Weekly Announcements, October 12, 2019

Mind the light of God in your consciences, which will show you all deceit;dwelling in it, guides out of the many things into one spirit,which cannot lie, nor deceive.  Those who are guided by it, are one.   ~ George Fox, 1624-1691

Worship	Quaker House	9:00 am		Worship	Library	10:30 am
Personal Aid	Terrace Room	9:00 am		Meeting for Business	Meeting Room	12:00 pm
Library Cttee	Library	9:00 am		Worship	Library	6:00 pm
Worship	Meeting Room	10:30 am

Reminder:  FMW's monthly Meeting for Business is this Sunday.  All are welcome.  Potluck snack and lunch items are welcome so we have something to eat beforehand.  The agenda ("Order of Worship") for Sunday's meeting are below.

Pete Seeger 100th Birthday Celebration Concert at FMW Saturday 10/12, 7pm with Magpie and Annie Patterson.  For more info & tickets:  https://www.riseupandsing.org/events/petes-100th-washington-dc [1]

FMW Open House!  Saturday, October 19, 1:00 – 3:00.  This will be a fun community gathering to welcome our neighbors—who have been very gracious as they lived through the last year of construction noise and parking hassles—to our beautiful new space.  FMW Members/attenders who can lend a hand, call the office, 202-483-3310 or email Meg Greene: margaretegreene@gmail.com [2]

What is Polite White Supremacy?, Sunday, October 20 at rise of Meeting.  Join us to explore how white supremacy is working—in  our world, our lives, and our Meeting—and to play White Fragility Bingo.  Everyone may be a winner.  For more information contact:  FMW’s Change Group for Racial Justice, dchurchm@yahoo.com [3]. 

A memorial  meeting for Deborah Froelicher Howe will be held at FMW on Sunday, Oct. 20 at 4 p.m.

Marriage of Matt Higgins and Rachel Miller-Ziegler on Thursday evening, Oct. 24, at 6 p.m. under the care of the Meeting.  Aall are welcome to attend. 

A memorial meeting for Kathy Brandt will be held at FMW on Saturday, Oct. 26 at 2 p.m. 

School for Friends pre-school still has a couple of spaces available in this fall’s class, just a couple of blocks from FMW.  If you or someone you know is looking for a great pre-school, contact Head-of-School Berna Artis, bartis@schoolforfriends.org [4]

Pastoral Care Working Group, Sunday, November 3, 9:15-10:15am.  Carriage Room.  (changed from Oct 27)  We will discuss Valerie Brown’s Pendle Hill Pamphlet #446 Coming to Light:  Cultivating Spiritual Discernment through the Quaker Clearness Committee available in FMW’s Library.  Contact:  Sabrina McCarthy, sabrina.mccarthy@verizon.net [5], 240.778.5234.

Head of Meeting
October 13:  Sanctuary Task Force            October 20:  Nominating Committee

FAMILIES AND CHILDREN ARE WELCOME

First Day School begins at 10:30 each Sunday. If you come later than 10:30, please stay a moment with your child to help them settle into the class. Children in FDS are reunited with their parents in the final minutes of Meeting for Worship.

Points of Contacts for First Day School:  Allen Fawcett, aafawcett@gmail.com [6], Jacob Ritting, j_ritting@hotmail.com [7], and Cait Hone at FMWYouthProgram@gmail.com [8].  Jacob: 202-365-3914.

Child Care is available for parents needing a respite during worship. Children age 0 to 4 will be lovingly tended in the Decatur Place Room from 10:20 am to Noon on Sunday. Please contact Cait at: FMWYouthProgram@gmail.com [8].

Email FMWYouth Program@gmail.com [8] for any child care related questions. Child Care is also available for all ages of children during events on our campus upon request.

FMW is pleased to offer an opportunity to families who would like to have the Meeting officially welcome their children into our community. Anyone interested in such a welcoming, please contact Gray Handley, handleygr@niaid.nih.gov [9]

ADDITIONAL WORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES

Meeting for Worship 9:00 AM Sunday.  Held in the Quaker House Living Room, this Meeting for Worship has a special invitation to silence seekers. "Quietness enough not only to know our own minds, but to listen to the still small voice."  Child care is not available.  

Meeting for Worship 6:00 PM Sunday. Held in the Parlor, this Meeting for Worship offers a sustaining opportunity for worship at the end of the weekend. Child care is not available.

Mid-Week Meeting for Worship, Tuesday, 6:00 PM in the Library. Persons seeking to worship during the week should consider this Meeting. Child care is not available.

OTHER ITEMS OF INTEREST

The FMW webpage is available at www.quakersdc.org [10]  To access the non-public pages, the log-in ID is FMW– the password is Discern. To join the FMW Listserv, or to be included in the Meeting’s Online Directory, send an e-mail to: admin@quakersdc.org [11]  To phone the Meeting Office, call 202.483.3310.    To use WiFi in the Meetinghouse, the network is FMW and the password is simplicity. The Meeting’s Facebook page is www.facebook.com/FriendsMeetingOfWashington [12].

Young Adult Friends - Anyone interested in learning about Young Adult Friends at FMW or who would like the join the YAF list-serve, please contact Rebecca Nelson (rebecca@americasolidaria.org [13]). Young adults are between the ages of 18 and 40ish.

Martha’s Table needs nonperishable food items on an ongoing basis.  Donations are collected in the basket near the Meeting House’s Decatur Pl entrance. For more info call Pam Callard (202) 829-9577.

Personal Aid is looking for gift cards for grocery stores, Target, etc. These will be given to our vulnerable members and attenders as needed. Please contact Mary Melchior, email:  mulchness@gmail.com 

If you have maintenance concerns or accessibility issues, please contact Property Committee, Merry Pearlstein (202-244-8777 or merrypearlstein@gmail.com [14]). 

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Order of Worship
FMW Monthly Meeting for Worship with Concern for Business

Sunday, October 13, 2019

Clerk’s Report, October 2019

In Memoriam

• Memorial service for Kathy Brandt, October 26, 2:00 p.m.

Upcoming Events

• FMW Open House, Saturday, October 19, 12:00 - 3:00 pm

• “Polite White Supremacy” workshop on October 20, noon to 1:00 pm

• Virginia Friends are reminded to register to vote by October 15 so you can vote at the polls on November 5, 2019.

FMW Events Manager Update

• We have booked just over $70,000 in event rentals so far in the current fiscal year that began July 1st. High Holiday services for Jewish synagogue Bet Mishpachah occurred in good order and we received much positive feedback from them about how well our spaces fit their needs. Please let any individuals or organizations you work with know about our availability to host weddings, conferences, and other events in our spaces.

Major Business

Membership Committee, Robb Farr: 

•  1st presentation for membership of Petra'Rahim Solomon Carnes

Name Search Committee, Gene Throwe:

• Virginia Avanesyan and Greg Robb

Marriage and Family Relations, Debby Churchman:

• Second presentation at MfB for the marriage of Carla Salgado and Guy Martorana in December

Committee of Clerks Report, Betsy Bramon 

Property Committee, Merry Pearlstein

• Renaming rooms at FMW

Other Business

Memorial Minute-Deborah Froelicher Howe-Hayden Weztel

 

ADDENDA

Memorial Minute:  Deborah Froelicher Howe
11 July 1920-29 May 2019

Deborah Froelicher Howe came to the Friends Meeting of Washington by transfer from the Arch Street Friends Meeting (Philadelphia) in 1951.  She was born in 1920 in Baltimore to Francis Mitchell Froelicher and Elizabeth Collins Lowery, the latter a relative of this Meeting’s member Grace Lowery.  She married Fisher Howe in 1945.

    Fisher Howe was a State Department officer and the couple frequently lived out of the country on assignment.  Indeed, at the time of her transfer of membership Friend Deborah was in Europe. In the year before requesting membership she had begun volunteering in this Meeting’s Clothing Workroom, an outreach activity held in Quaker House.

    The birth of her daughter Elizabeth (1951) and son Shippen (1955) drew the Friend’s time away from the Meeting. The Overseers Committee in 1956 noted, “It is possible that the combination of small children and husband’s essential [professional] demands make it difficult for Deborah to attend Meeting.  She is a sensitive, intelligent young woman.”

    Deborah Howe’s communications with our Meeting after this time mostly related to her family’s residence abroad: The Hague, Oslo.  She conscientiously kept her address current with us and included short, affectionate notes on her current activities, including attendance at the “very small meeting” in the Hague.

    She and her husband did return to the U.S., first to Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, and in time to Washington, by the 1990s, when she taught modern dance from her home.  In 2000 the couple settled in the Ingleside at Rock Creek retirement community. She joined Friends in serving the monthly International Student House tea. Fisher died in 2015 and our member Deborah in 2019.

    Her family remembers her as a quiet, intelligent and sympathetic presence:  “A woman of peace, she invariably would lift your spirits after having any type of interaction with her.”

 

Minutes, Committee of Clerks

9/29/2019

Meeting began at 9:23 am.

Present: Debby Churchman, Dan Dozier, Betsy Bramon, Rob Farr, Faith Williams, Susan Griffin, Bill Foskett, Allen Faucett, Virginia Avanesyan, Mary Melchior, Gray Handley, Neil Froemming, Merry Pearlstein, Elaine Wilson, Ken Orvis, Rebecca Nelson, Bill Strein, Gene Throwe

Major Items

Finance and Stewardship request regarding committee finances (Bill Foskett)

Clerk reminds that if you’re led to do something you haven’t budgeted for, come to F&S to discuss it. We are here to develop our spiritual life and work for social justice. Also, we’re getting to be a much more complex meeting, and approach to financing may become more formalized.

If someone needs reimbursement, put a package together with receipts, what is expense, what it’s for, what committee. Clerk of committee needs to sign off. We do have a check request form, which Ken will forward to CoC. That form needs an additional line saying that in lieu of a check, the requester asks for tax credit. The form is currently available on our website (http://quakersdc.org/sites/default/files/F%26S.Check_.request.form_.pdf [15] ). Clerks would like someone to convert this to a pdf that can be filled out online. Perhaps we need a separate page under committees called Forms.

​Property Committee Request re: cleanup after room use (Merry Pearlstein)

Clerk thanks everyone for tolerating the mess and confusion of construction, and asks for continued forbearance as we bring the place up to date. All our spaces do have multiple uses, so please return space to the condition in which you found it (or better).

We’re trying to have some easily used and stored system for nametags. People are not re-alphabetizing their nametags.

Need to know new process for entering the building. Current system is that there is an automatic door opener with keypad. Either call the office/tenants, or FOPs will have a new 5-digit code. There is a separate code for getting into the office.

Will probably be removing key to old door out of key box and putting in key to new door in the key box.We need to all learn new system and to be very mindful of security, for the safety of our attenders and clients.

 

 

1. [Read ahead] Reflections on White Supremacy Culture Reading 

Link to reading: http://stillspeakingjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/WhiteSupremacyCulture.pdf [16]

Clerk Betsy Bramon engaged us in a deep encounter with a document outlining the attributes of a white supremacy culture, offering space to reflect to consider ways we can be more accessible and self-aware as a community that calls for equality of all people. Clerks are reminded that the Meeting as a whole will be engaging with this document with a workshop October 20th at rise of meeting. We are urged to consider, as committees, how our decisions and decision-making process may inadvertently be reflecting white supremacy, and work to become more inclusive and anti-racist in our work

Affirmations

1. New Clerks

2. Committee Milestones

3. Community Engagement

   1. Committee Fair! Thanks to Rebecca Nelson for organizing

Light

1. Illness & hospital stays: Steve Chase in ICU.

2. Deaths & births

Announcements & Follow Up

1. Bet Mishpacha Jewish Community’s high holy days have begun at FMW, this is the first time they are being hosted at our Meeting. Please welcome them!

2. Olivia James is starting an explicitly Christ-Centered Quaker Meeting in DC (thelightiseverywhere@gmail.com [17])

3. Upcoming Event: 9/29 @ Noon: Quaker Volunteer Service’s Claire Hannepel 

4. Upcoming Event: 10/6 @ 1pm FCNL DC Advocacy team workshop at FMW. Register here [18].  Emilie Schmeidler & Galina Sergen are FMW points of contact.

5. Ongoing:

   1. Hospitality volunteers: Contact Greg Robb/Barbara Briggs

   2. Committee list updates: Please send ongoing updates of new members to Nominating, Website, & Administrative Secretary.

   3. Committee outreach & institutionalization: Please continue your inventory (or creation!) of outreach documents, note taking & tracking of committee work. Consider a central google drive folder to share your work.  Try to do basic outreach to share with folks in the meeting about the work of your committee. Need some help? Talk to your clerks, Betsy, Gene or Debby!

6. William Penn House is going through a transition. Currently undergoing reconstruction.

7. Mary Melchior has taken up the mission of sending cards to folks. Send her info about folks who could use a card.

Attachments:

-       White Supremacy Culture by Tema Okun   www.dismantlingracism.org [19]