|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
SPRING
1999Jack Mahon, Woodstown Monthly Meeting
Clerk, Salem Quarter Steering CommitteeWhere do you want to go today?”
We have heard the corporate question in the media. And it’s fine if some of us are unclear as to the exact nature of the question, let alone the answer to it. Not surprisingly, though, understanding any question is a large part of formulating its answer. Our corporate question might be expanded: “Where do you want to go this year?”
Each year the Steering Committee supervising Salem Quarterly Meeting’s Coordinator sets goals for itself and, by extension, for the Coordinator. Accordingly, each year’s goals are evaluated. How did we do last year? Should we continue in the same vein for the coming year? Should we try something more ambitious? Or did we overreach? It’s an exercise in trying to balance our visions for the future against our honest appraisal of our capabilities.
Last year the Steering Committee came to realize that the goals for the Committee and the Coordinator should also be the goals for the Quarter, and vice versa. We asked the monthly meetings to tell us what our goals ought to be. The responses we got back from them were few; maybe as word spreads and meetings pursue goals together, the responses will increase and begin to coalesce.
Each year’s goals are presented to Quarterly Meeting and printed in Salem Quarter News; the next two pages are the goals we will be pursuing in the coming year. In addition, I would like to highlight some of the newer ones and others to which I believe we will be devoting special attention in 1999.
Organizationally, some of the goals have been rewritten to better define the coordinator’s role in working with committees and other groups functioning within the Quarter. For example, he is charged with providing support for the Quarterly Meeting Worship and Ministry Committee, the Outreach Committee, the Quarter Retreat planning group, Tri-Quarterly Gathering, and any youth activity group. It should be clear that while he is not a member of these groups, if they need help with publicity, communications, mailing, registrations, etc., the Steering Committee wishes to provide that help.
In the area of outreach, we intend to continue things like the Quarter picnic, the Quarter retreat, and the Quarter calendar. We also wish to encourage monthly meetings to inspect the signage at their properties. If a meeting would like to replace, upgrade, or initiate a sign (saying, for example, that Quakers meet here on Sunday mornings at 10:00 am), the Quarterly Meeting will help with finding such signs, look at bulk quantities for more than one monthly meeting, or help with applying to Yearly Meeting for a Membership Development Grant.
The Steering Committee would like the proper person, or persons, to come forward and inventory, collect, and protect the records and archives of the Quarterly Meeting. More than that, we would like to disseminate the information and history in our possession. It does us little good to have it all stored in file boxes.
We want the Coordinator’s office and Salem Quarterly News to be a clearinghouse for First-day School teachers. We can publish ideas, lessons, and classes that have worked for you and will probably work for others. We can coordinate trips by your First-day School to another First-day School. We can put teachers and child care people in touch with others in the Quarter and in the PYM region. In response to a specific request from a monthly meeting, we plan to present a program for our youth concerned with the Selective Service, conscientious objection, and military service.
We have added a new goal this year: testimonies. Partly this was an outgrowth of last summer’s retreat on that topic. We have discussed the possibility of again implementing the Congressional Seminars and legislative visits.
Please read through our goals. Please tell the Steering Committee where you think Salem Quarterly Meeting should be going this year. And, if you are going somewhere, think about taking us along.
RETURN TO TABLE OF CONTENTS
Last modified:
Wednesday, February 18, 2004 at 08:19 AM
