1. In the past year, how has your meeting worked to create and strengthen the reality of a Beloved Community? How has your meeting fostered an environment in which members and attenders of all ages know they are loved, cared for, trusted, and respected?
• Offered hybrid Zoom weekly worship – Guaranteed connection with out-of-state members and attenders.
• Launched an annual Juneteenth Interracial Celebration at the Westtown Lake.
• Engaged in Trust Circles – 4 training sessions for 28 people with Clinton Pettus, followed by four monthly Trust Circle practices.
• Added Quarterly Intergenerational Worship in the form of Godly Play: Storytelling worship sessions for all ages.
• Piloting Tri-Clerks rotation (3 times per year): Leadership striving to model the concerns of our DEI committee.
• Formed DEI committee as an ad hoc committee.
• Offered Hybrid Christmas Eve Candlelight Service so that all could join.
• Hosted a Labyrinth Walk on New Year’s Day to welcome the new year.
• Planned potluck Lake Suppers during summer months.
• Scheduled Hymn Sing 10:10-10:30 am before MFW with greater diversity in the hymn selection.
• Strengthening the faculty and curriculum for weekly Children’s Meeting; Hired and trained new Children’s Meeting facilitators and expanded training materials.
• Organized ongoing support for a family who lost their child to violence.
2. How have you sought to be neighbors and in relationship with other communities?
• Supported FCNL by regular sharing of their communications to all members and attenders;
• Offered ongoing education about peacemaking, and presence in, Israel/Palestine;
• Planned to host the annual meeting for the International Friends Peace Teams, (May 4, 5 and 6, 2023.)
• Oak Lane Day Care – Meeting members sit on the Board of Advisors of that institution.
• Book swap (including toys and games); Outreach to community members.
3. How has your Meeting been called to address issues of racism?
• Formed a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity Committee.
• Attended the Mayor’s Conference on Reparations, (two Westtown representatives) and reported to the monthly business meeting.
• Held our first annual Juneteenth Celebration.
• Created Kwanzaa informational emails that were shared with the entire meeting membership by a DEI committee member during the days of Kwanzaa.
• Rotating tri-clerkship with BIPOC (Black Indigenous People of Color) representation.
• Promoted MLK volunteer day in cooperation with Westtown School.
• Engaged in Trust Circles with Clinton Pettus focused on issues of race.
• Share Land Acknowledgment statement before start of worship each week.
• Applied for and received funding for training to support clerks of Meetings and committees to design and clerk/facilitate equity centered meetings. Entitled “Beyond Meeting for Business” and funded by the Shoemaker Fund, this program will include a training program in April 2023 and a peer support program to assist and guide up to 20 clerks in exploring ways in which we conduct our business so that it can be best aligned with our spiritual and social justice commitments to equity. This program is administered through our Peace and Justice Committee and has robust participation from our own clerks.
• Applied for and received funding for a program “More than Neighbors”, to bring school and meeting pairs together to engage in the difficult conversations to address our shared mission of becoming anti-racist faith communities (funded by the Tyson Fund). Our meeting members coordinated this program in which five school/meeting pairs participated (Lansdowne, Germantown, West Chester, Haverford and Westtown). We created a robust school/meeting team to develop on-going relationship building and strategies to address racism and bias.
• Held a Labyrinth Walk on New Year’s Day in conjunction with Church of the Loving Shepherd.
• Offered a presentation on Indigenous Land (Lenni Lenape) which was facilitated by Vanessa Julye, former Westtown School student.
4. How has the Spirit guided your work on climate change? How has your meeting addressed the five action areas identified in the Climate Change Sprint Report? Has your meeting appointed a Climate Change liaison?
• Participated in the Concord Quarter Climate Action Working Group (CAWG). The CAWG formed after a Quarterly Meeting hosted by Westtown which focused on the sprint report. After a discernment process, the CAWG members felt called to prioritize preparation for and resilience in the face of extreme weather events.
• Coordinated by a member of our meeting, a multi-part series was created to support Concord Quarterly Meetings in their development of a Disaster Preparation plan. We hope to approve our plan in the spring of 2023. The CAWG determined to attend to carbon footprint reduction in 2023 with a focus on land and building stewardship. As our buildings and grounds are under the direction of Westtown School, we will consult with the school regarding opportunities for improvement and advances in both areas.
• Sharing by our Peace and Justice Committee, in terms of witness, about opportunities for advocacy through FCNL and important state issues.
• Seeking a Climate Change liaison and a person to be a liaison with the Concord Quarterly meeting is being led by our equivalent of the Nominating Committee.
5. What learnings and yearnings particular to your meeting would you like to share?
• Learning: “Planting Seeds and Growing Leadership” – Monthly forum;
• Yearning: Learn how other Meetings handle maintaining a clerk/clerks. Westtown is experimenting with “tri-clerks” sharing the responsibilities of clerking the Meeting;
• Learning and Yearning: Listening to understand (deep listening);
• Yearning: Streamline communications; Ensuring that announcements at rise of Meeting include connectional information with Quarterly and Yearly meeting;
• Yearning: Redesign WMM website to be a central place for sharing information with all;
• Yearning: Plan and hold a threshing session around reparations.
6. What are things the Yearly Meeting might do to support your monthly meeting?
• Streamlining communications: Help us ensure new members are added to contact lists for PYM.
• Support our continued work on Racism, Climate Change, indigenous respect, and peace building in the Middle East.
Approved by Westtown Monthly Meeting during Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business 2/19/2023.
