Ad Hoc Committee on Committees
Report and Recommendations

Our committee's charge, as set forth in minute 64 NYYM Sessions of 7/27/01, says: "The Ad Hoc Committee on Committees is charged with studying the NYYM committee structure and analyzing the different functions that are played by the committees. The committee is charged with bringing forward recommendations on ways to simplify and strengthen the Yearly Meeting's committee structure."

We have striven to see our work in light of the previous insights of the Renewal Committee, the Ad Hoc Committee on the Function of NYYM, and numerous individuals who have urged us to create a structure that will foster our spiritual renewal. If we have fulfilled that goal, the Yearly Meeting will be in a better position to nurture even more Spirit-led work.

Our recommendations are the result of many hours of prayer, deliberation, and careful listening to a wide variety of Friends.

Upon first reading some may see the report as bold, even revolutionary. We assure you it is neither. In fact, it is quite the opposite. It is conservative: It is a call to faithfulness, starting with the individual answering that of God. In our process inspiration begins with the Spirit, rises in the individual, flows through and is tested by Monthly, Regional and Yearly Meetings.

We recognize that change is difficult, and, as a result, sometimes can be accomplished only in steps. We offer these recommendations as a blueprint for those steps. We expect there will be a need for adjustments as we learn from experience.

Recovering a Spirit Led Structure

Central to our faith as a religious society is the belief that God's Spirit is alive and present to lead us directly as individuals and communities. At the same time, we understand that early Friends set up the structures of monthly, quarterly, and yearly meetings, among other reasons, to help discern and nurture this living Spirit. We know--as early Friends knew--that structures can take on a life of their own and become bureaucratic, stifling the very Spirit they are meant to serve. Thus our present structure of monthly, regional, and yearly meetings was cautiously established and needs to be cautiously monitored.

With respect to yearly meetings, George Fox gave the following description, "Yearly Meeting �(is) for Friends to see one another, know how the affairs of truth prosper, and how Friends do grow in the Truth of God to the comfort and joy of one another in it. . . . And if there should be any difference among Friends it should be ended at yearly meeting so that all things may be kept in Peace and Love, dwelling in the Wisdom of God."

Clearly, yearly meetings were not meant to be large structures, duplicating ministry that should be occurring at the local level. Nor do we sense that Friends today want that kind of a yearly meeting structure. It is not always necessary to have a committee to nurture or witness to a concern or testimony. For example, at Silver Bay in July 2002 the Yearly Meeting, as a body, responded to God's call, resulting in peace witness minutes and subsequent actions that have since reverberated within and well beyond the Yearly Meeting.

We have looked hard at our Yearly Meeting's committee structure to see what parts are essential to the ongoing care and oversight of the Spirit and what parts are best exercised through released individuals or temporary working groups that come and go as the Spirit leads. We believe the Spirit has already been revealing one approach to simplifying our committee structure through the task-oriented working groups of the Coordinating Committee for Ministry Counsel (CCMC) that have come together to do the work as the Spirit leads. Some of the most important work of this section has been done by such working groups as the Love, Discernment, and Community Committee that helped us recover a tradition of discernment for sorting through our differences on Faith and Practice revision; the Gospel Order Working Group, which helped us recover an understanding of this Quaker term through its widely used information packet; and the Spiritual Nurturance Group, which helped establish spiritual nurturance groups in many monthly meetings.

Accountability

We recommend that, where possible, coordinating committees attempt to do their work through Spirit-led working groups appointed internally by a coordinating committee's nominating committee rather than through permanent committees appointed by the Yearly Meeting's Nominating Committee. There are standing committees that are sustained more by nominations and a line item in the budget than they are by the Spirit of God. To address that, we propose the creation of Oversight Committees for each coordinating committee, to include the coordinating committee's clerk and 2 to 3 others, chosen from the membership of the coordinating committee, looking first to the at-large appointees. The Oversight Committee would be responsible for discerning new Spirit-led initiatives and exercising oversight. Such oversight would include, among other things, the responsibility for discerning whether a committee should be laid down because it is not functional.

We recommend that each coordinating committee's Oversight Committee conduct an annual review of their committees using the following guidelines:

1. Can nominees be found to fill each class of service?
2. Does a clerk agree to serve?
3. Is the purpose or mandate of the committee being fulfilled?
4. Is the committee's annual budget created and presented to its coordinating committee in a timely way?
5. Is the committee's prior year's budget substantially spent on the activities listed in that budget?
6. Is a committee's proposed work accomplished and reported in a timely way?

If a committee fails to satisfy these guidelines, the Oversight Committee should feel under the burden to lay that committee down and report that action to the Coordinating Committee. If there is still life in this ministry, it will find a new home or reemerge as a Spirit-led working group.

These Oversight Committees also would be responsible for discerning new Spirit-led initiatives within the section and maintaining oversight of them.

Transition Oversight Committee

We recommend the formation of a Transition Oversight Committee consisting of two to four seasoned Friends, appointed by the Yearly Meeting Nominating Committee, and the Assistant Clerk of the Yearly Meeting who will serve as its clerk. The TO Committee will work with the Yearly Meeting Clerk and the Oversight Committee of each CC to implement this vision of recovering a Spirit-led structure. We envision this committee terminating in three years.

Nurture Section

The functions of the Nurture Section can be adequately performed within the three other coordinating committees.

Our recommendations

1. Lay down the Nurture Section and its Coordinating Committee.
2. Move to General Services those committees that have their own oversight function and primarily maintain an administrative relationship with the Yearly Meeting: the H. H. Mosher Fund, Oakwood Friends School, Powell House, and the McCutchen Yearly Meeting Friends Home.
3. Move to Ministry and Counsel those committees that primarily have a concern for our spiritual life: Advancement, Religious Education, Youth Quake Planning, Young Adult Concerns and Women's Concerns Committee.
4. Move to Witness those committees primarily concerned with witness: Friends in Unity with Nature and Disability Concerns.
5. Place under the care of the Assistant Clerk of the Yearly Meeting all representatives to wider Quaker bodies formerly in Nurture: Friends General Conference, Friends United Meeting, Friends World Committee for Consultation, New Jersey Council of Churches, New York Community of Churches, and William Penn House. Budget requests should be directed to GSCC. We are not proposing that the Assistant Clerk have oversight of the specific work of those representatives. Rather, they will have a "home" with the Assistant Clerk, who would be available to hear their concerns and direct their items of business to a committee or working group as appropriate.

Ministry and Counsel Section

The Coordinating Committee for Ministry and Counsel (CCMC) remains central to exercising general care of the spiritual life of our Yearly Meeting, providing pastoral care of the membership and listening to its concerns and reconciling conflicts within the Yearly Meeting.

Our recommendations

1. Fold the functions of the Yearly Meeting on Ministry and Council into the Coordinating Committee for Ministry and Counsel and lay down the Yearly Meeting on Ministry & Counsel.
2. F&P revision--NYYM might consider that revision of F&P need not involve the revision of an entire document, but should be Spirit-led, addressing concerns brought forward according to our process.
3. Appointments to the Epistle and Sufferings Committees be made by CCMC.

Witness Section

The Witness section makes Friends testimonies visible in the world. It encourages concerns to be brought from the monthly and regional meetings and oversees the work of its own constituent committees.

Our recommendations

1. Maintain the practice of providing two Witness budget lines in the Yearly Meeting budget�one to cover administrative expenses and one to fund witness activities.
2. Continue the existing committees that make up the present WCC; their members would continue to be appointed by the Yearly Meeting Nominating Committee.
3. When approached by Friends with a witness leading, WCC should encourage individuals to test their leading with their monthly meeting.
4. In addition, move Disability Concerns and Friends in Unity with Nature from Nurture to Witness Section.

General Services

General Services continues as the administrative backbone of the Yearly Meeting. All independent committees or boards of oversight that relate directly to the Yearly Meeting on an administrative level should be in this section.

Our recommendations

1. Move the Mosher Fund, Powell House, the McCutchen, and Oakwood Friends School committees to this section. Friends serving on these committees should address the committee's program and ministry concerns to the specific Yearly Meeting committees active in that work.
2. Create a small Scholarships and Grants Committee within GSS. Its function would be to audit and approve all scholarships, grants and donations made by committees and Yearly Meeting trust funds.
3. GSCC review the handbook description of the role of the YM Clerk and Assistant Clerk with concern for the nurture and oversight of the CC structure. Additionally, a role should be defined for the Assistant Clerk, who should be considered as a future Clerk of the YM.
4. GSCC should request that the Personnel Committee consider a policy regarding the service of YM staff on constituent committees.

In our work we have found that the Handbook is a key source for our NYYM practice. We encourage all Friends to become familiar with the Handbook and use it, especially when accepting new appointments.

We trust that Friends will read this report and its recommendations in the sprit in which it was prepared--with respect for those with differing views, but who nonetheless are faithful to their beliefs.

Offered Prayerfully,

Stanley Zarowin, clerk, Herb Lape, Tom Martin, Anne Wright