Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting Executive Committee Meeting
8/24/2024
hosted by Dayton Monthly Meeting, 345 Wyoming Street, Dayton, OH 45410
1. Opening Worship. We settled into worship at 12:15 pm.
2. Roll Call. The recording clerk called the roll of yearly meeting officers, committee clerks, quarterly and monthly meeting representatives, and yearly meeting staff.
Yearly Meeting officers
Presiding Clerk: Barry Zalph
Assistant Presiding Clerk: absent
Recording Clerk: Cecilia Shore
Assistant Recording Clerk: Terre Holada
Treasurer: absent
Assistant Treasurer: Cathy Habschmidt
Committee Clerks:
Budget & Finance: David Garman
Children’s Committee: absent
Earthcare: David Duvall
Nominating: Rick Boyce
Personnel: Dinah Duvall
Religious Nurture & Education: Rex Sprouse
Yearly Meeting Planning: Martha Viehmann, Ben Griffith
Youth Services: Carol Simmons, David Hyde
Quarterly Meeting Clerks:
Miami: Nikki Coffey-Tousley
Whitewater: Peggy Spohr
Monthly Meeting representatives:
Bloomington: Rex Sprouse
Campus: absent
Clear Creek: Cathy Habschmidt
Community: Eric Wolff
Dayton: Nikki Coffey Tousley
Eastern Hills: Martha Viehmann
Fall Creek: Ellen Hodge
Fort Wayne: Terre Holada
Lafayette: absent
Lexington: Ben Griffith
Louisville: Perry Thomas
Miami: Travis Cook
North Meadow: Dinah Duvall
Oxford: Cecilia Shore
White Rose: absent
Yellow Springs: Carol Simmons
Yearly Meeting staff:
Administrative Assistant: Susan Lee Barton
Youth Secretary: absent
3. Introductions: The clerk asked for other Friends to introduce themselves, including Paul Buckley (publications), Susan Hyde (archivist), Peter Hardy (statistician), Mary Anna Feitler.
4. Agenda Review. The clerk reviewed the agenda and some revisions were approved.
5. Personnel Committee: new nominees – Barry Zalph. Steve Angell still has this year remaining on the committee, and the treasurer is ex officio. We approved with thanks Dinah Duvall’s continuation on the committee.
6. Administrative Assistant’s report, with action items – Susan Lee Barton. Please see attached report. The Annual Sessions minute books are ready for distribution. Susan Lee reports being swamped and not being able to respond quickly. She emphasized the importance of Executive Committee members, meetings and committees meeting deadlines so as to not interfere with subsequent tasks being done in a timely fashion. She will distribute a list of those deadlines to Executive Committee and monthly meeting clerks. Please plan ahead! Barry added that Susan Lee’s work for FGC is very important to us and that he relies on her expertise heavily.
7. Administrative Assistant’s annual performance review—Barry Zalph. Feedback and suggestions are welcome regarding both Susan Lee’s work and the administrative assistant’s job description. Please send to clerk@ovym.org by September 27.
8. Handbook revisions: Please look at the Handbook for your position and make sure it fits.
- Administrative Assistant. The proposed revision was approved.
- Treasurer and Assistant Treasurer (3.2.5). The proposed revision was approved with the removal of the word “presiding” before treasurer. We approved revising Section 3.2.4 to be consistent with those changes.
- Publications Coordinator. The proposed revision was approved, with the addition of codifying the term of the coordinator to run September 1 to August 31 so that the same person coordinates materials before and after Annual Sessions.
- Editor, Quaker Quill. We approved the proposed revision, with the addition of fixing “October” issue to September, approved to simplify the fall issue report on Annual Sessions to include photos and epistles, and with expanding in the May issue details of yearly meeting to include sessions, schedule, youth activities and registration information, and making the deadline for submissions for that issue to be April 1.
- In the course of this discussion, questions were raised about the final list of approved nominees for roles—how should it should be published and who carries that out, as well as how we could streamline the production of the directory.
9. Social Action Coordinator position – Barry Zalph
Cathy Habschmidt described the “Strawberry Creek meeting” process for nominations, which we used in the discernment of nominees for this committee.
- Nomination of hiring committee. The first choices are: Rachel Ernst Stahlhut, Paul Buckley, Steve Angell, Jana Schroeder, and Liz Virgo. Second choices are: Uta Brewington as a backup for Liz or Rachel, Chris Harmer as a backup for any of the others. We approved Paul Buckley to convene the first meeting and to contact this group by September 1 to obtain 3-5 members. The hiring committee will collaborate with Personnel Committee to construct necessary documents for a prospective employee. The goal is to have a prospective employee to approve at the next Executive Committee meeting. Membership in OVYM is not a requirement for being hired into this position.
- Appointment of supervisory committee. Tabled until Eleventh Month.
10. Treasurer’s report Q&A—Barry Zalph and Cathy Habschmidt. The end-of-year numerical report is misleading for a number of reasons. The Treasurer’s best estimate is that we ended last year with a modest $2,000-3,000 gain. Apparently, few people took advantage of the Benevolent Fund to subsidize attendance at Annual Sessions, which may imply that there are better ways to make use of that fund. We expressed gratitude to Wilson Palmer for his faithful service to help us understand the big picture and inform decisions. A question for later discernment is whether it would be a good idea to adjust the timing of our fiscal years. We accepted the treasurer’s report with gratitude.
11. Funding for staff positions – Barry Zalph. The clerk raised the question of how we are to discern how to be good stewards of our financial resources and how we raise funds to meet the leadings of the Spirit.
12. Religious Nurture & Education Committee: report – Rex Sprouse. Please see the attached report. Susan Lee Barton added that it is hoped that each monthly meeting will designate a representative to attend trainings about preventing and responding to adult sexual misconduct (not necessarily to serve on the Sexual Misconduct Response Team). The report was accepted as read.
13. Nominating Committee: report, with nominations – Rick Boyce. For Gatherings committee: Lisa Cayard (3 years) was approved at YM. Additional nominations were approved: Sandy Felt (3 years), Jana Schroeder (3 years), and Mary Anna Feitler (1 year). It was also noted that Community, Oxford, Eastern Hills and Layfayette meetings need to renew or appoint people to nominating committee. Bloomington, Campus, Louisville, Miami and Yellow Springs currently do not have representatives on nominating committee and are requested to name someone.
14. Implementation of Adult Sexual Misconduct policy – Susan Lee Barton. The committee is seeking nominations for the Sexual Misconduct Response Team. Please contact Rex Sprouse or Susan Lee Barton.
15. Planning Committee. Martha Viehmann. Evaluations were few but positive. The committee thanks respondents for their feedback and suggestions for speakers. The committee is looking for a location for Annual Sessions, as Earlham has not yet committed. Please send ideas to planning@ovym.org. Barry reports having written directly to the president of Earlham to try to build a secure relationship with them. We approved this minute as read.
16. Whitewater Quarterly Meeting report – Peggy Spohr. Joint Quarterly meeting will be Oct. 19-20 under the care of Whitewater Quarter and registration will go live Sept. 5 on the OVYM website. Bloomington will host a fellowship gathering in September. Peggy has been in contact with each of the members of White Rose to learn their intentions as a monthly meeting. This minute was approved as read.
17. Miami Quarterly Meeting. No report at this time.
18. Monthly Meeting Updates were heard.
19. Announcements were heard.
20. Minutes were approved as they were completed during the meeting.
21. We closed with waiting worship at 4:10 pm.
The next meeting will be Eleventh Month, 9, at noon, at The interfaith Center, 16 S. Campus, Oxford, OH, hosted by Oxford Meeting.
