What a year of transition this has been for the Wrightstown Friends Meeting – a year and a half of COVID and a transition in leadership for our community. Our longtime clerk, Betsy Bayardi, took me under her wing over the last year, as I served as the rising clerk which has allowed for a meaningful and smooth transition in leadership. Betsy currently serves our community as the ‘past clerk’, and both an elder and mentor to me. Wrightstown Meeting is incredibly grateful for her continued service.
A look at where Wrightstown has been:
As reported by our Recorder, Alice Maxfield, the Wrightstown Meeting statistics for the year ending December 31, 2020 are as follows:
181 members, 21years of age and older
6 members, under the age of 21
18 associate members, under the age of 21
205 = total membership
We had two new members join our meeting, one death and one resignation. One Associate Member turned 21 and was released.
• Kim & Randy Viscio are our new members. Their children, G. Viscio (11/30/2011) and A. Viscio (9/3/2013) became members under 21.
• George Rowe (5/15/2020) died during the year.
• K. Biggs resigned.
• R. Comley turned 21 and was released.
As the COVID-19 pandemic infiltrated our world in February and March of 2020, Wrightstown Meeting began to quickly assess how to create a safe and spiritually connected worshipping community. We closed the meetinghouse and pivoted to an online Zoom platform for worship and social time at the rise of meeting. This was a blessing for some but was not for others. Each week about 15 – 20 folks joined for worship.
First Day School continued and finished the 2019-2020 academic year online and under the care of Kate Whitman Kamara and several other dedicated members. The children’s religious education program ran concurrently with Meeting for Worship from 10am – 11am each week. The children attending ranged from K through 6th grade; the attendance varied from 4 to 10 children each week.
Wrightstown Meeting is blessed to have Wrightstown Friends Nursery School (WFNS) under its care. It is a beautiful nursery school rooted in Friends spiritual practice of kindness, patience, love and listening. My three children attended WFNS which created a comfortable pathway for our family to come to Quakerism.
The Wrightstown Friends Nursery School finished their year in an online platform filled with arts and crafts, story time, and music.
Zoom has been such a gift for our meeting to unwrap; it has allowed for many members and attenders to connect with us each week (about 15 to 20 people) – one member from Germany and one attender joined us each week from Florida, both of whom found themselves in their respective places for a prolonged period due to safety concerns of COVID.
Our zoom link continues to be available upon request from others outside the Wrightstown Community – we had two guests over the last year; the zoom platform is used to primarily connect with and support the Spiritual Formation of our members, attenders, and families of Wrightstown Meeting.
What about those who are not connecting online with us? What about those whom we are missing? Care and Counsel has done a wonderful job in making phone calls and sending emails during the past year to connect with Friends who are not wanting to or able to join online worship. We have found that Zoom worship is not for everyone.
In December of 2020, we held our longstanding traditional Candlelight Carol Sing – it just looked a bit different this year online. A candle burned in one of our Zoom squares for special effect while we heard singing, poetry, and a beautiful musical instrument piece by one of our young Friends. Children, families and our community far and wide, came together for this special occasion. Sadly, we had to give the Lingohocken Fire Truck the year off – this beautiful antique fire truck traditionally stands watch over our meetinghouse in case of fire. We hope to engage them again this year.
Our Children’s Religious Education program took a pause from the Fall of 2021 to January of 2021. From January 2021 through June 2021, we held First Day School via zoom from 9:00am to 9:45am each Sunday, before Meeting for Worship at 10am. It was a wonderful space for the children to worship, connect, and share with each other – attendance varied from 3 to 10 children, ranging from kindergarten to 6th grade. Each 4th Sunday, the children were invited to join Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s wonderful online Giant Children’s Meeting. They connected with a community of about 30 other Quaker children in PYM’s geographic area. They seemed to really enjoy this time and the program offered.
In February 2021, Wrightstown Friends Nursery School re-opened its’ doors with a good COVID safety plan and ran at full-COVID-capacity – the decreased class size allowed for safe social distancing; masks were required. The co-directors, Karen Bryk and Claranne Merlo were very creative and flexible in the teaching and playing in the newly configured outdoor learning spaces. WFNS plans to re-open in the fall with nearly full attendance in both the Morning and Afternoon Friends programs.
In the winter of 2021, we began an online experiment and formed a Pendle Hill pamphlet discussion Group on the 4th Sunday of each month. This has been a wonderful opportunity to gather together as a community, deepen our spiritual formation, and listen and learn from each other through worship sharing and query reflection. Approximately 10 to 20 Friends gather online each month.
In the Spring of 2021, Wrightstown Meeting began to gather outside on campus while others continued to gather online – parallel worship. We experimented with the hybrid model for a few weeks, but found that it was not conducive to the outdoor space. Approximately, 15 folks joined on campus; 15 joined each week on zoom.
A look at where Wrightstown Meeting is presently:
In May 2021, the sense of the community revealed that we wanted to open the meetinghouse for worship. An ad hoc committee on Re-Opening the Meetinghouse met to draft COVID safety guidelines and procedures to gather indoors. Due to the fluid nature of this virus and its’ conditions, we agreed to re-assess the protocol every two months as a community.
We currently have a hybrid meeting each week – we welcome Friends to join us on Zoom where participants online can be heard in the meetinghouse and see the meetinghouse, however those in the meetinghouse cannot see those online. In the near future, we will discern as a meeting, how or if we can create blended worship, where we can see & hear, welcome & include everyone joining in-person and online.
A look forward for Wrightstown Meeting:
We agreed as a community to re-assess the Wrightstown COVID-19 Community Guidelines and Safety Procedure every three months. We continue to review and monitor the CDC recommendations and local Bucks County Department of Health information on infection rates; this helps us discern the impact on how we will continue to gather as a meeting community.
A Community Conversation (hopefully in-person) is on our calendar for October 23. We will explore how we can center the needs of our children and families in the meeting, welcome and include members and attenders whom we have not seen since before COVID, and discern a way forward on bringing the yearly meeting-wide ministries of Addressing Racism and Climate Change into the life of our meeting through some changes, shifts, and religious education.
Respectfully submitted with gratitude,
Olivia Brangan
Clerk, Wrightstown Meeting
