Attachments to Minutes
Fall Sessions 2009

• History of Somerset Hills Meeting
• General Secretary’s Report
• Personnel Committee Report
• Sessions Committee Report

History of Somerset Hills Monthly Meeting

The Quakers who began the Somerset Hills Monthly Meeting originally worshipped under the care of Rahway-Plainfield Monthly Meeting, in Plainfield, NJ, shortly after World War ll. Several families who lived in Somerset County decided that they were numerous enough to begin a worship group closer to their homes. They began as a worship group under the care of Rahway-Plainfield in 1946. In 1955, they petitioned the Shrewsbury-Plainfield Half-Yearly Meeting for permission to form their own monthly meeting.

At first, they met in each other's homes, until the Bernardsville library became available for them to use on First Day mornings. An oil picture of one of those gatherings, painted by Dwight Dobbins, now hangs in the home of a descendent of the original group. For many years, the library was the comfortable home of Somerset Hills. The group only met during the school year, never in the summer, reasoning that with such a small group, there never would be enough Friends during the summer months. They continued to meet in the library until its board of directors decided that the Friends had to find another meeting place.

We began meeting in the Brookside Community Club in Mendham Township in 1983 as a “temporary'” measure. It was a good place, with a large room, with a kitchen and two lavatories, a paved parking lot and no maintenance problems for the meeting. The drawback was that it was only one large room, with no place for a First Day School.

Somerset Hills began to look for another near-by facility to house our children. We found such a place, directly across the street at the Brookside Community Church. We were allowed to use one of their rooms, and given a key to the building, and our problems were solved!

Sadly for Somerset Hills, many people in the area found the Brookside Community Church an agreeable and hospitable home, and the church grew. Soon they needed every available space for their own parishioners, and once again, Somerset Hills drew back and re-considered its options. Without a meeting house of our own and with the cost of renting or buying property so high, it was beginning to look no longer possible for us to stay in the area. In addition, some of our members had moved away, others retired to warmer climes, and some had died.

In 2008, there were only five Friends in the meeting, one of whom is a member of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. We had several attenders who came to enjoy the silent worship, but there were too few people to maintain a viable meeting for worship. It was suggested that we relocate again, this time to the Episcopal Convent of Saint John the Baptist, also in Mendham, NJ. We investigated the site, found it warm and welcoming, and sent word to the Brookside Community Club that, after making it our home for twenty-five years, we had to change our location.

The meeting had already notified the Shrewsbury-Plainfield Half-Yearly Meeting of our continuing problems, and they granted us permission to make the change from a monthly meeting to that of a worship group, under the care of Rahway-Plainfield Monthly Meeting. Back to our beginning!

It has been an interesting and frustrating experience to try to grow and expand our silent form of worship amid a growing sense that the world is not the same place as it was back in 1955, when our adventure began. Perhaps we might have avoided this sad ending of the laying down of our meeting if we had had a meeting house, which would have given us a much more stable and visible presence in the area.

Carol Coulthurst,
clerk, Somerset Hills

General Secretary’s Report

At a time when we are facing a serious budget crunch, I think it is a good moment to review how are doing in general, and to reassess our priorities. The charge given in 1999 to the to the Ad Hoc Committee on the Function of New York Yearly Meeting was “to discern how the organization of New York Yearly Meeting can best participate in the continuing renewal of the local Meetings, the Quarterly and Regional Meetings, and the Religious Society of Friends as a whole.” How well have we been doing this work? What could and should we be doing better? The answers to these questions may influence budget decisions this year, and possibly redirect some of our efforts in the years to come.

In looking at how we are doing, I have focused on membership, attendance, how much energy there has been for new initiatives, spiritual vitality, relative ease or difficulty in finding nominees to support the work, and financial support. Some of this examination will be quite subjective, and may open the door to fruitful discussion.

Membership

First, a note about how we count membership: Looking at membership numbers is far from an exact science. Yearly meeting staff compiles data given to us by our monthly meetings. Some years, some monthly meetings do not offer us revised numbers. There are also times when the report from a monthly meeting does not reconcile with their report from the previous year. These times are noted with footnotes.

We also have many Friends who, though they are no longer worshipping with us, still find meaning in being considered a part of their monthly meeting, visiting on rare occasions, and frequently contributing funds for its support. Adult Friends who have grown up in a meeting and moved away and Friends who have retired elsewhere make up most of this group.

Some monthly meetings also have Friends on their rolls whom have not been in contact for a considerable time. Some of our meetings have sought to reach out to such Friends on their rolls, to see if they still wish to be included. Other meetings have not done so. It is virtually impossible for us to know just how much of this “dead wood” there is on our membership rolls. Even coming up with criteria for determining who does and does not constitute “dead wood” would be difficult. It is equally difficult to know if there were similar amounts of “dead wood” in 1955, 1975, and 1995. Trying to ascertain what is an accurate baseline is less fruitful than looking at the change from one year to the next. In doing so, I am assuming a comparable amount of “dead wood” in all the years on the following chart.

As you can see from this chart, we are still declining in membership, though the rate of decline has decreased markedly, almost leveling off. While I would obviously prefer growth instead of decrease, the change in rate is moderate good news, and I hope the bottom of a parabolic curve about to ascend again.

Attendance

Our monthly meetings also report average attendance on First Days. In many respects, this is a much more useful indicator of how we are doing than membership numbers. The following chart graphs our reported average attendance from 1997 to the present:

In some ways, this chart paints a more negative picture than is accurate. In 2005, point 9 on this chart, we started counting attendance at Nine Partners monthly meeting/Lyall Federated Church differently. Before that time, we had counted all in attendance at worship. After that time, we counted only those attending who named themselves as Friends. This change resulted in a reduction of about 75 Friends, more than half of the drop in the last thirteen years.

That factor aside, our attendance had been oscillating up and down within a certain range, not a cause for concern. The last few years’ data show a decrease that goes outside that range. This decline in attendance causes me much greater concern than our numbers on membership. If we did not have new people coming in, I would be even more concerned. But half of the monthly meetings and worship groups which shared a state of society report last year reported newcomers, new attenders, and/or new members. Conditions vary widely from meeting to meeting, but I feel that it is fair to state that we need to address retention significantly more than we need to ramp up our efforts at outreach.

Part of that effort needs to be becoming aware of how we are making it hard for some of those who would like to be with us, to do so. In the past year, I have heard from young adult Friends, Christ-centered Friends, Friends with political views to the right of center, formerly incarcerated Friends, and Friends of Color that they are all having difficulty finding a way to be a part of our monthly meetings. I have heard from Friends of lesser economic means that they are struggling to be active in the work of the Yearly Meeting. Each one of these is troubling in itself, but taken in aggregate, they paint a picture of a Society that is more closed than open. I am sure that that is not what any of us wants. What do we need to address to change this?

New Initiatives

One way of gauging the vitality of a group is to look at how much energy it has for new initiatives. When I consider the initiatives of just the last few years, I am deeply impressed by what Friends in this Yearly Meeting have been faithful to. Here is a sampling. Perhaps you can add more:

• The Aging Resources Consultation and Help, ARCH, program started up.
• The Spiritual Nurture Working Group was formed, and created an upcoming series of retreats.
• Collaborations are under way with AVP and AFSC on prison ministry.
• The Personnel Committee is in the process of a total revision of the Personnel Handbook.
• We began sending Peacebuilding and humanitarian aid to Friends in the Republic of Georgia.
• We started new worship groups at Gouvenuers and Cayuga Correctional Facilities, and the Bedford-Stuyvesant worship group at the Redemption Center.
• We rekindled the worship group at Dansville, NY, and are increasing the number of worships per month at Sullivan and Woodbourne Prison Worship Groups.
• The Communication Committee is in the process of constructing a new website.
• The Young Friends in Residence Program was envisioned and made a reality.
• The new Youth Committee has taken on the work recommended by the Task Group on Youth.
• The Financial Services and Communication Committees collaborated with staff to better communicate the substance of the work done at a YM level.
• The First Day School Working Group formed and is up and running.
• The new Ministry and Pastoral Care Committee has been formed and starting its work.
• Spring and Fall Sessions youth groups have become a part of our practice, supported by JYM.
• We began holding Meetings for Discernment.

Spiritual Vitality

This facet of our collective condition is the most subjective and hardest to quantify. It is obviously expressed through all the other facets. My personal sense, informed by others’ subjective comments, is that we are growing significantly, both as individuals and as a body, in depth and faithfulness. The Spiritual Nurture Task Group noted a sense of increased spiritual vitality and community as a result of the Drawing Out Gifts series, and that this spiritual charge has diminished some over time. With that in mind, they have created a series of eight retreats designed to nurture those Friends enlivened by the first series, as well as welcoming in Friends who were not a part of that experience.

Friends’ Willingness to Be Nominated

The current clerk of our Nominating Committee told me that despite shrinking economic resources of individuals, monthly meetings, and Yearly Meeting committees, she has experienced the same level of willingness, or better, by Friends asked to serve. She tempered this by saying that it is hard to separate Friends’ willingness from the benefit of having committee members who are good at recognizing the gifts of Friends and inviting them to share those gifts. She said that the nominating process has also been helped by more committees doing work via conference call when possible.

One area she said she hopes we can improve upon is in nominating our younger Friends to committees. Three-year terms are difficult for Friends in high school and college to commit to.

Financial Support

nonprofits are facing an average shortfall of 40%. At Budget Saturday, we were facing a shortfall of about 5%. I have been moved by the degree of support that I have heard from our monthly meetings. Many have dug deep and stretched mightily. Some have done fundraisers in order to honor their covenant donation. Some have even gone back and increased that amount in response to the request from Financial Services.

I have heard great appreciation from Friends for the work of Financial Services in creating a project-based budget. They have commented that that approach, in conjunction with the standard budget spreadsheets, has given them a greater understanding of where the money goes than they ever had before. Without this work, I don’t think that we would be in as good a financial position as we are right now.

Conclusions

Despite some reduction in numbers, we have greatly expanded the work we have been called to, addressing our need to deepen spiritually, to care for our children, young adults, and aged Friends, to be faithful in our witness, and to work toward bridging the gap between our monthly meetings and the Yearly Meeting. We are continuing to lay the crucial foundations for growth in depth as well as numbers, and we are doing that work well. And we have done this while keeping the budget relatively flat since 2005.

And there is much yet to do. In my 2006 report to summer sessions, I named six areas to which we needed to give significant attention:

1. Closing the divide that separates monthly meetings from the Yearly Meeting organizational structure.
2. Coming to a unified, clear vision of who we are, where we are going, and why.
3. Passing on the substance of our faith to our children.
4. Becoming more skillful at resolving conflict.
5. Better welcoming and integrating the newcomers who are joining us.
6. Addressing the spiritual nurture of existing Friends.

We have done some work in all these areas, and yet I see all of these needs to still be somewhere between a state of “pressing” and “quite urgent.” Of these needs, I see bridging the monthly meeting/Yearly Meeting gap, coming to a common vision, and developing a coordinated and coherent approach to how we nurture our children and youth, to be our greatest priorities.

We have this budget year, and perhaps one other, to take a really hard look at how we are addressing the above needs, and making some substantive changes, not just tweaking what we are already doing. This year’s budget is bolstered by many one-time adjustments that we cannot repeat next year. Even if the economic recovery proceeds well, it will be two years or so before most nonprofits feel the benefit of that. We cannot assume much rosier conditions in the economy for our budget a year from now, or even in two or three. We cannot continue our present course without some substantial changes in how we raise money and how we spend it.

I see this budget crunch as a real opportunity for us to look at our priorities, break out of our unconscious attachment to the ways things are, and to look afresh at how God is leading us in our work together. We have just a little breathing room in which to come to a unified vision of our work as a body, a vision that is well connected to, and supported by, our constituent monthly meetings, and to develop the fundraising mechanisms to adequately support that vision. If we do this well, it will build community, and release untapped energy as well as the financial resources to do the work that God calls us to do.

Christopher Sammond (Bulls Head-Oswego)
General Secretary

Personnel Committee Report

General Secretary job description change proposal

• History
  • In 2002, specific discomfort was expressed by Friends with the notion of a pastor, or of reference to ministry at all, in the position of General Secretary when the first report of the Staffing and Structure Committee was presented to the body at Summer Sessions for the purpose of establishing the position of a general secretary.
  • In 2003, the recommendation was further seasoned and presented again without the references that were construed as naming the General Secretary as a spiritual leader or pastor of the Yearly Meeting. The position was then approved.
  • In October of 2008, a change in the job description was proposed by the General Secretary for the purpose of reducing his federal taxes, and their use for war making, by virtue of his being able to receive an untaxed housing allowance as a minister. As noted to Friends several times, if the process advances, the net cost to New York Yearly Meeting, other than any possible bookkeeping, legal and accounting work to effect the change, will likely be less than the present cost thereafter, because certain benefits will be reduced because the salary per se will be reduced. The General Secretary will also likely take home less pay for similar reasons.
  • In December of 2008, the General Secretary’s Supervisory Task Group initially approved the request, per their minute:
    • Christopher Sammond brought a concern to the General Secretary’s Supervisory Task Group, in a letter dated October 29, 2008, that his job description as general secretary of NYYM be clarified as to the fact that the position of general secretary has functions of Friends’ ministry. The Task Group is in unity that the position of general secretary is ministry as understood by Friends and requests addition of language to this effect to the written understanding of the general secretary’s job description.
  • On January 20, 2009, Personnel Committee noted the following in its minutes:
    • The committee approved the following sense of a minute: The performance of the position of General Secretary of NYYM fulfills all requirements of Friend’s ministry. There was also some discussion about whether this applied to others on NYYM staff. The committee needs to discuss this further.
  • The concern has also been discussed by General Services Coordinating Committee (GSCC) and reviewed by the clerk of the Ministry Coordinating Committee. A request was made by GSCC for wider input of Friends in light of the history of concerns about the job description.
  • At a presentation at Summer Sessions 2009, Friends requested that the matter be deferred for further consideration of individual Friends and monthly meetings, and for their input to the Personnel Committee.

• Responses summary follows

• Various aspects of the proposed change will require further consideration and possible action if and when there is approval by the body. These further concerns should be borne in mind as Friends consider the request:
  • There will need to be consideration of the implications to other staff and their particular ministries.
  • If this change in wording is approved by the body, then it falls to the Personnel Committee and the GSCC to decide whether this change is enough to meet the conditions set forth by the IRS for a housing allowance: As Quakers we do not easily meet the three qualifications that the IRS has set down for ministers and housing allowances, and their position has been revised and tightened in the last few years. It is this situation which has brought forth the articles and opinions that suggest we might not pass the approval of the IRS and thus might need to be audited, an event that could be financially expensive in terms of time that would need to be expended by our professional accountants and likely very time consuming of our staff and volunteers, a serious concern even in the best of times. 
  • If the proposal is approved, there will need to be separate consideration by Personnel if the Committee is comfortable revising remuneration to include housing allowance. If so, the amounts will need to be decided upon.
  • What will be the implications for the advertising for and hiring of future individuals for this position with this revised job description and revised pay structure?

We need to do more discernment work on this request. More input from Friends to the committee about this concern will always be welcome as we strive to gain clarity about a possible recommendation.

Responses summary

To date, we have received 20 written responses from throughout the yearly meeting, which we have characterized in our perception as positive, negative or uncertain (or uncomfortable) and grouped by individuals and monthly meetings. Of the twenty, thirteen individuals responded, of which 8 were negative and 5 uncertain. Of the monthly meetings, seven responded, of which there were 4 that were positive, two negative, and one uncertain. We are very much aware that our interpretations are of course subjective characterizations.

The four positive responses, which were all from monthly meetings, were mostly simple minutes of support of the proposal. Uncertain responses indicated hesitation about the process and its various potential ramifications, while negative responses often expressed discomfort about the use of the term “ministry” for different reasons, including the implications of singling out an individual within our midst or one of the employees within our midst, or the implication of having a “paid minister.” In addition, there was reference more than once to the fact that there was concern expressed by the body during the original proposal for the job description that the position should not include ministry per se; therefore, this is a change that goes against that understanding. One Friend indicated that the current proposal felt like a “bait-and-switch.” One meeting and at least one individual indicated that the purpose of the change may not really be served in that it does not constitute war tax resistance, since it is not tax refusal nor does it constitute tax witness, since it does not include any form of public statement; it simply will mean that less taxes will be paid because of the individual’s tax category, which will have no witness significance to IRS or other public entity, and furthermore, the reduced taxes will not necessarily reduce war taxes since all tax income goes into a common pot for all governmental expenditures, including items that we are all likely to support.

In addition to the written responses, there is the sense that there remains a “buzz” among Friends, many of whom may be uncertain or uncomfortable, but who have not put their discomfort down in words. Nevertheless, there is also the sense that the work of our General Secretary has indeed included ministry as we know it, and that that also applies at least to the work of the Associate Secretary. Friends have frequently expressed appreciation of the hard work of our General Secretary and of our staff in general.

Heloise Rathbone (Brooklyn)
clerk, Personnel

Sessions Committee Report

Sessions Committee and the working group on Summer Sessions affordability and site selection met in September. Along with other business we reviewed results of the surveys that Friends had completed at Silver Bay during Summer Session, and the results from a later survey sent to meetings for distribution. The compiled comments and the statistics from both surveys are available for review.

The surveys brought helpful information on several other questions, but the most controversial issue was our suggestion at last Summer Sessions that 2010 Summer Sessions should be shortened from six to five days. Our working group and Sessions Committee as a whole felt that, whatever a numerical majority of survey participants favored, we were not clear to make the suggested change. Instead we are planning a six-day schedule in 2010. Members of our working group on affordability and future sites will be available to talk with anyone after lunch Sunday at Chatham-Summit meeting house. Look for our sign.

We continue to explore cost-saving measures, and ways of raising more funds for assistance in attending summer sessions. Working group members are seeking information from other sites and Silver Bay to see how a different place with significant cost advantage and facility benefits could compare.

Our next committee meeting for Summer Sessions planning is January 30. If you have suggestions about theme, format or special needs, let us hear from you as soon as you can.

Spring Sessions is being hosted by Farmington-Scipio Regional Meeting at Chautauqua Institution near Mayville, NY, April 9–11. A comfortable and convenient residential conference center at Chautauqua promotes easy attendance of sessions and committee meetings. Convenience of location for our western-most Friends means a long trip for those from the east. Accommodations will be coordinated for anyone who wishes to plan a stop-over stay with Friends along the way to Chautauqua or back home.

John Cooley (Central Finger Lakes)
clerk, Sessions Committee