Weekly Announcements for May 26, 2023
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Welcome Rachael Carter, STRIDE Coordinator
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Rachael Carter (they/them) has joined the BYM staff team as our new Interim STRIDE Coordinator! Rachael started in the position in early May and has started to implement new ideas and initiatives on behalf of our STRIDE campers and families for the summer ahead. We are delighted to have them as part of our BYM team! Rachael lives in Philadelphia and has had many experiences supporting youth and young adults. They also specialize in Racial Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion curriculum and support for communities. Rachael enjoys the outdoors, often hiking and camping all over the American Southeast and has put in a few miles on the Appalachian Trail over the years. They look forward to meeting our BYM community. Please come to Spring Interim Meeting on June 10th, being held in Charlottesville and online via zoom to meet Rachael and welcome them to BYM! Rachael can be reached at RachaelCarter@bym-rsf.org.
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Annual Session Spotlight: Retreat with Ken Stockbridge
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Annual Session 2023 will kick-off with a special retreat online (July 28-29) AND in-person (July 31 - Aug 1) led by Friend Ken Stockbridge (Patapsco) under the theme "What Binds Us in Quaker Community?" Quaker community can be incredibly rich. At times, it can also be hard, even leaving us wanting to walk away. Together we will consider what binds us together and helps equip us to face such moments. We’ll see what answers we can share from our own experiences and practice deep spiritual listening as we hear from others. In particular, we’ll explore how welcome, words, work, and worship play a role. What do Love and tenderness have to do with it? Learn more about all our Annual Session speakers and workshops in the Spring Interchange or by clicking the link below!
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Interim Meeting Agenda Now Available & Last Day to Register for Childcare
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In addition to regular reports from the General Secretary, Development, Youth Programs, and other Committees, several important items will be up for discernment including:
- A first reading of the 2024 budget
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Revisions to Faith & Practice to be considered at Annual Session
- The formation of a new Working Group
- The relocation of Opequon Quaker Camp to the Rolling Ridge Conservancy
Supporting documents will be available next week. If you need childcare at in-person Interim Meeting, please register by TOMORROW, May 27th.
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Chesapeake
Quarterly Meeting
June 11 @ Stony Run
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Chesapeake Quarterly Meeting (CQM) will meet again on Sunday, June 11th, hosted by Stony Run Friends Meeting both in person and online (hybrid). Our CQM focus will be our Meeting for Sharing after lunch, starting at 1:30pm, where we will have a chance to and hope to hear what’s going on in each of our Meetings in the Quarter. Also, we expect to hear about Maryland legislation from this year’s General Assembly, now concluded. We will hear from Quaker Voice of Maryland (QVM) and the Maryland Alliance for Justice Reform (MAJR).
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It's Not Too Late! Send Your Spiritual State of the Meeting Reports
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The Ministry and Pastoral Care Committee is looking forward to prayerfully reading the Spiritual State of the Meeting Reports submitted so far by 11 of BYM's 50 Monthly Meetings & Local Worshipping Communities. And it's not too late to submit yours! This is a joyful undertaking as Friends read and sense Spirit's movement among us and use these reports as background for the Yearly Meeting's Spiritual State of the Meeting Report. If your Meeting needs additional time - please drop a note to admin@bym-rsf.org.
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BYM Juneteenth Event
Weds, June 14, 7:00pm
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In recognition and celebration of Juneteenth, BYM's Growing Diverse Leadership Committee is sponsoring a lecture by Lucy Duncan and Rob Peagler entitled “Reparations: Alchemical Agent for Healing and Repair”. Lucy and Rob will speak about the ways they have seen reparations work as a powerful force for transformation at the relational, spiritual, and material levels. They will tell stories about its power in transmuting intrapersonal, interpersonal and systemic dynamics and as a tool for addressing the centuries old systemic harms of slavery and its afterlives, as well as the theft, genocide and dispossession of Indigenous Peoples. In addition, they will speak about the Quaker case for reparations historically and offer metaphors and concrete examples of this powerful instrument to address the root level issues of our collective complicity, both as a country and as Quakers.
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Unity with Nature: Challenge Yourself to a Plastic Free July!
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Plastic Free July is a global movement that helps millions of people be part of the solution to plastic pollution—so we can have cleaner streets, streams and oceans. The Plastic Free July website offers a quiz to assess how much you ordinarily rely on single-use plastics, and some great ideas for cutting back. Questions?
Contact the BYM Unity with Nature Committee at unitywithnature@bym-rsf.org.
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Thinking About Friends in Kenya
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In recognition of Africa Day, the BlackQuaker Project has written an extended Facebook post about the state of Quakerism on the mother continent, now home to the world’s largest population of Friends. As Quakers across the globe will be visiting Nakuru, Kenya, to participate in the 2023 FUM Triennial Gathering, a week-long intercultural worship experience, BQP encourages Friends to learn more about the modes of worship practiced by most Kenyan Quakers and the history of settler-colonialism, structural violence, and systemic racism which informs present-day conditions of Kenyan Friends.
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Sonic Spirituality: The Golden Age of Quaker Podcasts
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Quaker worship involves deep listening to promptings of the Spirit as well as to vocal ministry. In keeping with Friends’ belief in continuing revelation, we can listen for vocal ministry even in settings outside of meeting. Recently, Friends Journal highlighted five new Quaker podcasts featuring hosts who listen profoundly to create space for speakers to offer Spirit-led messages.
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One Meeting, Many Ministries |
With gratitude for abundance, some submitted articles were not printed in the 2023 Spring Interchange due to space limitations. We'll be featuring those articles here in the Weekly Announcements over the next few weeks. As always, you can submit Meeting News, photographs, and written pieces to the Interchange or the Weekly Announcements at admin@bym-rsf.org.
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I am personally very cautious about avoiding COVID. I have been grateful to find that Sandy Spring Friends Meeting makes room for many people in worship and community life. The community works to care for each other’s health, and also to include everyone. People face different levels of risk and some are more cautious than others.
We continue to have hybrid meetings for worship and meetings for worship with a concern for business. We are lucky enough to have the resources to allow many speakers and events to be hybrid as well. We request that people wear masks in our buildings, although with cases low we are considering changing this.
In addition to indoor events, we have a fire circle created earlier in the pandemic so First Day school could meet outdoors. There are fire pits for community events, benches to sit and chat on, and a recently added picnic table. Our Christmas pageant became an outdoor procession called a posada this year.
We added a small outdoor meeting for worship which became silent walks when it was too cold to sit outside. Twice a month people can join an online lunch and social time, once a week there is a Zoom potluck and meeting for worship.
All of these efforts allow more people to be part of the meeting, some far away or immunocompromised, some who simply enjoy the outdoors. They have allowed the meeting to keep gathering at times when no one could be in person.
This has taken time and work by many people in the meeting. We have been lucky enough to have the financial resources to pay for the technology. For this, I am deeply grateful. Diane McHale, Sandy Spring Friends Meeting
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More News & Notes
To submit your items for the BYM Weekly Announcements, please email Admin@bym-rsf.org.
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| Baltimore Yearly Meeting
17100 Quaker Lane | Sandy Spring, MD | 20860 USA
www.bym-rsf.org
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