NYYM STATE OF SOCIETY COMMITTEE (2023)

History

“Most yearly meetings request an annual report on spiritual vitality from each monthly meeting.  This tradition arose out of the use of advices and queries in which monthly meetings would prayerfully consider and write a response to one query each month….Drafting and approving a State of the Meeting Report offers the opportunity for self-reflection and honest assessment of how the meeting is doing. Done carefully, this process can help a meeting grow in understanding and fellowship and deepen its spiritual life.”  –Mathilda Navias, Quaker Process for Friends on the Benches, 2012, p.60-61

 

Purposes & Objectives

The State of Society Committee has responsibility for shepherding the process of meetings, churches and worship groups within NYYM submitting their State of the Meeting report. Beginning with drafting and distributing queries for meetings to consider and tenderly reading the meetings’ reports, the committee drafts a report to the yearly meeting naming the committee’s sense of the state of the yearly meeting based upon those reports.

 

Functions & Activities

  1. Drafting State of Society queries. The committee should begin its work after Summer Sessions, with the goal of bringing draft State of Meeting queries to Ministry Coordinating Committee (MCC) for approval by no later than its October meeting, so that the queries can be circulated to meetings in the November SPARK.
  2. The committee may also draft surveys to supplement the queries.
  3. Providing guidance to monthly meetings on when & how State of Meeting reports should be sent to the State of Society committee.
  4. Receiving State of Meeting reports, and following up with meetings whose reports have not been received by the established timelines.
  5. Reading the State of Meeting reports, identifying themes that stand out to the committee, and drafting a State of Society report for the yearly meeting as a whole.
  6. Submitting the draft report to MCC for feedback and approval by no later than the June MCC meeting, or in time for inclusion in the Advance Report, whichever comes earlier.
  7. Presenting the report to the yearly meeting body at Summer Sessions.

 

Organization & Method of Appointment

The committee is composed of three or more members with three-year staggered terms, with about one-third of the members having their terms end each year. The Yearly Meeting’s limit of two successive terms applies to appointees. The Yearly Meeting’s Nominating Committee recommends appointments. The committee selects its own clerk and recording clerk for one-year terms and names a representative to MCC for a one-year term.

 

Meeting Time & Places

The committee in session sets future meeting times, meeting as necessary to fulfill its purposes and objectives.

 

Finances

At present, the committee has no budgetary requirements.