Visit and serve your extended Quaker Family!
Recently Reps to other orgs found joy and fulfillment! Here’s some examples:
- FGC is bringing the annual Gathering of Friends to the Philadelphia region in 2024, making it easier for many PYM Friends to participate. It will be held at Haverford College.
- Members of the PA Council of Churches board have been participating in a visioning process to take the Council into a healthy future.
- Reps to Friends Peace Teams hosted the annual meeting for the International Friends Peace Teams
- Reps to Quaker Earthcare Witness and Friends participate in worship sharing to draw participants into sacred space, where they can encounter each other in “that which is eternal.”
People who serve as representatives can learn and grow in this way:
- Meet people from across the country who are enormously dedicated to our faith
- Participate in a large business meeting that includes a wide range of people and is beautifully clerked.
This group functions at its best when there are people serving on it who have these skills or experiences:
- Connections with and commitment to the family of Friends within and beyond the yearly meeting.
- Curiosity about how other Quaker organizations work.
- An interest in the ministry of the organization.
- The experience of many representative positions are enhanced by or require an ability to occasionally travel
The realistic time commitment of PYM Representatives to other organizations includes:
- While it varies between different organizations, typically a representative attends the annual meeting of the organization and serves on a committee that may meet monthly – time demands vary with the committee
- Note that PYM has resources to assist with the cost of travel and attendance at annual meetings for Friends whose service would be made possible with the support.
Membership:
- Representatives to organizations are named by Nominating Council and approved by Friends at sessions.
- The relationship with the orgs is in the care of the Quaker Life Council
- Each org requires a different number of representatives – but they nearly all have many, many spaces.
Overview:
PYM has the responsibility of appointing PYM Friends to the governing body of a number of other organizations. The people are called PYM Representatives (or reps) and we call the organizations Representative Organizations (or orgs). Reps to orgs serve on that org’s governing board as a full member of the board. They bring the experience and presence of our yearly meeting to the organization and they facilitate PYM’s be engagement in the community and ministry of the other oganization.
PYM currently appoints members to these Representative Organizations:
Friends General Conference: FGC is an coalition of 16 yearly meetings in the US and Canada. FGC nurtures spiritual vitality of the religious Society of Friends by providing programs and services for Friends, meetings and seekers.
- Keith Barch, Schuylkill Monthly Meeting
- Frank Barch, Schuylkill Monthly Meeting
- Howard Frysinger, Downingtown Monthly Meeting
- Sarah Haber, Newtown Monthly Meeting
- Carrie Karhnak-Glasby, Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting
- Carter Nash, Harrisburg Monthly Meeting
- Laura Pickering Ford, Harrisburg Monthly Meeting
- Chloe Rosenthal, Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting
- Melissa Rycroft, Pennsdale Monthly Meeting
- Carl Stanton, Chester Monthly Meeting
- Anthony Stover, Germantown Monthly Meeting
Friends Peace Teams relies on the power of the living Spirit to bring life, joy, peace, and justice among people who have suffered on all sides of oppression, violence, or war.
- Clarkson Palmer, Swarthmore Monthly Meeting
- Deb Wood, Westtown Monthly Meeting
Quaker Earthcare Witness is a national network of Quakers inspiring Spirit-led action for ecological integrity and environmental justice.
- Ruth Darlington, Medford Monthly Meeting
- Pat Finley, Old Haverford Monthly Meeting
American Friends Service Committee brings together people of all faiths and backgrounds to challenge injustice and build peace around the globe.
Friends World Committee for Consultation answers God’s call to universal love, brings Friends of varying traditions and cultural experiences together in worship, communications and consultation, to express our common heritage and our Quaker message to the world.
- Joan Broadfield, Chester Monthly Meeting
- Jeff Keith, Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting
- Josh Ponter, Haddonfield Monthly Meeting
- Jack Walz, Mount Holly Monthly Meeting
- Amy Duckett Wagner, Fallsington Monthly Meeting
- Peterson Toascano, Millvile Monthly Meeting
Friends Committee on National Legislation is a national, nonpartisan Quaker organization that lobbies Congress and the administration to advance peace, justice, and environmental stewardship.
- Sylvia Bronner, Haverford Monthly Meeting
- Bill Cozzens, Germantown Monthly Meeting
- Deb Hejl, Gwynedd Monthly Meeting
- Joe Laird, Downingtown Monthly Meeting
- Stefanie Morgan, Trenton Monthly Meeting
- Lynn Oberfield, Providence Monthly Meeting
- Steve Olshevski, Radnor Monthly Meeting
- Louis Pilla, Radnor Monthly Meeting
- Nicole Santos, Friends Committee on National Legislation
- Alex Wilson, Friends Committee on National Legislation
- Judith Innskeep, Gwynedd Monthly Meeting
Pennsylvania Council of Churches represents Anabaptist, Episcopal, Orthodox, Pentecostal, and Protestant communions in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania working together for Christian unity for the sake of the world.
- Carter Nash, Harrisburg Monthly Meeting
