Weekly Announcements for June 26, 2026 

The BYM Office will be closed Friday, July 3rd for the July 4th Holiday

A letter and email went out this week to all BYM local worshipping communities from the BYM Faith and Practice Committee. The Committee seeks your help as BYM begins its next round of revisions to Faith and Practice - the section on prejudice and discrimination. We need your input to know how to describe our faith and our practice in Baltimore Yearly Meeting today. Each BYM worshipping community is asked to conduct a listening session at your local worshipping community by November 2026 and then share in writing with what you feel our Faith & Practice needs to say. The Committee offers documents with information, advices, and queries on conducting your listening sessions. 

In addition, this summer at Annual Session on Thursday, July 30, at 2pm, the BYM Faith and Practice Committee will offer a workshop. After some brief background and setup, the workshop will focus on holding a listening session, hoping to model how you might do it.

Minutes from our June 20, 2026 Interim Meeting will be available next week. The Meeting included a preview of the 2027 budget, which will come to Annual Session for approval. Friends are encouraged to read through the budget preview materials, which are now available on the Stewardship & Finance page at the link below. Questions or concerns about the 2027 budget or plan of apportionment can be brought to the next meeting of the Stewardship & Finance Committee on Monday, July 6th at 7:00pm or by email to SandF@bym-rsf.org. 

Chesapeake Quarter will meet on June 28 at Sandy Spring Friends Meeting. This quarter's meeting will include the special program Faith & Practice Information & Listening Session on Prejudice & Discrimination Revisions. Chesapeake Quarter includes Friends from Annapolis, Stony Run, Gunpowder,  Homewood Friends Meeting; Little Falls, Patapsco, Patuxent, and Sandy Spring Friends Meetings, but all Friends are welcome to attend. 

Did you know that children (birth - 8th grade) attend Annual Session for FREE? Baltimore Yearly Meetings cares about the spiritual lives of children - and of parents and families. At BYM Annual Sessions, children gather each day for Junior Yearly Meeting (JYM). JYM offers children the opportunity to learn about our shared Quaker values, develop socially, make new friendships, and have lots of fun. (JYM also provides safe, nurturing childcare so parents can attend business meetings, workshops, and plenaries!) Children gather each day in age groups under the care of BYM's Religious Education Committee, JYM volunteers, and a few paid childcare providers vetted through BYM's Youth Safety Policy. Sometimes JYM engages in child-focused activities like the popular games of capture-the-flag. Other times, JYM joins or leads the regular programming of Annual Session - such as the JYM Report to Business Meeting and hosting the beloved open mic night. Registration for Annual Session closes July 11th!

JYM is still seeking volunteers for our 2026 program. Whether you can volunteer all week or share a game/skill one afternoon, we need your help! Please email Erik Hanson, Clerk of RE/JYM, at erikjhanson@gmail.com to volunteer! 

Public Friend Emily Provance (New York Yearly Meeting) invites BYM Friends to an August workshop series about engaging with our neighbors. How do we navigate deep social divisions over deeply important questions while avoiding patterns that can lead to violence? Ten sessions in August offer Friends an change to explore perspectives and strategies–some faith-based, some secular–that can help us build robust communities across deep social fractures. Come for as many or as few sessions as you'd like! 

The Annual Session used bookstore continues to seek:

• Gently use books of all kind
• Gently used Quaker t-shirts and tote bags
• Vendors to consign their arts and craft
• BYM authors for a special book signing events at the bookstore!

Used books and items can be dropped off or mailed to the BYM office. To sign-up as a vendor or BYM author, please email bookstore@bym-rsf.org.

Tomorrow, more than 200 campers and their families will arrive at Catoctin, Shiloh, Opequon, and Teen Adventure Quaker Camps! Saturday's "camper drop-off" kicks off the first of three, two-week sessions at our residential camps for younger campers and the epic, three-week backpacking trip for our older campers enrolled in Teen Adventure. Over the next six weeks, our skilled and exuberant camp staff will shepherd hundreds of campers through a summer filled with screen-free community, play, joy, and challenge. Please join the senior leadership of our summer camps - Zora Tucker (Camping Program Manager) and David Hunter (Camping Property Manager) - in holding our staff and our campers in the Light over the next six weeks. BYM Quaker Camps are truly a community effort, and we are grateful for all the many hands that make camp possible. Baltimore Yearly Meeting is proud to continue its 104-year-old legacy of Quaker spiritual formation for young people amidst the majesty of the Appalachian Mountains. 

To submit your items for the BYM Weekly Announcements,
please email Admin@bym-rsf.org. 

Baltimore Yearly Meeting
17100 Quaker Lane | Sandy Spring, MD | 20860 USA
www.bym-rsf.org

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17100 Quaker Lane | Sandy Spring, MD 20860 US