Melissa Rycroft comes to her new role of Rising Clerk after years of supporting PYM as the clerk and previously a member of Nominating Council. She is a member of Upper Susquehanna Quarter, and she works as a Client and Application Support Specialist in Library & Information Technology at Bucknell University. [Read more…] about PYM Leadership: Meet Rising Clerk Melissa Rycroft, and James Waddington, Administrative Council Clerk
Giant Children’s Meeting is a new religious education and community event hosted on fourth Sundays by the Youth Religious Life Coordinator, Melinda Wenner Bradley, and a planning committee of Friends holding care for children and families in the yearly meeting: Guinevere Janes (Media Meeting), Abigaile Brace-Higgins (Mickleton Meeting), and Crystal Hershey (Mount Holly Meeting) who also serves the Children & Families program. [Read more…] about September Giant Children’s Meeting: Celebrating New Beginnings
After spending some time getting to know each other through introductions and a “favorite thing about fall” scavenger hunt, Chef Alix (our fabulous MSF Assistant!) led everyone through the steps of making a key lime pie. Each pie had its own unique characteristics – just like our Middle School Friends – and they all were delicious! [Read more…] about Middle School Friends Made Pie!
Newtown Friends Meeting sent greetings and love to people throughout the world on October 4 in celebration of World Quaker Day as they gathered virtually via Zoom for worship in Newtown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania
There are approximately 400,000 Quakers worldwide in North, Central and South America, Europe, the UK, East Europe, Russia, Africa, Southeast Asia, The Far East, Australia and new New Zealand. [Read more…] about Newtown Quakers Celebrate World Quaker Day
It is a truth universally acknowledged that every empty meeting house exists to embrace worshipers. Friends say they miss in-person worship during this pandemic, and some have found ways to carefully manage convening for indoor and outdoor worship.
Over the course of a month, PYM staff have started visiting meetings to be present in community. As we’ve connected through personal fellowship and phone calls, clerks and meeting members have explained how they have seasoned the decision to reopen. They’ve had to balance safety, tech support, and overall meeting capacity with the genuine need that Friends have to sit together in worship.
All of the four meetings that we visited in late August and September — Horsham, Quakertown, Third Haven, and Plumstead — were offering in-person worship. [Read more…] about In Person Worship: Outdoors and in Meetinghouses
Last summer we promised to share additional stories about Quaker farms and farmers. We never quite got them underway due to the pressure of reporting on Annual Sessions, but now remedy that with thanks to Quakertown attender and farm owner, Marty Campanelli. Marty is sharing a three part series on the farm she inhabits and the Meeting she attends. A researcher of fun Quaker facts and a farmer herself (raising sheep and vegetables), Marty is also a knitter of scarves for Mercer Street Friends and a regular attender at Quakertown Meeting today. [Read more…] about Interconnected History: Quaker Farm + Quaker Meeting + Quakertown NJ
We have heard that many Friends, Quaker meetings and Quaker interest groups are active in supporting voter registration both among nearby populations and within their meetings. As a non-profit organization, the yearly meeting refrains from involvement in political activities to avoid partisanship. Friends have brought urgent concern to the clerks’ group about the need to provide information and encouragement to vote in this election. After very considerable discernment and prayerful consideration, the Clerks group has reached unity on providing that information to Friends across the yearly meeting. We want to share with you both the foundation and the fruits of that decision.
Quaker education has always been grounded in basic principles of the Religious Society of Friends. Each child has that of God within, and Friends’ education is centered in truth, practical learning, scientific inquiry, simplicity, and concern for civic society.
Quakers have a long history of questioning power and engaging in social action for human rights and peace. Today, many Quaker schools or Quaker affiliated institutions of higher education frame their learning environments with social or civic responsibilities and define community expectations through the lens of Friends’ values while still honoring the individual.
As the United States grew from colony to nation, the Quakers advocated for and delivered universal pubic education in Pennsylvania, built colleges, and created private Quaker secondary and elementary schools. The motto of the William Penn Charter School; “Good Instruction is Better than Riches” dates back to its founding in 1689 and still serves to describe Friends’ fundamental belief that knowledge outperforms wealth over time.
In the United States, Quakers were key to the founding of Haverford College (Pennsylvania), Guilford College (North Carolina,) Earlham College (Indiana), Swarthmore College (Pennsylvania), Johns Hopkins University (Maryland), Cornell University (New York), and the Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania (Pennsylvania). All that does not mean that Quakers were perfect. As we see in the stories below, the were human and also strongly influenced by their own time and place.
[Read more…] about Quakers in Education: Elise M. Boulding, Ezra Cornell, and Johns Hopkins
Redefined clerking roles filled by some new faces
Annual Sessions 2020 saw some important changes in leadership. First, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s (PYM) clerking roles were re-adjusted to be better aligned with volunteer capacities and PYM’s needs, and Nominating Council then proposed a roster of skilled Friends to fill these redefined roles.
Jean-Marie Prestwidge Barch and Frank Barch, members of Schuylkill Monthly Meeting, were appointed to a two-year non-renewable term as Co-Clerks of PYM. Our Alternate Clerk, Jonathon Rhoads, was released from his stewardship role clerking for the community with much gratitude. Melissa Rycroft, formerly clerk of Nominating Council, and a member from Upper Susquehanna Quarter, accepted the position of Rising Clerk. James (Jim) Waddington was appointed Clerk of the Administrative Council.
[Read more…] about Introducing Jean-Marie Prestwidge Barch and Frank Barch, PYM’s Co-Clerks
This article about Lehigh Valley Meeting started with an emailed photo of Wendy Kane, Bucks Quarterly Coordinator, and meeting member John Marquette during a (masked & distanced) visit with members of the community. Then one email led to another and this story on the Meeting emerged. Assembled with thanks to John Marquette, our Lehigh Valley Meeting correspondent.
What is it like to host a Quarterly Coordinator visit at this particular time?
Wendy made the visit because this felt like a relatively safe time to get out and visit buildings. She’s been busy hosting quarterly meetings, publishing the Bucks Quarter monthly newsletter, and looking at ways to facilitate Monthly Meeting worship however she can. I like her energy and her strategy. Wendy assumed Holly Olsen’s role in Bucks Quarter in the fall of 2019, and brings an open attitude and good nature to the challenges we face. [Read more…] about Update on Together Apart: Bucks Quarter Coordinator at Lehigh Valley Meeting
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