June 17, 2007, 8:30 AM
Westtown Meeting House

The names of those needing special attention and prayer were lifted up.

Announcements:

See the notebook in the Meeting House and the Meeting Calendar/Announcements web page for a full description of all announcements and notices.

• Chester County Concert Band at the Hickman, Wed Evening, June 20, 2007.
• Question Session about PYM Budget Process, 4th and Arch St. M.H. Sat/23/07 10 AM to 1 PM.
  

Correspondence:

• Kevin has received requests from CQM, PCN, PYM Newsletters for an article about our work in restructuring. Thanks to Ginny Sutton and Pete Lane who have helped to revise our state of the meeting report of 1400 well chosen words to make it the right length for these newsletters. Kevin did a final revision to get rid of the final three or so hundred words to get to an acceptable length. Many thanks to those who worked on this.
• We have looked at how well the First Day School Program has worked this year in our May Meeting. However, in the fall we will revisit the queries that guided our experiment and see how well we are doing in all the other areas of the Meeting’s life.

Old Business:

Meeting House Repair Committee

Kevin Gallagher has written to Bob Connolly to request a time to meet and to discuss the issues in this regard: repairs, ceiling fans, audio systems. Bob will suggest some times that will work for himself and Phil Genther.

Alken/Koenig Wedding

Kevin has sent a list to the oversight committee of things to do. Also, he has sent a letter from the clerk attesting to the Monthly Meeting’s approval of this marriage. Rose and John should take this letter with them when they apply for their Self Marrying Marriage License from Chester County.

Nominating Committee Update

Pete Lane is looking to fill out some of the standing committees and their work with new folks and confirm the continued interest of existing folks. Our new structure makes the work of the Nominating Committee easier to perform. The big three committees are well filled. We should send a letter this summer to confirm current committee membership and ask if members seek a new committee which one of the other two committees would be preferred. Kevin Gallagher. will send this letter out to local members. We still need to find a co-clerk. While some members wondered if this were a job we could lay down and instead have the Nominating Committee identify people willing to help run Business Meeting when the clerk can’t be there, this is an important means of training up a new clerk. The Nominating Committee asks that we look over the newly produced and updated lists of members and attenders to see if any name jumps up at us as someone to serve as co-clerk and to let Pete Lane know.

Peace and Social Justice
Teaching went well. This is a small committee so there was a scramble to cover the teaching. As a group they met in May to review the teaching and look ahead to next spring. Nancy Hoffman and John Evans will serve as co-clerks. Need more members to share the teaching. They will ask for help from attending parents.

Concord Quarterly Meeting at Westtown 7/22/2007
We are responsible for goodies at sign in time at 7:30 AM, Business Meeting will be at 8:30, Hymn Sing at 10:10 and MFW at 10:30. Deb Wood and Lilian Yeh will provide refreshments and Kevin will help them with the set-up. Anne Wood, Lilian Yeh and Jesse Boyd will help with the Hymn Sing. Child care is being arranged by Isabel Harrison and Pete Lane.

Report of the 6/3/07 joint committee meeting of W&M and PC&C and updates on ongoing work.

• Signups for coffee, child care, lake suppers remain as area for continued wotk. Mitch and Rebecca suggest that we post the list of assignments for the upcoming year in the Meeting House and on the Web Site in early September and allow folks to make changes and then Mitch will record those changes and post the final, official list. This list has the Meeting’s for business noted on it. Mitch will add school dates that affect us.
• People don’t sign up to be greeters. Should we produce the same sort of list for greeters? People forget, can we do follow up the same as for coffee? Should we call people the week before and remind them? Pastoral Care and Concern will take this up. Ginny has written a very helpful description of the greeter’s role and responsibilities. We should remember to ask children to help us greet at the door. Could we develop a calendar for the kids too?! We should have a door that isn’t attended as some folks prefer not to be greeted, but the front doors should be attended, which means at least two folks.
• A Calendar of Meeting For Business and Committee days will be developed and adhered to.
• Ginny Sutton Minute of First Day School: ASK KEVIN FOR A COPY.
• Over the summer a Curriculum working group made up of Paula Kline, Ginny Sutton, and Margaret Haviland will look into curricular resources for us to use next year.
• The next issue of Friends Journal will be devoted to the topic of Religious Education several copies will be picked up by Pete Lane for the Meeting members to read and learn from.
• Prayers and Thanksgivings at the end of Meetings for Worship.
  
  
  
  • Within children’s program have children spend last 5 minutes every fourth Sunday as part of program to offer up prayers. Explain that this is part of what goes on in Meeting for Worship. We will try this in the fall. The children’s prayers could be shared the following week with the adults. This might be a complication and we should proceed slowly in this area and not take on more than we can. The children’s prayers and the adult’s prayers are out there in the universe and heard by others in the room and by God. The sense of the Meeting is that children will do their prayer in their program and the adults at the very end of meeting.
    
    
  • We will start this program this summer. This will give us a chance to figure this out before we have the students with us. This will be weekly for adults and once a month for the children’s program. We will communicate the change to Eric Mayer so that this can be a part of the Meeting for Worship Orientation program students new to Upper School get over the course of the first term.
    
    
  • The last five minutes of Meeting the clerk will invite anyone to offer up Prayers and Thanksgivings and will happen before the shaking of hands and announcements. Worship and Ministry will continue to refine the form this will take.

  Corporate Giving
  We will revisit the Meeting’s position on corporate charitable contributions in September

  Treasurer’s Report
  Branin gave an update on the financial status of the Meeting. We are in good shape all around. The percentage of members contributing is on par with other Meetings. The Fiduciary Funds for education are currently throwing off more income then we can use. Branin will ask that these funds be reinvested in the Education Endowment Fund in order to grow that fund.

  The sign up for child care for the summer came around.

New Business:

Monthly Meeting Signs on the school campus
Ginny Sutton reported on her discussion with Sue Gold. The Township has indicated that it does not want more signs on the edges of campus so any additional signage would be internal to the campus. Ginny and Sue will approach Kate Holz and the Admission’s folks about using the announcement white signs at the east entrance and at the corner at 926 and Shady Grove. Ginny and Aminda will continue to work on this and report to us in September at which time we will decide how to proceed.

After a period of Worship we adjourned until our next meeting on the third Sunday of September, 2007.

Respectfully,

Margaret Haviland
Recording Clerk