Westtown Monthly Meeting
Westtown Monthly Meeting |
| Meeting for Business :: September 2009 > Return to all months |
| Minutes of the Monthly Meeting for Business |
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Opening Worship. Reading and Amendment and Approval of the minutes, June 2009. The minutes were approved. Concerns about Friends. Clerking signup and opportunity. The Clerk has requested that members help sitting on the facing bench during Meeting for Worship, closing Meeting for Worship and reading announcements. This would be for second, fourth, and fifth Sundays of the month. The members approved this request and a sign up list was sent around. Announcements:
Correspondence. Letter of Transfer from Baltimore Monthly Meeting, Stony Run for Jon Evans, for discussion/approval. The Meeting approved. Jon will discuss with his family how they wish to proceed with their own decisions regarding joining the meeting. Old Business First Day School. The Clerk has volunteer forms for Meeting members and attenders. Members are asked to fill out the form indicating when, where and how they are willing to help out with the First Day School. Please be sure to fill out so the coordinators have as full a list of helpers as possible. Budget revision proposal: Our Treasurer presented the following budget for our consideration and approval.  Westtown Monthly Meeting Budget Proposal for 2009-2010 The proposed 2009-2010 budgeted amount, $35,640, is almost $2000 less than the budgeted amount from '08-'09 ($37,450) and about $600 more than we actually spent in '08-'09 ($35,036.50). Contributions in '08-'09 almost exactly matched the amount we actually spent. I propose leaving the suggested contribution per member unchanged. Line-by-line description of proposed changes:
Last year we spent about $300 on actual conferences, plus a $500 grant to Melissa McCourt to match a young friends grant. We plan to continue Melissa's grant and expect to continue to fund conferences at the same rate as last year, thus $800 are needed.
Last year we spent only $143.40 on the library due to efforts to conserve funds. The budgeted amount of $200 is an intention to spend a similar amount next year.
This item is zeroed out of our regular budget; I propose that the Westtown Education grants be financed solely through endowed funds and fundraisers, with the total amount to be determined on the basis of the amount raised. More on this below.
This item was part of "Miscellaneous" last year and is now a line item. No real change in total outflow.
This item reimburses postage and other routine clerical activities of the clerk. Last year the expenses were accounted in Miscellaneous. The budgeted amount reflects an increase to reflect expenses likely to be incurred by our current active clerk.
Last year the Finance Committee spent only $42 for postage, envelopes, etc, so this item was reduced.
Worship and ministry spent less than $100 last year, so this amount was reduced.
We spent about $100 on Bibles last year, the only expense reimbursed to FDS teachers. Our new teachers may purchase more materials than that, so this item was only reduced to $300.
Big new expense: our new teachers, approved by the Meeting during the summer.
This amount is a new line item, formerly included under Pastoral Care. The number reflects an increase in costs during the school year from $0 to $780 due to paying a child care provider throughout the school year, approved by the Meeting during the summer. It also reflects a proposed decrease in costs for summer care from the former amount of $40 per week to $20 per week (from $520 to $260). The proposal is to have one, not two, child care providers throughout the summer due to the small summer numbers.
Moved from Pastoral Care and Concerns. No change in total outflow.
I propose that the Westtown Education Grants be funded by the Education Endowment Fund and by fundraising (plant sales). We have not used the endowment in recent years, instead reinvesting all the returns and building up the amount of the endowment. I propose that we reinvest half the returns from the endowed funds and use the other half to fund the Education Grants. The amount shown here is half the predicted returns. This amount is not sufficient to provide grants as generous as those we have provided in the past. Patti DiGiacomo suggests a number between $5000 and $10,000. If plant sale revenues are similar to last year (about $2300) and are added to the grant, the grant amount will then reach the $5000 mark. The members had a long discussion on the education fund and the grants families are now applying for. The Westtown School has asked families whose parents work for the school to apply to the MM, CQM, and PYM for funding. This is a change and is one of the reasons that more families applied for more assistance for the 09/10 school year. Jon Evans spoke of the need for us to think about what organizations we as a meeting are willing to support. He mentioned FCNL and supporting the Green Building Effort at Friend’s Center. Where does the money come from? Is it the P&SJ budget? Now that it is reduced how will these grants/gifts be made? We will discuss this issue in an upcoming monthly meeting. The Budget was approved as Elson brought it forward with one change. The Peace and Social Justice Committee Budget was returned to the previous amount of $1000.00 Brief Reports from Committees and Representatives. • Concord Quarterly Meeting meets tonight to discuss the next Quarterly Meeting at Willistown in October. Need to find new people to fill positions within the Quarter will be looking at the structure. • Interim Meeting has decided that the theme for next year’s residential meeting will be “We make the road we walk on”. Interim Meeting is looking for volunteers to help out with residential meeting. Interim Meeting is also making calls to members to support the work of PYM. • Pastoral Care and Concerns discussed fund raising to support the work of the meeting. Right now there is discussion of a plant sale in early October. • Peace and Social Justice is hoping to develop a list of what we are individually doing in the efforts of peace and social justice. • Worship and Ministry spent the first meeting discussing contacts with members and attenders we haven’t seen in a long time. October’s committee meetings will be a combined one for PCC and WM. Report of the Clearness
for Membership Committee for John Kreitzberg. Dear Kevin, This letter is to confirm that on Sunday, August 30th Shelagh Wilson and Denis Asselin, a Committee of Clearness appointed by the June 2009 Meeting for Business, met with John Kreitzberg, a student in his junior year at Westtown School and a regular attender at Westtown Meeting, concerning his request for membership to the Society of Friends and to Westtown Monthly Meeting. Following the guidelines in Faith and Practice, we gathered in a spirit of worship sharing regarding his request. Clearly this young man is thinking profoundly about his spiritual journey and envisions membership in our Monthly Meeting as a way to enhance and deepen his exploration. We were both impressed by John’s honesty, profound insights, good questions and thoughtful answers. But most of all, we were especially moved that a young man of his age is already exploring his faith so intentionally and craving to know more who he is and what is his spiritual role in the universe. Although others his age may also be engaged in similar inquiries, we felt that John’s search is truly genuine and rightly led. Therefore, Denis and Shelagh wholeheartedly recommend that John be welcomed into our Meeting as a full member. Denis Asselin & Shelagh Wilson The Meeting approved John’s membership. The Clerk will ask John when he would like to welcomed into membership. Plans for a Plant Sale, Parents Weekend. The Meeting approved the sale on Parent’s Weekend New Business Marc Dear has prepared a sign-up for us for helping with the opening and closing of Meeting to help Kevin Gallagher open up some space in his life. The only qualification for this is a willingess and an operating watch. The Clerk shared with us the possibility of a program we might consider out of the Yearly Meeting. “The Center for Deepening and Strengthening our Meetings” is a project sponsored by PYM. The Meeting has been asked if it is interested in participating in this program. PYM is very interested in exploring the disconnect between PYM and the monthly meetings and is proposing listening sessions. The leadership is provided by a woman with deep spiritual grounding. We haven’t had a retreat in a very long time. This may be a both/and way of sharing our Meeting’s deep spiritual growth with the yearly meeting and for the meeting members to become better connected to PYM. The Meeting is in support of taking the next steps in this area and referred the project queries to Worship and Meeting. The Meeting Adjourned to enjoy the breakfast prepared by Bruce and Anna Harrison and will meet again is for rightly ordered on First Day, October 18, 2009. Respectfully submitted. Margaret Haviland |
| Meeting for Business :: September 2009 > Return to all months |