How Should We Organize our Meeting?

Friends Meetings have no paid staff; we depend on volunteers to do the tasks that keep Meetings running and to provide the collective discernment of the right path forward. To do this, we have traditionally relied on formal committees. Recently, this has not worked well.

• Even before COVID, we had trouble filling several of our committees; now, it is impossible to do so.
• We have tried giving more tasks to fewer committees, but those committees are now spread too thin. Tasks often fail to get done or fall to the 'usual suspects' to do them.
• We have tried leaving things to individuals, but worry that this does not provide the collective discernment that is one of the hallmarks of the Quaker way.

We need to think together about other ways to organize ourselves for the post-COVID era. Please join us on Sunday, September 11th, for a (first) forum/discussion on Meeting organization. We need your help identifying:

• the problems with our current structure,
• the tasks that are crucial for us to do, and
• possible ways to organize ourselves so that those tasks get done with joy rather than as burdens.

Jim Spickard will facilitate the Forum.