharine Grebner and contemporary Quaker abolitionists.
Workshops will be offered throughout the week, as listed below:
Monday, April 12, 8 p.m. ET: FreeThemAll: How we are living into the call to free folks in the context of COVID-19 and beyond. Presenters: Adriana Jasso, Demetrius Titus, Layne Mullett.
Tuesday, April 13, 8 p.m. ET: Pursuing freedom for Palestine: A campaign for Palestinian children’s rights. Presenters: Jennifer Bing and Zeina Hutchison.
Wednesday, April 14, 4 p.m. ET: Global migrant justice: Manifesting the joint Quaker statement. Presenters: Kristin Kumpf, Marianne Elias, Pauline Muchina, and global migration staff.
Wednesday, April 14, 8 p.m. ET: Restorative Justice: What does it look like/feel like in our communities? Presenter: Fatimeh Khan.
Thursday, April 15, 1:30 p.m. ET: Making new worlds: Creating a society based on care and a solidarity economy…what to divest from/what to invest in? Presenters: Rick Wilson, Dov Baum, and Grace Kindeke.
Nyle Fort will conclude the program with a plenary session on Thursday, April 15 from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. ET. Nyle Fort is a minister, activist, and scholar based in Newark, NJ. He has worked in education, criminal justice, and youth development for over a decade and is a lead trainer at Momentum, an activist incubator that builds large-scale social movements in the United States and around the world.
During these sessions discover AFSC’s work, ways you can join them, and hear from historians and wise activists about the contemporary challenges for justice and how we can pursue it together.
Read more about the program and register for each event here.
Are you a teacher, youth worker, young adult, volunteer, parent/carer interested in peace education? Would you like to meet people from across Europe and beyond, share practice and ways to strengthen the call for peace education?
The Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA) and Quaker Peace and Social Witness (QPSW) invite you to their conference “The Possibilities of Peace Education: Evidence and Opportunities“, which will take place online in the afternoons of 20-21-22 May 2021.
The aim of the conference is to explore how education can sow the seeds of sustainable peace and heal divisions in post-conflict settings, drawing inspiration from a long Quaker tradition of peace education work. We will also discuss how Peace Education could become mainstreamed in EU and national policies at a time of increased polarisation.
Further information is available on the provisional programme. QCEA will send the Zoom link closer to the conference date. Make sure to RSVP by April 30 if you are interested in participating. Do not hesitate to contact Pamela Nzabampema at QCEA pamela.nzabampema@qcea.org if you have any questions or need any support. More details on the project are available at this link.
Advocacy Corps Young adults (19-30 years old) lead local grassroots campaigns to influence members of Congress. Participants receive a financial stipend and commit to 25 hours a month for 10 months plus a 10-day immersive training in community organizing, media outreach, and lobbying. Application Deadline: April 12, 2021 Program: August 2021-May 2022
Young Fellows Program FCNL Young Fellows work as full-time staff members of FCNL for 11 months. Benefits include salary (meets DC living wage standard), health care, paid vacation, and sick leave. Application Deadline: February 15, 2021 Program: August 2021-July 2022
Summer Internships FCNL summer interns are introduced to federal policy, grassroots organizing, and nonprofit management. The experience is ideal for undergraduate or college‐age participants. Stipend included. Application Deadline: March 26, 2021 Program: June-July 2021
Spring Lobby Weekend Join hundred of young adults as they gather for four days to learn advocacy skills and lobby on national legislation to address police violence. Program: March 20-23, 2021
For applications, visit fcnl.org/youngadult
Questions? Contact Larissa Gil Sanhueza, Young Adult Advocacy Coordinator – Larissa@fcnl.org
The Winter LEYM Bulletin is now available here as a pdf. It includes a Clerk’s Message from Jo Posti, an introduction to the Visioning Committee report that will be the focus of Representative Meeting (virtual, April 3), a preview of Paula Palmer’s keynote address at this summer’s Annual Meeting, a request for Annual Meeting workshop proposals, LEYM’s Epistle from 2020, news from Monthly Meetings and other Quaker organizations, and more.
You can always find current and back issues at the Bulletin Page.
Join other LEYM members to explore ways to Engage with the bible, led by Maryann Concannon, Red Cedar MM. We will be using the book Engaging Scripture: Reading the Bible with Early Friends by Michael Birkel from Earlham. You will get the most out of the sessions by pre-purchasing the book.
The program will meet once a month on the 3rd Saturday of the month 4-5:30 pm. We will meet five times and then explore interest in continuing. In the course we will use different techniques to study the scripture.
Class begins Feb. 20, 2021 at 4 pm. The following session will be on March 20, April 17, May 15, June 19.
CIVIL RIGHTS TEACH-IN: Unsung Civil Rights Hero(ine)s
The Peace and Social Action Committee at North Columbus Friends Meeting (NCFM) is hosting a “Civil Rights Teach-In” to be presented on Martin Luther King Jr Day (January 18 at 7pm) to recognize and honor unsung civil rights heroes and heroines.
The Teach-In will start with an historical overview and contextualization of racism as an unnatural political construct followed by individual profiles of past civil rights heroes and heroines such as Recy Taylor, Bayard Rustin, Fanny Lou Hamer, and Ella Baker. A spotlight will also be placed on NCFM activity during 1950s and 1960s era (i.e., fair housing attorney Stanley Robinson, Hosting OSU African students).
The presentation will then turn to present day civil rights struggle with specific focus on the founders of the Black Lives Matter movement (Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi) as well as a profile of Cori Bush, the first Black woman to represent Missouri in Congress.
The Teach In will conclude with a “Call to Action” consisting of a letter writing campaign focused on the recent killings of Casey Goodson and Andre Hill by local law enforcement.
Please join us for this event January 18, 2021, 7:00-8:30pm and feel free to invite friends and family.
The 2020 edition of the Lake Erie Yearly Meeting Annual Records has at last been published. Among the features are minutes and reports from both the Representative Meeting in April and the Annual Sessions in July/August, a full slate of committee officers, committee members, and representatives, and useful information on all of our monthly meetings and worship groups, giving details of meeting times, websites, and names of those serving the meetings. Also included is a directory of contact information for those active in Yearly Meeting and officers and committee clerks in monthly meetings.
The closing of our meetinghouses during the coronavirus pandemic has made distribution of paper copies difficult. In response, we have printed many fewer copies of Lake Erie Yearly Meeting’s Annual Records but are making it freely available as a PDF file. At least two paper copies of the Annual Records were sent to each monthly meeting, as well as one to each worship group.
If you would like to receive a PDF copy of the Annual Records, please contact Jeff Cooper, editor, at cooperdaub@hotmail.com, providing your email address so he can mail you the file as an attachment. There are a few additional paper copies for those who want the information in that format. Contact Jeff Cooper to request a paper copy.
SUBMISSIONS FOR LEYM WINTER BULLETIN DUE JAN. 15, 2021
Please send articles, essays, reports, or artwork for Lake Erie Yearly Meeting’s Winter 2021 Bulletin to the editors, Jeff Cooper and Peggy Daub, by Friday, January 15, 2021 (send to bulletinleym@gmail.com)
As always, we welcome items reflecting the business of the Yearly Meeting, such as reports and announcements from committees. Reports on activities in monthly meetings or worship groups are of interest as well.
A new idea: A Friend suggested that they would like to see things other Friends have made during quarantine for the Coronavirus. We agree, and so invite submissions of new creations from the pandemic, including creative writing such as essays, memoirs, or poetry, visual creations such as drawings, paintings, or photography, or photographs of 3D objects such as sewing/quilting/ knitting/crochet projects, woodworking, or any other means you have used to be creative since March 2020.
Jeff Cooper & Peggy Daub, co-editors, LEYM Bulletin
Friends may be interested to learn that Ancestry.com now has a special collection of historical records related specifically to Quakers. A helpful research guide provides information about the types of available records and how to interpret the various terms and abbreviations used. Information sources include meeting minutes, births, marriages, burials, memberships, records related to discipline, memorials, and others. Specific records collections that are included are listed below. According to Ancestry, about half of people in the United States today who had ancestors living in or moving through the Mid-Atlantic region between 1680 and 1780 have at least one Quaker ancestor.
Available Research Collections
QUAKER MEETING RECORDS Meeting records include births, marriages, deaths, members, and other meeting-related details. U.S., Quaker Meeting Records, 1681–1935 Scottish Quakers and Early America, 1650–1700 England & Wales, Quaker Birth, Marriage, and Death Registers, 1578–1837 Indiana, Selected Quaker Meeting Directories, 1836–1921
HINSHAW INDEXES Indexes contain details extracted from Quaker Meeting minutes. You may find names, places, births, marriages, deaths, and membership details. U.S., Hinshaw Index to Selected Quaker Records, 1680–1940 U.S., Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy, Vol I–VI, 1607–1943 U.S., Surname Index to Quaker Records
OBITUARIES, MEMORIALS, AND BURIALS You may find birth and death years, cemetery records, or an entire life story. U.S. and UK, Quaker Published Memorials, 1818–1919 U.S., Index to Quaker Obituary Notices, 1822–2012 U.S., Quaker Cemetery Records, 1800–1990
OTHER RECORDS Periodicals, yearbooks, and even published genealogies can tell you more about your Quaker ancestors. U.S. and Canada, Quaker Monthly Meeting Historical Data, 1671–2010 Quaker Records, Dublin, Abstracts of Wills U.S., Quaker Genealogies, 1893–2003 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, African-American Census, 1847
