GPQM Midwinter Gathering to Feature Dwight Wilson

Midwinter Gathering of Green Pastures Quarterly Meeting
Saturday, March 2, 9am – 1 pm
Speaker: Dwight Wilson
“Answering the Call of My Twin Roots: Black and Quaker”

Friends are invited to the Midwinter Gathering of Green Pastures Quarterly Meeting on Saturday, March 2nd. We will meet virtually via Zoom from 9 am to 1 pm, with time for worship, a presentation by Dwight Wilson, brief announcements and updates, and a virtual shared lunch. (Schedule below.)

Dwight Wilson will read passages from his short story collections that center on Quaker/black relations in the period before the Civil War, each one followed by time for reflection and discussion. Dwight is a member of Ann Arbor Friends Meeting, now retired and writing historical fiction and lyrical psalms. He is a former FGC General Secretary and has a long history in Quaker education.

Zoom connection:
https://umich.zoom.us/j/7346151800?omn=98715599599
Meeting ID: 734 615 1800

Event Schedule:
9-9:30 Fellowship and Gathering
9:30-10 Meeting for Worship
10 – 11:30 Program by Dwight Wilson “Answering the Call of My Twin Roots: Black and Quaker”
11:30-Noon Brief news and announcements
Noon-1 pm Virtual lunch together

Questions to Peggy Daub or Kevin Miller

Winter Bulletin Now Available

Our new Bulletin Editor Christopher Farrand has announced the availability of the Winter 2024 Bulletin. The online version is available on the Bulletins page and is directly attached here.

In addition to opening thoughts from our Clerk on Radical Richness, the edition includes information about the March Representative Meeting, as well as initial information for the 2024 LEYM Annual Meeting, including brief bios of the Plenary presenters and a “Call for Workshops”. There are reports from Advancement and Outreach Committee; the 2023 Youth Retreat; Olney Friends School; and the FCNL representative. There is also an Epistle received from Ujima Friends Meeting.

The printed version is now being prepared and will be sent to Monthly Meetings soon.

Apply Now for AFSC Emerging Leaders for Liberation 2024 Cohort

The American Friends Service Committee is now accepting applications for their hands-on learning program known as Emerging Leaders for Liberation. Each year a group of about 30 young adults join six online learning sessions and two in-person gatherings to deepen their social justice and leadership skills and build community.

Applicants must be 18-22 years old as of April 1, 2024 and have a relationship to an AFSC Program, a Quaker college/organization, or a Quaker Meeting. The cohort will begin meeting in April 2024. The application process will close on March 1st.

Because of the generous philanthropic contributions of AFSC supporters, this program is free for all who apply and are accepted. Interested parties should submit their application here. If you have questions, please reach out to Julian Andaya, the ELL program director.

Alternatives to Violence (AVP) Basic Workshop Upcoming Feb 16-18 in Columbus, OH

This workshop, open to Friends throughout LEYM, builds community and skills for personal practice and change that we need to stand up to violence in ourselves and others and to create just, peaceful homes and communities. Get the promotional flyer here.

SAVE THE DATE: Weekend of February 16th -18th, 2024 – 18 hours
Program Sessions:
Friday Feb 16: 5-6pm meet & greet; 6-9pm session
Saturday Feb 17: 9:00 – 12:00pm; 1:00 – 4:00pm; 5:00 – 8:00pm sessions
Sunday Feb 18: 9:00 – 12:00pm; 1:00 – 4:00pm sessions

FPT Facilitators: Nadine Hoover; Melanie Siaw; Timothy Dzurilla

Participants: Diversity of age and background encouraged to attend. For each community or group, it is best to bring 2-3 people. This is a personal and community practice, and we cannot do it alone.

Food: Meals & beverages provided

Hospitality Home Stays & Transportation:
North Columbus Friends Meeting people will host facilitators & out of town visitors needing hospitality or public transportation pick-up/drop-off

Held at: North Broadway United Methodist Church
48 E North Broadway; Columbus, OH 43214

Cost: Sliding scale registration fee: $10 – $50; no one turned away if unable to pay – fees for food & facility rental.

Registration: Download this attached .docx form to register.

For More Info – CONTACT: Don Buckingham, donabuckingham@gmail.com; 614-517-9700

Quakerism 101 Upcoming Sessions (including a visit from Lucretia Mott!)

Mark your calendars now for the next sessions of the Quakerism 101 Series. The LEYM Advancement and Outreach Committee will be offering five more sessions of the Quakerism 101 series the next few months. We thank North Columbus Meeting for their presentations on “What is Quakerism” and “What is Vocal Ministry in a Meeting for Worship” in the fall.

The new year will start with a visit from Lucretia Mott, as portrayed by Shelley Kotz, on Tuesday, January 16 (7-8:30 pm), sponsored by the Broadmead Meeting. See shareable flyer here re her visit. A message from Lucretia:

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Lucretia Mott. I was born more than two hundred years ago, but through some magic that I don’t understand, I have been allowed to visit the twenty-first century and have the opportunity to tell people about my life.
If you are unacquainted with the facts of my life, I will simply say that I was quite well known in my time for my efforts in the anti-slavery movement and in promoting rights for women. I am honored to have the opportunity to tell people about the issues that we cared about in our times and how we worked to bring about change. I am delighted to speak to your group, and to experience the wonder of Zoom.

Lucretia Mott

Then on Tuesday, February 20 (7-8:30 pm), the Ann Arbor Meeting will present a session on guides to Faith and Practice written by Friends—the history of how our non-creedal society came to create and use such documents; the experience of Friends who have created, developed, and revised these guides; and how they are maintained as living documents as meetings grow and change. The session will include an interactive exercise in which small groups will review passages from various Faith and Practice guides and experience the process of spirit-led discerning together as might be done in developing such a guide.

Later sessions include one on what Friends believe, led by the Kalamazoo Meeting on Thursday, March 21 and an introduction to Quaker service organizations from Red Cedar Meeting on Thursday, May 16.

All sessions are open to anyone—seasoned Friends, newcomers, seekers, young and old. Time for reflection and interaction is included in all sessions. We still need one more meeting to volunteer to present a session in April. Contact Joe Mills, Clerk of the LEYM Advancement & Outreach Committee for more information. (millrae@juno.com. Use subject line “Quakerism 101″).

Both the January 16 and February 20 sessions will be from 7-8:30 pm on Zoom.

Zoom address (easy share link) for all sessions: https://tinyurl.com/quaker101
Meeting ID: 876 3794 4768
Passcode: 84448

Walking in the World as a Friend Discussion and Practice Group

The Quaker Religious Education Collaborative is hosting an online religious education opportunity focused around a book (available at no cost online or for purchase) exploring how Quakers move through the world. The first session is scheduled for Monday, January 8th. Details below.

WALKING IN THE WORLD AS A FRIEND: ESSENTIAL QUAKER PRACTICES by Nadine Hoover lays out the three jobs all Friends take on when we begin to follow the Quaker path–minister, steward, and witness.

Book cover - Walking in the World as a Friend: Essential Quaker Practices by Nadiine Clare Hoover

Practices like journaling and spiritual companions help us live into these roles as we tend the inward life (minister), align our outward lives to our inward life (steward), and let our lives speak and tell truths we know, publicly (witness).

Please join QREC for a free Online Practice & Discussion Group. The group will meet monthly to enrich adult Quaker Religious Education for ourselves and our meetings/churches. Register here.

Each month will open with worship and a message from the book Walking in the World as a Friend: Essential Quaker Practices. Then we will hold worship sharing to hear from each person, followed by a discussion on any questions, reflections, or implications for us as Friends, and close with worship. We may discuss practices, such as journaling, spiritual companions, and faith and practice or scripture study, that help us and our meetings/churches.

We are using Walking in the World as a Friend for reference. You may purchase the book at CourageousGifts.com or download the PDF HERE for free. You may also watch the videos on YouTube.


Monday, January 8, 2024 7:30pm Eastern US Time
Experiences of Living in the Spirit and the role of a Minister (pp 27-30 or relevant videos)

Monday, Febuary 12, 2024 7:30pm Eastern US Time
Experiment with Spirit and the Role of the Steward (pp 35-37 or relevant videos)

Monday, March 11, 2024 7:30pm Eastern US Time
Essential Quaker Structures as an Ecology of Practices (pp 45-58 or relevant videos)

Watch videos on YouTube 

In 2024, the group plans to meet the second Monday of the month in January, February, and March and take a one-month break in April. We expect to continue this pattern of 3 months on and 1 month off through 2024.   

This is spiral curriculum. Every time we engage the themes, we bring more to the reflections and go deeper. 

LEYM Annual Records Now Available

The 2023 LEYM Annual Records is now available, containing minutes of Representative Meeting and Annual Sessions, summaries of the plenary address and workshops at the Annual Meeting, State of the Meeting reports from monthly meetings, memorial minutes, contact information for meetings and worship groups and their officers and committee clerks as well as Friends active in Yearly Meeting, and more.  

If you wish to have a PDF version sent to you, please contact Jeff Cooper at cooperdaub@hotmail.com. Paper copies have been mailed to monthly meetings and worship groups and should arrive soon. If your meeting needs to change the number of paper copies received, please let Jeff know.   

The detailed and helpful content of the Annual Records would not be possible without the help of many hands.  Thank you to all who contributed to this volume, and especially to editor Elise Yoder, of Pittsburgh Meeting!  

Jeff Cooper, clerk, LEYM Publications & Archives Committee  

Young Adult Friends to Gather in South Africa

A gathering for Young Adult Friends from around the world will be held from 1 – 5 August 2024, immediately before the FWCC World Plenary Meeting, from the 5 – 12 August 2024 in Johannesburg, South Africa. This is a special opportunity and some funding support is available from FWCC America’s Section for interested Young Adult Friends.

Inspired by the Southern African word ubuntu, the theme will be based on Galatians 3:28 : “There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” The event is intended to improve mutual understanding of Quaker diversity amongst Young Adult Friends worldwide, to reinforce international Quaker identity, and to re-establish the Young Adult Friends global network, leading to joint actions and plans. The event is planned by an international team consisting principally of Young Friends from Africa, with some representation from elsewhere, supported by elders from Southern Africa Yearly Meeting and the Africa Section.

This post is to encourage young adult Friends, ages 18-35, to attend both conferences. Registration is open now at FWCC World Plenary Meeting. The cost for both conferences, all 12 days including room, board, and program, is $1300 for Friends from higher income countries like the US and Canada. For lower income countries, the cost is $130. Airfare and other expenses are separate.

The FWCC Section of the Americas is able to offer seven subsidized places for young adult Friends at the conference, at the $130 rate. To apply, please use the attached form and apply by November 17, 2023.

Most participants will need to arrange their own travel costs, but participants who need support can access this through the Young Adult Friends Development Fund. Applications for the conference subsidy can be made simultaneously. All participants should show a demonstrable commitment to Quakerism locally, through connection with Friends in their home country.

Questions may be directed to travelingministry@fwccamericas.org.

Important Links

LEYM Lightning Stand-in Bulletin Released

The just-released LEYM Lightning (available on the Bulletins page) is a speedy digital-only substitute for our typically-produced Lake Erie Yearly Meeting Bulletin made necessary due to a temporary leadership gap. Our multi-talented clerk Susan Loucks made the lightning happen.

This special edition will only be electronic (available as a pdf), although we will be returning to print with our incoming editor (see below). If there is a Friend willing to provide some printouts of the Lightning edition for folks in your Monthly Meeting who prefer hard copy, it would be greatly appreciated!

Newly appointed Bulletin Editor Christopher Farrand from Cleveland Monthly Meeting (welcome Christopher!) will be taking on production starting in the next issue. Copy for the Winter Bulletin is due to him via BulletinLEYM@gmail.com by January 15th.

Free Trial of Quaker Website Service Offered to US Meetings

Many Friends Meetings have been exploring new website options with the closing of FGC’s Quaker Cloud service. Well, a great new option, custom designed for Friends, is now being offered to US Quaker Meetings on a free trial basis by the Quaker Meetings Network (QMN) from the UK.

The UK-based QMN was started back in 2018 as a collaborative effort and it now provides websites and “digital back office space” to over 170 Quaker Meetings in the UK. You can see a sample website built on their system here: Wandsworth Quaker Meeting.

Their website builder toolset is designed to be intuitive and easy to use and it is integrated with other services like event calendars, member-only discussion boards, customized emails, contact lists and minutes storage. All the technical support aspects are handled by the QMN, and they make it easy to “pass the reigns” to new clerks or volunteers as leadership changes hands. They even provide a collection of non-copyrighted images that are appropriate for use by Quaker groups to help make your site look good.

Because the system was built to service the UK Quaker world (see for instance their search tool to find meetings quakermeeting.org), some changes will have to be enacted to reflect the US context. Thus, the Quaker Meetings Network is offering a free pilot program (through at least March of 2024) while they work with USA Meetings to get the services looking their best. An overview of the service is provided here: https://quaker.app/usa while the full details of the proposal are available in a comprehensive brochure for review by techies and non-techies alike. Ongoing costs will vary depending on the size and needs of your Monthly Meeting. You could expect to pay around $149/year for the full system after the end of the pilot period. Smaller Monthly Meetings with simpler needs would pay considerably less.

This looks like a great opportunity for Meetings that are ready for a new presence on the internet. Lake Erie Friends may want to take a closer look.

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