State of Society Report 2024
After the restrictions placed on our community by the COVID pandemic were lifted and we began to meet in person in spring 2023, 2024 was a time of renewed spirit of being together and flourishing through our in-person worship. We had an infusion of energy with our new Meeting Care Coordinator. Her devotion to finding message bringers from within and outside the meeting and her efforts to use her connections across the Yearly Meeting and in the community have brought us greater connection outside the meeting.
When our Clerk stepped down at the end of 2023 and no new Clerk stepped up, Durham Friends Meeting began the practice recommended by Faith and Practice of rotating the clerkship through the committee clerks. This has been a rewarding experience for the committee clerks who have not been in the role of Meeting Clerk before. It has called up the different spiritual gifts as well as developed new skills in the way of corporate discernment.
The Makers Café is our latest outreach to the wider community. Begun through conversations that evolved into an ad hoc committee, the Makers Café events began at the end of 2024 with a wreath-making evening. The “Makers” describe this outreach as “trying to provide a welcoming, offline place for folks to hang out, learn, and connect. We want to share our Meetinghouse with a wider community. We want to help neighbors meet neighbors and help people learn how to make things, together.”
We continue to participate with other area churches in preparing meals at the Tedford Shelter in Brunswick and to support the Lisbon Area Christian Outreach food pantry, as well as renewing our involvement with the Brunswick Area Interfaith Council.
The Woman’s Society continues to meet monthly, mostly at the meetinghouse and on Zoom, and occasionally at a member’s home. We are a small caring community that seeks to support each other and any member of the meeting who might be in need of extra support. We have devotions and a program from Blueprints, a booklet published by the United Society of Friends Women International (USFWI). We have continued to hold plant sales, jam and jelly sales, and silent auctions, donating the proceeds to projects of the USFWI and to local organizations.
The primary activity of Peace and Social Concerns has been their leadership in the formation of Mawoluhkhotipon (Mou-look-ha-deeb-in), meaning We Work Together. Working with the Pejepscot Portage Mapping Project and representatives of the Brunswick Town Council, this organization states its mission as follows: “Mawoluhkhotipon is a community group of Wabanaki and their allies supporting projects that engage the Brunswick community in learning more about and reflecting upon the rich history and culture of the Wabanaki people of this region.” Members of Durham Friends Meeting are actively involved in the steering committee, the group working on signage and naming on public land, and the group working with the public schools to increase Wabanaki studies at all levels.
The Social Justice Book Project, an offshoot of Peace and Social Concerns, had the benefit of a grant from Obadiah Brown’s Benevolent Fund during the 2023-2024 school year. These funds allowed teachers to document how they used the Social Justice books given by the meeting. The project used the teachers’ work to create four guidebooks: Creating an Anti-Bias Classroom Community, Exploring the Black Experience in America, Exploring Wabanaki History and Culture, and a Guide to Building a Social Justice Book Project. These guidebooks are available online at https://www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org/?p=6895.
In addition to our ongoing financial support for the Puente de Amigos group, we sent one person to visit our sister meeting in Cuba in 2024, and supported the preparation for two members to be part of the 2025 delegation.
We continue the practice of using our charity account for financial support where we discern that such support is needed.
Although we had no increase in membership, we experienced new energy with attenders old and young—a spiritual elder and some parents and their new baby, who has delighted us with his own vocal ministry. Sadly, we lost five members to either death or transfer to other meetings in 2024.
We continue to recognize the need for ongoing healing in our community. We are aware that the lingering effects of hard problems and conflicts that arose during the three years of the pandemic require our care and attention. We are committed to working together with love and respect and to healing the wounds that remain. Just as our outreach confirms our sense of purpose, our time together always reminds us of the faithful love that continues to hold our small and sturdy community.
Approved, March 16, 2025