On March 12, 2023, Friends assembled for the regular Business Meeting of Princeton Monthly Meeting held a lively and thoughtful discussion of the spiritual state of the Meeting.
Recurring themes included the encouraging fact that attendance at Meetings for Worship is up significantly, trending toward pre-COVID levels, and we have added some new members that are regular attenders. However, childcare and First Day School classes have not yet returned to what had been normal in the past. Zoom-enabled hybrid meetings continue to be appreciated by those for whom physical travel is difficult or impossible, though the number of Zoom participants has decreased significantly. We have started a once-per-month session called “Quaker Conversations,” held after Fellowship, with a central theme each month on a topic of what brings us together.
Meeting members are very enthusiastic about the project now underway to renovate our First Day School building, which has been unusable since 2019. Concern was expressed about some disadvantages of supporting Meetings for Worship at both 9:00 and 11:00 AM every Sunday, as we have done for more than 40 years. We expect to explore this topic further in coming weeks and months.
