Details as they become available and at this website: fwcc.world/events

Details as they become available and at this website: fwcc.world/events
Earlier this year Petra Doan and Liz Kamphausen Doan joined a Friends Council on Education study trip to Palestine and Israel. They shared their experiences with MidCoast meeting earlier this summer, but Brunswick Friends have invited them to share again in Brunswick for anyone interested.
After meeting (which begins at 10:00 in the Morrell Meeting Room of Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick) we will provide soup and invite any attenders to bring a small lunch item to share. The presentation is expected to begin at approximately noon.
Note: this conflicts with Meeting for Worship for Business at Durham Friends Meeting
From the Faith and Practice Revision Committee to the Clerks of NEYM’s monthly meetings:
This August the F&P Revision Committee brought a draft Introduction to Sessions for the Yearly Meeting to consider. Attached is the Draft Introduction and a Cover Letter asking meetings to consider the text and to send responses to the Revision Committee by March 1, 2024.
Any questions should be addressed to fandp@neym.org.
Through it’s Peace and Social Concerns Committee, Durham Friends Meeting is one of the sponsors of an Indigenous People’s Day celebration, Monday, October 9, 10am to Noon on the Brunswick Mall
Trustees will be holding a clean-up day at Lunt Cemetery this Saturday (September 23, 2023) from 8:30 to 11:00 am. If you have them, bring loppers or clippers or small pruning saws.
All are welcome and encouraged to participate.
Peace and Social Concerns Committee is encouraging donations to an effort to collect kitchen items for new Mainers soon to be housed in Brunswick. Items can be brought on Saturday, September 23, 10am to 4pm.
The Agenda and Materials for Meeting for Worship for Business on Seotember 17 can be found at this link.
Proposed Agenda for Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business
September 17, 2023
Please note that if there is no power at the Meetinghouse on Sunday, we will postpone Meeting for Business to the following Sunday, September 24.
Opening Query
Minutes of Previous Meeting, July 16, 2023
Finance Report
Trustees Report
Ministry and Counsel Report
Nominating Committee Report
Peace and Social Concerns Update
Report from Dorothy Curtis on FUM Triennial and USFWI Conference
New Business
Closing Worship
Woman’s Society of Durham Friends Meeting will meet this Monday, September 18, at 7pm via the Meeting’s Zoom link.
Woman’s Society will continue to meet every third Monday at 7pm, via Zoom.
Portland Friends Meeting invites us to a fellowship potluck and conversation to welcome three traveling Friends on Thursday, September 28, 2023, 4:30 pm
The traveling Friends are Gail Melix (Sandwich MM), Buffy Curtis (NYYM), and Paula Palmer (Intermountain YM). There will be materials about their ministries, and the conversation will be offered by whomever of them has energy to contribute.
This invitation is especially made to Friends from Falmouth Quarter, and therein neighboring meetings. Joiners are welcome to come for part or the entirety, and at any point in the offerings.
The fellowship potluck will be held at the Portland Friends Meeting House, 1837 Forest Ave. For guidelines including health/ Covid details, please scroll down this page to review .
Fyi, for potluck contributors who also will attend the convo, please place dishes downstairs beforehand, if possible.
4pm: Doors open – Beth & Brad
4:30pm – Ministry Conversation (casual): Meeting Room – Beth & Brad
5pm to 6:30pm – Fellowship potluck: Basement – Genna & Mey
6:30pm – Clean-up – Everyone!
Pendle Hill (a Quaker Retreat Center outside Philadelphia) calls our attention to a few opportunities this fall and this spring. Anna Hill, their bEducation Engagement Coordinator writes:
I’m reaching out to connect about a few upcoming Pendle Hill programs—I especially want to highlight two upcoming fall workshops focusing on Faith and Practice, Deepening at the Root with Christopher Sammond (Oct 5-9) and Friends’ Decision-Making and Clerking with Steve Mohlke and ,O (Nov 17-19).
Friday, Oct 5, 4:30pm – Sunday, Oct 9, 12pm, 2023
Through experiential exercises, small group sharing, large group processing, and worship, this on-campus workshop with Christopher Sammond explores opening to the divine Source in worship, vocal ministry, and leadings for action. We will create a community of deep trust and openness, opening us into deeper communion with each other and the Divine Source.
Friday, Nov 17, 4:30pm – Sunday, Nov 19, 12pm, 2023
This is on-campus workshop with Steve Mohlke and ,O is an opportunity for both new and experienced clerks of Friends’ meetings and committees to meet and think together about the role of presiding clerk in the spiritual practice of meeting for business. This workshop will address racism in the context of Friends’ decision-making; we will be lifting up processes that seek to liberate the Spirit among all participants.
The Seed: Conversations for Radical Hope (Podcast)
Join Quakers, seekers, and host Dwight Dunston for Season 3 of Pendle Hill’s podcast as we explore the
practices that enrich our connections to ourselves and to each other: How do we cultivate relationships in spiritual community? How do these relationships and practices support our work for liberation and justice and transform our sense of what is possible? Join the conversation on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!
The 2024 Spring Term. I also want to let you know that we will be hosting two information sessions for the 2024 Spring Term, our 10-week residential study program March 1-May 10, 2024, in October and November. At the link above, you can find FAQs, faculty information, and more.
Applications are now open for the 2024 season of this 10-week residential study program on Pendle Hill’s beautiful 24-acre campus.
Do you find yourself seeking space and community in which to share the daily rhythm of learning, work, and worship? Pendle Hill’s Spring Term offers a greenhouse – a protected space for Friends and other seekers to bring leadings, ideas, questions, and other seeds of the “already but not yet” – to nurture these visions into being, through the daily rhythm of study, work, and worship in community. Learn more about this program and all it has to offer, and reach out ot admissions@pendlehill.org with any questions.
Spring Term Info Session (October) Oct 11, 2023, 7:30pm-8:30pm ET via Zoom
Spring Term Info Session (November) Nov 11, 2023, 2pm-3pm ET via Zoom
All are invited to the October gathering of Falmouth Quarter on October 28th at Windham Friends Meeting.
Love Boldly, Share Deeply
Falmouth Quarter will meet on October 28th from 9:30 – 2 at Windham Friends Meeting
We invite you to come and share about the life and spirit in your meetings. Our hope is that our entire time together is a time of worship, with laughter, business, connections and handcrafts.
Windham meeting is preparing for their annual craft fair and would welcome donations of homemade items, knitting, or crafts for the fair. Those who knit or crochet are encouraged to bring your materials and work on projects while we meet. Windham is not welcoming White Elephant items this year.
Our schedule is:
9:30 – Gather in worship – Singing, connection, perhaps some Juice and coffee and snacks and sharing
10:00 – Meeting for business to approve the budget, approve donations for the year, to confirm the dates for 2023-2024 Quarterly meeting, consider what program we might like to bring to the Quarter in January and to share news from each meeting. If you have additional items for the business agenda, please forward them to Fritz Weiss @ rossvall.weiss@gmail.com.
11:30 break, potluck lunch. There is a stove and microwave to heat up items and an electric tea kettle to heat water.
12:30 Sharing experiences from the 2023 annual sessions of New England Yearly Meeting – especially the two plenaries.
— a plenary with Joseph Bruchac (an Abenaki storyteller) & Jesse Bruchac (an Abenaki language teacher), and
— the Bible half-hours with Emma Condori Mamani, a Bolivian Friend who spoke recently at Durham Friends Meeting.
– A plenary with Anna Fritz (cello) (examples of her ministry are available at: https://annafritz.com/
2:00 Wrap up, close worship.
Questions, ideas, comments or concerns can be forwarded to the co-coordinators of Falmouth Quarter:
Fritz Weiss (rossvall.weiss@gmail.com) and Wendy Schlotterbeck (wendy.schlotterbeck@gmail.com)
The Quaker Indigenous Boarding Schools: Facing Our History and Ourselves; A presentation by Paula Palmer, Gail Melix, and Andrew Grant on Sunday September 10 from 12:30 to 2:30.
Join us in the Durham Friends Meetinghouse. We will gather as a community to participate in this event by Zoom. Bring a picnic lunch.
Peace & Social Concerns
News from our sister meeting in Velasco from the sister meeting committee, August 2023
Yadira Cruz Pena, the pastor of Velasco Meeting was one of the representatives from Cuba Yearly Meeting (CYM) to New England Yearly Meeting (NEYM) last week. She shared this photo of Velasco Friends meeting outside this week in a service blessing a member’s home. I sent her a photo of Portland Friends meeting outside at the Friends School. We agreed that in nature, God’s presence can be easily felt.
She also shared this photo of her oldest daughter holding the “Church’s baby”.
We have begun planning how Velasco, Durham and Portland can have a joint or concurrent event on World Quaker Day on the first Sunday in October. We cannot be in person and probably cannot be on zoom together, but with creativity, we can feel each other’s presence.
We are sending some spices and the photo album we shared with Durham and Portland to Yadira with a delegation traveling from New England to Cuba in September.
CYM and NEYM are beginning to explore ways that the two yearly meetings can be more closely connected even in these difficult times.
New England Yearly Meeting’s Annual Sessions for 2023 have come to a close. Available here are recordings of some programs from those sessions, including
— a plenary with Joseph Bruchac (an Abenaki storyteller) & Jesse Bruchac (an Abenaki language teacher), and
— the Bible half-hours with Emma Condori Mamani, a Bolivian Friend who spoke recently at Durham Friends Meeting.
Update: The Woman’s Society silent auction continues at the Meeting House this Sunday Aug. 20th, and concludes at the annual potluck Aug. 21st, to which all are welcome. Funds go to LACO in memory of Margaret Wentworth.
Items are being sought for this year’s silent auction being sponsored by the Woman’s Society. All proceeds will go to LACO, the Lisbon Area Christian Outreach food bank.
The auction itself begins Sunday, August 13, and concludes with a 6pm potluck supper at the Meetinghouse.
New England Yearly Meeting’s Annual Sessions will be held this year from August 5 to 9, at Castleton State University in Vermont. This link will take you to further information and registration information.
These will be the 363d annual sessions of NEYM.
Revised version, August 2, 2023]
Durham Monthly Meeting of Friends met for the conduct of business on Sunday, July 16, 2023, with 9 people attending from the Meetinghouse and 5 by Zoom.
Dorothy Curtis opened the meeting with a prayer of thanksgiving.
2. Approval of Minutes of June 2023 — Ellen Bennett
Acknowledgement from FCNL (change from FWCC) for K J William’s gift will be corrected in the minutes.
Meeting approved the minutes with the above correction.
3. Finance Committee: Second request for funds for Bolivia
A Quarterly Report from the Finance Committee will be given in September.
The request for approval for a gift to the Bolivian Youth Group, addressing food security and working under the care of Friends International, was presented again after initial consideration at the June Meeting for Business. Research on food scarcity in Bolivia indicated that there has been substantial drought over past 10 years in this region, resulting in a large world-wide initiative to send aid. A recent update publication from FWCC described both this situation and the international support.
Emma Condori Mamani, our Meeting for Worship message-giver, spoke about the food security project, specifically with respect to the families in the highlands who have been hit hard by climate change. The process by which the families are selected to receive aid is thorough, requiring a great deal of work.
Emma then stepped away from the meeting for the approval discussion of this item. Leslie also stepped away, leaving eight Friends in Meeting for the ensuing discussion, as well as for discussion of Item 4.
Meeting approved the donation of $500 for the food security project. Individuals may support this project, as well. Information on how to do this will be shared via a Friends Note with the request that donations be submitted by August 1st.
4. Ministry and Counsel — Renee Cote, Tess Hartford
Renee read the recommending letter from Martha Hinshaw Sheldon and Linda Muller for Leslie Manning to be recognized as a recorded minister in the Society of Friends (see attached).
The Meeting approved immediately and joyfully, with thanks to Martha and Linda.
Renee reviewed the remainder of the M&C Report (see attached).
5. Library Committee — Dorothy Hinshaw
There has been discussion among clerks and library committee that, in honor of beloved Friend, Margaret Wentworth, Meeting name our library the Margaret Wentworth Library.
Meeting approved.
6. Trustees — Sarah Sprogell
Trustees report was read (see attached).
7. Use of Parsonage Funds Discussion
Please refer to attachment summarizing past suggestions.
To begin discussion, Clerk summarized three recommendations: Consolidate accounts, calculate a percentage draw on restricted/designated funds to support operations, and increase support for the cemeteries. The Finance committee will return in September with a recommendation about the consolidation of funds, not including the Parsonage Fund.
Trustees will consider: How much funding do we need to continue as a healthy meeting? Finance Committee will consider: How do we disperse/allocate those funds?
At Monthly Meeting in September, Meeting will seek to agree upon answers to these questions.
8. NEYM Annual Sessions Representatives
No need for representation expressed by Meeting.
9. Additional Items
Meeting expressed its great appreciation to Dorothy Curtis for attending the triennial of the United Society of Friends Women International, in conjunction with Friends United Meeting and Quaker Men, and acknowledged the challenges in travel that Dorothy experienced. Dorothy agreed to give a report to Monthly Meeting in September about her experiences.
Durham Monthly Meeting has supported Maine All-Care. The Meeting recently received a request to add its name to a letter in support of the Medicare for All Act 2023, HR 3421. (Please see attached letter.)
Meeting approved adding Durham Friends Meeting’s name to a letter in support of Medicare For All.
The next Meeting for Business will be September 17th.
10. Closing Worship
Members were asked to pause to reflect on the ways in which individuals come together in community, and how to acknowledge those individuals and their differences in ways of participation.
Respectfully submitted, Ellen Bennett, Recording Clerk
Proposed Meeting Agenda
Draft Minutes of 6.18.23 Business Meeting
Description of Friends International Bilingual Center, Bolivia
Ministry and Counsel Report
Parsonage Fund Ideas
Letter in Support of The Medicare for All Act of 2023 (H.R. 3421)
[Updated August 1, 2023] Our member Dorothy Curtis has safely and happily returned from her travel to the USFWI and FUM Triennials in Kenya. (That’s every-third-year or so gatherings of U.S. Friends Women International and Friends United Meeting, for those not familiar. She will make a report on the experience at the September 17 Monthly Meeting for Business.
Meanwhile, here is a link to the combined Epistle from the Triennial.
And here is a report on these gatherings from Marian Baker, also from New England Yearly Meeting that includes some photos of Dorothy in Kenya among Friends:
Rept.-from-Kenya-USFWI-Triennial-2023At its July 16, 2023 business meeting, Durham Monthly Meeting approved a donation of $500 from our Charity Fund to the Food Security Project for Bolivian Families. This can be supplemented by additional personal donations.
Friend Emma Condori Mamani, the Director of the Friends International Bilingual Center of Bolivia, brought the message to Durham on July 16th, and attended our Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business. She shared details about the FIBC’s emergency food project for Indigenous communities in the Bolivian Highlands.
If other Friends are led to contribute, earmarked donations made payable and mailed to Durham Friends, received by August 1, will be included in one check. An overview about the project plus contact information are found in the flyer.
We are grateful to Emma for her ministry and to New England Yearly Meeting for making it possible for Emma to travel among Friends and meetings in New England, as she is the Bible Half Hour presenter at our annual sessions in August.
From Kitsie’s family, posted on her Caring Bridge site:
Hello Family and Friends,
We will be hosting a time to gather and remember Kitsie on Sunday, July 30th from 1pm to 4pm at the Orr’s Island Schoolhouse.
You all are invited to stop by anytime between 1pm and 4pm on July 30th to share memories of Kitsie and celebrate her life. This will not be a formal service, so please, come as you are at a time that works for you.
We will have lots of pictures of Kitsie through the years, some of her artwork, and lemonade to share.
Thank you all for your love and support, we feel it and it helps,
Sarah, Bill, Willis, Lori, and Matt
Orr’s Island Schoolhouse info: 1594 Harpswell Islands Rd., Orr’s Island, ME
Notes: When parking, please be sure not to block the Fire Station, which is right next door. Car pooling is encouraged because parking is limited.
The materials for the July 16, 2023 business meeting can be found at this link.
Proposed Agenda, July 16, 2023
Open with worship
Minutes of Previous Meeting (link here)
Second request for Approval from Finance Committee: Description of Friends International Bilingual Center (FIBC), Bolivia
Ministry and Counsel Report
Library Committee Request “Margaret Wentworth Library”
Trustees Update
Continued Discussion of use of Parsonage Funds (specific suggestions are welcome)
Name representatives to NEYM Annual Sessions
New Business: Consideration of Support for H.R 3421, The Medicare for All Act of 2023
Close with worship
Durham Friends Meeting Clerk Leslie Manning lifts up this article from the June/July, 2023 issue of Friends Journal:
Friends Journal recently spoke with the heads of several Quaker organizations about the spiritual resources they draw upon to power their work, as well as the sometimes painful leadership lessons they have learned.
• Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, director of the Quaker United Nations Office, was moved by the example of a Friend in Durban, South Africa, who went to prison for refusing military conscription in the early 1980s.
• Bridget Moix, general secretary of Friends Committee on National Legislation, grew up Catholic and recalls having a lot of spiritual questions to which she did not get satisfying answers. She found Quakerism’s emphasis on experience and action fortifying, and draws strength from belonging to a community that dares to believe peace is possible.
• Tim Gee, general secretary of Friends World Committee for Consultation, draws inspiration from the parable of the sower, which is recounted in the Gospel of Matthew. In the parable, a farmer scatters seed on patches of ground with varying degrees of fertility. The seeds represent Jesus’s message about the reign of God, and the soil represents human hearts that receive and allow it to grow to different degrees of abundance. Gee considers it FWCC’s duty to take care of the metaphorical ground.
Click through for more testimonies from leaders at Friends General Conference, Baltimore Yearly Meeting, and the Belize City Friends Center…