The Wealth of Community on Retreat!

By Lorena Boswell, Resident Friend

It was snowy, sunny, and cold in Alfred ME. 56 of us (47 adults and 9 children) gathered at the retreat center and found the warmth of community and dialogue. As we got to know each other, and talk about our own perspectives on wealth, the children laughed, played and learned below us. We took great joy as their voices resonated into our workshop spaces. We framed our discussions using circle process which we compared and contrasted to our own Quaker Process.

The queries for our discussion centered on wealth as a way to start framing our thoughts for the upcoming threshing sessions on the future of the meeting. The Saturday morning discussions were rich and folks decided to continue the conversation in the evening with worship sharing on the queries.

For those of you who were not able to attend, here are the quotes and queries that framed our discussion. Perhaps they can help you start framing your thoughts for our upcoming threshing sessions. We are hoping everyone in our Meeting attends one

Quotes on Wealth

Queries on Wealth

• What does wealth mean to you?
• How has your relationship to wealth as you understand it influenced decisions you’ve made in your life?
• Share a time when your relationship to wealth shifted or transformed?
• How has wealth created conflict or ethical dilemmas in your life? How did/do you navigate this?
• How does your faith influence your relationship to wealth?

We’d like to thank everyone who attended and everyone who planned and coordinated to make this retreat possible. We’d especially like to thank Holly Lapp who with grace and love held together all of the disparate threads and took great care with our children! We are very grateful. If you are interested in helping coordinate the next retreat, please inform Lorena, Resident Friend, resident@fmcquaker.org

2017-18 Annual Staff Evaluations: Seeking Feedback!

Your feedback is needed to help evaluate our staff, and to help them continually improve their performance.

• For principal staff (David Dunphy, Facilities Manager; Amy Mercure, Office Manager, and Greg Woods, Youth Ministries and Education Coordinator) please email your comments to Lorena Boswell. You may also speak with Lorena to share your comments about these staff members.
• For the Resident Friend (Lorena Boswell) only, please email your comments to Debby Colgan. You may also speak with Debby to share your comments about the Resident Friend.
• If you interact with nursery workers or the Center Residents, your input on their work is also welcome; you can send these responses to Lorena as well.

Specifics about job duties are more helpful than general statements about the person. Please consider both what is working well and what could be improved. Please note that our practice is to include the author’s name with the comment when it goes to the staff member unless you request otherwise. The deadline for receiving your comments is Sunday April 15th, but earlier would be appreciated. Job descriptions are available here on the website, as well as from Lorena.

Thank you for taking the time to give us your feedback!

Threshing Sessions Regarding the Future of the Meeting

SAVE THE DATE! At this time we are considering the future of the Meeting! We have been spending more money than we have been taking in, and the cushion of money we have been using to fill this deficit will disappear in just a few years if the current situation continues. We are hoping to avoid a financial crisis by wisely charting a sustainable course of action now. We want you to help chart FMC’s course.

There will be a series of meetings for discussion and we hope you can attend one of them. This will be a time to evaluate some of FMC’s experiments over the past five years as well as a time to begin to evaluate some possible future scenarios. We will be presenting numbers to look at and will consider what types of events, programs, and witness have vitality. What have we learned from the Beneficial Cycle which is a framework that has spurred this Meeting into new initiatives? How can we energize the Meeting? We need to hear everyone’s experiences and voices in order to ensure the course we chart is best for the whole Meeting. Please mark your calendar and make it a priority to come to one of the sessions. Childcare will be provided.

The three sessions will occur on the following dates/times:

• Saturday, April 7, 10am – 1pm, with an optional lunch from 1pm – 2pm
• Saturday, April 21, 2pm – 5pm, with an optional dinner from 5pm – 6pm
• Sunday, April 29, 1:30pm – 4:30pm (after Simple Lunch)

Pastoral Care at Friends Meeting at Cambridge

Our FMC Community of Hope provides the following types of care and support to individuals within our community:

• Friendly visits to someone’s home or a visit to someone in a hospital or nursing home;
• Accompaniment to a medical appointment;
• Prepare and/or deliver meals;
• Conversations to assist to determine the need for a Support or a Clearness Committee;
• Supportive visits and listening presence during a challenging life experience;
• Send cards on behalf of FMC.

If you, or someone you know within our FMC community, might benefit from one of these care and support activities, please let us know. You may reach the program by emailing your request to Diana Lopez, Pastoral Care Coordinator, at PastoralCare@fmcquaker.org

Forums are held Sundays at 9:30am in the Parlor

For more information contact Kitty Rush, forum@fmcquaker.org

• April 1: No forum — Extended Worship
• April 8: Singing with Jonathan Gilbert
• April 15: Worship sharing on Advices from the 2006 NEYM Young Adult Friends: Kitty Rush
• April 22: Cambridge Quaker Earthcare Witness “Earth-Ways into Mystery” All of us have a mystery-relationship with Earth. There are ways we touch base, or have touched base, with our planet home. We can share some of those ways. If you like, you can bring something to open the gate either in the present or to a memory of touching mystery with our planet.
• April 29: To Be Determined

Let us share in your joys and sorrows!  Contribute your personal news!

YAF Coordinator | FRIENDS MEETING AT CAMBRIDGE
Cambridge, MA | Part-time
Posted Jan 2018 | Apply by Apr 2

Job Opening for Part-Time Young Adult Friend Coordinator at FMC. The YAF Group Coordinator will support the accessibility and vitality of the community of Young Adult Friends in Friends Meeting at Cambridge. They will connect the YAF to each other and bridge the YAF community with the larger FMC community. The Coordinator will be a leader and a Quaker resource. The estimated time commitment of this position is an average of 5 hours a week.

Staff Positions | FRIENDS CAMP
China, ME | Full-time seasonal
Posted Dec 5, 2017

Friends Camp is accepting applications for several positions for the 2018 summer. They are looking for young adults with honesty, maturity, skills and creativity. Generous housing benefit provided in our camp lake house as well as competitive compensation. Please spread the word!

Advocacy Corps | FRIENDS COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL LEGISLATION
Local Community | Part-time, 9 months
Posted Nov 2017 | Apply by Apr 9, 2018

Young adults between the ages of 19-30 get paid to organize their local community around federal legislation. Advocacy Corps organizers connect local activists and leaders with their local member of Congress to affect big, long-term change. Issues: Environment & Energy

Special Events at Cambridge Friends School

The CFS Seminar Series events for April, 2018:

• RESCHEDULED – April 4 at 6:30 pm. Dr. Jill Walsh speaks about coming of age in the Digital Age and how today’s technology affects youth.
• Friday, April 6. Southeast 67 Film and Discussion with Steve Bumbaug on this documentary film about 67 students growing up in Washington, D.C. in the late 1980s.
• RESCHEDULED – Tuesday, April 24. Executive Functioning skills for students with Dan Levine, founder of Engaging Minds
• Tuesday, May 1. Mindful Parenting with Alison Yaeger from McLean Hospital. Alison will discuss mindfulness in parenting

NEYM Quaker Student Financial Assistance

Deadline is May 15, 2018

New England Yearly Meeting has created a grant program of financial assistance for students of any age enrolled in post-secondary educational or professional training programs, whether full- or part-time. Awardees are eligible based on spiritual connection to the Religious Society of Friends and participation in NEYM. An application package can be found at Quaker Grants. Copies of the application are available in the FMC Office. Please direct questions and applications to the NEYM Student Scholarship Grants Committee at studentgrants@neym.org.

Special Events from the NEYM Website

NEW ENGLAND YEARLY MEETING
For full listings, link to https://www.neym.org/news-events

Upcoming events:

• Unite to End Racism Apr 3 to Apr 5 • Washington, DC
• Sanctuary with Anti-Racism and Collective Liberation at Heart Apr 8 • Manchester, NH
• Living Faith Gathering Apr 14 • Portland, ME
• Godly Play/Faith & Play Training for Quakers Apr 20 to Apr 22 • Old Chatham, NY
• Say the Wrong Thing: A Workshop with Amanda Kent Apr 20 to Apr 21 • Leverett, MA
• Healing Mind, Body, and Spirit: Care for the Caregivers Apr 21 • Westport, MA
• Salem Quarterly Meeting Apr 22 • Beverly Farms, MA
• Love is All Around: A Singing Weekend with Peter & Annie Blood-Patterson Apr 27 to Apr 29 • Deerfield, MA
• JHYM Retreat Apr 27 to Apr 29 • New Haven, CT
• Tending the Flock: Supporting Pastoral Ministry in Our Meetings Apr 27 to Apr 29 • Old Chatham, NY
• Infusing Racial Justice into Our Quaker Spiritual Formation & Religious Education Apr 28 • Wellesley, MA