Westtown Monthly Meeting
Meeting for Business :: November > Return to all months
 
Minutes of the Monthly Meeting for Business


November 8, 2007, 8:30 AM
Westtown Meeting House

Silent Worship

Reading of the Minutes from October 2007

Friends to hold in the Light:

Announcements:

  • Amanda Forte Wedding 11/23
  • Advent Garden 12/9
  • Christmas Eve Meeting 7:00PM
  • PS&J Potluck at Nancy Hoffman's House, 1/26/08 at 6:30. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortensen about establishing schools in Afghanistan.
  • See black notebook for other announcements

Correspondence:

  • The Klucznik family has sent a letter requesting membership with Westtown Monthly Meeting for themselves. The Dears, Tom Haviland and Anne Wood will serve as a clearness committee and will meet with them
  • Joyce Colket has sent a letter requesting membership with Westtown Monthly Meeting. Rebecca Mays, Lucille Koenig, Peter Lane and Nancy Bernhardt will serve as a clearness committee
  • PYM has sent a letter with a survey of concerns about poverty for us to consider. We agreed to send this to the PS&J committee for consideration.

Old Business:

Reports of Clearness Committee:

  • The Duffey Family request for joining the Meeting . The clearness committee met with the Duffy and recommends that they be welcomed into membership. The Meeting approved their membership with great joy.
  • The Oshman Blunt Family request for joining. On November 13, 2007, Mitch Beaver, Rebecca Mays, and Marc and Marion Dear met with the Oshman Blunt family. The committee recommends that they be welcomed into membership. The Meeting approved their membership with great joy. Their daughter Karah will be considered a friend of the meeting until she is old enough to make up her own mind about membership.
  • We will see if December 2nd will work for a time to great our new members.
  • Deb Wood’s “Travel to Africa” clearness committee report has been continued to the December Meeting.

Pastoral Care and Concerns Committee Report:

  • Discussion of this committee’s work in pastoral care. Concerns about members and attenders need to be reported to the clerk of this committee or another member of this committee for us to be able to follow up.
  • First Day School preparations are rising to the surface.
  • Coffee and greeter lists. We need one list. Juliet is willing to call folks and with remind them when it is their turn. We will us list in the kitchen at Meeting House as the master list. Tom Haviland will update the website with that list.
  • Meeting House Repairs
    • Assessment of steam pipes in crawl spaces. Leaking has been a problem
    • Upstairs outlets, new grounded outlets needed.
    • Upstairs painting job indoors. Trim and woodwork
    • Carpeting upstairs
    • Audio enhancements
    • Lighting upstairs: is it the most efficient?
  • Report on cleanup. Small but mighty group. Effective. Need to repeat in spring? KAG will ask Marcia Nelson about scope of regular cleanings.
  • Calendar of shared meals, retreats, other events.
  • Buddy system
  • Theater is not interested in the red chairs. Offer red chairs to Meeting members, then dispose what is not taken.
  • Next time: Curriculum and schedule for FDS. Buddy system.
  • Ginny Sutton urges us to move forward on audio system and will write the grant to underwrite the cost. Peter Lane mentioned Margaret Brown has a device we might try which is individually used and relatively low cost. Juliet and Peter Lane will check with Margaret Brown and report in December. "Clear Sound" is the company that wired West Chester Monthly Meeting with microphones in a more comprehensive system.

Worship and Ministry Committee Report:

  • Led to accept sense of not planning a great deal of adult education but instead let things unfold growing from Marsha Praeger's visit sometime the end of January. Perhaps we will have a retreat following this.

Peace and Social Justice Committee Report:

  • Thanks to Peter Lane and students for organizing the "Eyes Wide Open" exhibit.
  • The next book is Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortensen about establishing schools in Afghanistan. There will be a potluck at Nancy Hoffman's House, 1/26/08 at 6:30 with a discussion of the book to follow.
  • Minute on Torture (This minute draws from a number of sources)

    The Westtown Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) joins with the National Religious Campaign Against Torture and the Quaker Initiative to End Torture (Q.U.I.T.) in condemning the torture of human beings for any purpose. War and terrorism inspire fear, but retaliation and torture do not prevent them. Torture by any means, whether direct or by proxy, is immoral. Torture destroys the humanity of the tortured, the torturer and those who have knowledge of it. The use of torture denies the sanctity of life.

    As Friends with a commitment to integrity, we call on the United States to honor its treaty obligations to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, their 1977 Protocols, and the UN Convention against Torture. Failing to maintain our integrity as a nation destroys trust and undermines our ability to lead effectively.

    We agree with William Penn, Quaker founder of Pennsylvania, who wrote, “A good end cannot sanctify evil means; nor must we ever do evil that good may come of it.” Let the United States abolish its use of torture now.

  • Discussion followed the reading of the Minute on Torture.

    Members seem to agree that water boarding is torture. But is solitary confinement torture? Is confinement torture? In an extreme case what is the right thing to do? This minute addresses the official policy of the US Government, not what one individual might need to do. This minute calls on our government to enter into real discussion on what this government stands for just as this meeting is discussing it now. The minute is asking us as Quakers to stand up and state our unhappiness with current policy. What is it this meeting is calling on our government to do? How far is this meeting willing to push the logic of what torture is? Does that leave the government with no way of dealing with those who consider themselves enemies of the United States? This minutes deals with the heart of the Peace Testimony. What goes into peace making? The group/the meeting, in the Peace Testimony holds something for us to strive towards, a direction for us to work towards. The minute serves as a vehicle for exploring the gray areas in our treatment of prisoners of war.

    There seems to be support for this minute, though there is concern for specific instances, and the exact definition of what constitutes torture.

    The sense of the meeting is to embrace this minute as a way pointer, as a direction to which we are led. At this point, there is a sense among those present of supporting this minute with cautions about the slipperiness of words, questions of exactitude of reports we hear.

    The Meeting united with the minute.

Nominating Committee Report:

Nothing new to report.

Treasurer Report:

Nothing new to report.

New Business:

We did not get around to discussing these questions. This will be the first item of any business at the next business meeting.

  • How has the Three-Committee Structure for the Meeting helped improve the spiritual nurture of the Meeting?
  • Under this structure, what further opportunities for nurture do we need to seek?

Other Business:

  • Gary Panone is working on eagle scout badge. He is making two drawer night stands for “Safe Harbor” residents.
  • Tom Haviland, Joyce Colket, Bruce Harrison, Lucille Koenig cleaned most of the shelves in the library.
  • The meeting approved the purchase of a new oil cloth for the table and postcards for mailing.

After a period of worship we adjourned until our next meeting on the third Sunday of December 16, 2007.

Respectfully Submitted

Margaret Haviland
Recording Clerk

Meeting for Business :: November > Return to all months