Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting Executive Committee Meeting Minutes
Second Month 3, 2023
Hosted by North Meadow Circle of Friends (Indianapolis)
1. Opening Worship: The meeting opened with centering worship at 12 pm.
2. Introductions: The clerk invited Friends to introduce themselves.
3. Roll Call: The Recording Clerk reviewed the roll of Yearly Meeting officers and administrators, Committee Clerks, Quarterly and Monthly Meeting Representatives, and Yearly Meeting staff.
Yearly Meeting officers:
Presiding Clerk: Barry Zalph
Assistant Presiding Clerk: Rachel Ernst Stahlhut
Recording Clerk: Cecilia Shore
Assistant Recording Clerk:
Lisa Cayard
Treasurer: Wilson Palmer
Assistant Treasurer: Cathy Habschmidt
Committee Clerks:
Budget & Finance: David Garman
Children’s Committee: Susan Hyde
Earthcare: David Duvall
Nominating: Rick Boyce
Personnel: Wilson Palmer Religious Nurture & Education: Rex Sprouse
Yearly Meeting Planning: Ben Griffith, Martha Viehmann
Youth Services: David Hyde
Ad hoc Restructuring Committee: Christine Carver, Paul Buckley
Quarterly Meeting Clerks:
Miami: Nikki Coffey Tousley
Whitewater: Christine Carver
Monthly Meeting representatives:
Bloomington: Rex Sprouse, Christine Carver
Campus: absent
Clear Creek: Cathy Habschmidt, Rachel Ernst Stahlhut
Community: Eric Wolff and Lisa Cayard
Dayton: Nikki Coffey Tousley
Eastern Hills: Wilson Palmer and Martha Viehmann
Fall Creek: Daniel Day, Diann Herzog
Fort Wayne: Mary Anna Feitler
Lafayette: absent
Lexington: Ben Griffith, Adam Funck
Louisville: Cindi Goslee
Miami: Travis Cook
North Meadow: David Duvall
Oxford: Cecilia Shore
White Rose: absent
Yellow Springs: Susan Hyde, David Hyde, Carol Simmons
Yearly Meeting staff:
Administrative Assistant: Susan Lee Barton
Youth Secretary: Adam Funck
Administrators:
Statistician: Peter Hardy
Website Administrator: Daniel Day
Records Coordinator: Susan Hyde
Quaker Quill Editor: Cecilia Shore
Publications Coordinator: absent
Registrar: Eric Wolff
4. Agenda Review. No changes were made.
5. Miami Quarterly Meeting report—Nikki Coffey Tousley. Please see attached report. The Quarter met January 28 at Yellow Springs, including 4 child participants. JP Lund provided the program. The Spring Grove trustees report that the funds needed for engineering sites at Spring Grove cemetery have been raised. Miami Quarter will meet April 28 at Miami Meeting, cohosted by Oxford. The program will be provided by Dayton. Friends accepted the report.
On 1/28/2024, Miami Quarter agreed to update the description of the Miami Quarterly Meeting Cincinnati Fund as described in the OVYM Handbook. We removed a phrase indicating where a portion of the principal of the fund is kept, as the information was no longer correct. The money is now in a CD, but we do not feel that information is necessary and it may be prudent in the future to move to another form of investment. We also changed the maximum amount of grants from $200 to $250, as discerned at the Fall 2023 Miami Quarterly Meeting. Executive Committee approved the change.
6. Whitewater Quarterly Meeting report—Christine Carver. The Quarter met Jan. 21. The Quarter will host a joint quarterly meeting at Happy Hollow on Oct 19-20. Three Friends have agreed to serve on the planning committee. One of the buildings we have reserved includes bathrooms. Friends accepted the report.
7. Youth Secretary’s report—Adam Funck. Please see attached report. Three youth and 1 child gathered at Yellow Springs Friends January 28. They went to the Dayton Art Institute, and enjoyed handling items in the children’s area before seeing the exhibits upstairs. Three adult Friends accompanied them. A gathering in Oxford is planned in April. Friends accepted the report. Diann Herzog noted that there are youth at Fall Creek who would like to be involved.
8. Ad hoc Restructuring Committee report—Paul Buckley. The committee suggests a proposal to promote connections between monthly meetings, via intervisitation, promoted by Religious Nurture and Education, and at least 3 fellowship gatherings per year, facilitated by a new Gatherings committee. The ad hoc committee also proposes hiring a paid Social Action Coordinator to empower, support, cross-fertilize, and encourage the social action work being done by OVYM monthly meetings. Both of these proposals are experiments to be tried for 3 years. One Friend pointed out that monthly meetings have not had the opportunity to review these proposals. Paul replied that the proposal was distributed first to Executive Committee to refine the proposal before seeking input from monthly meetings, and that the ad hoc committee will consider another round of visits to monthly meetings. Suggestions/comments on the gatherings proposal included: more frequent Zoom/hybrid gatherings, a concern for staffing the Gatherings Committee (Paul clarified that this would not be a planning committee, but to facilitate monthly meetings who would be willing to host and do the planning, and that this would be an experiment to test feasibility). Regarding the social action coordinator, Paul reminded us that one concern had been the availability of people to be hired—the committee has identified potential candidates, and took note of a suggestion that proper supervision was needed. A question was raised about the number of hours. The committee recognizes that this needs to be decided, along with a job description, the pay scale, and the support needed for such a person. Paul welcomed objections and the identification of potential problems so that they can be taken into account before the experiment. Friends accepted the ad hoc committee’s report.
9. Planning Committee report—Martha Viehmann. Planning is well underway for Annual Sessions and will be published in the Quill. Please see attached report.
The Planning Committee submitted a revision to the OVYM Handbook which is intended to:
- Align description with our current practices.
- Use clearer punctuation.
- Add the important role of selecting a site.
- Add a description of the basic duties of the Registrar.
- Add details related to tax filing for higher honoraria
Friends approved the proposed handbook changes with a minor correction to make tax filing necessary for sums at or above the IRS threshold.
10. Annual Sessions Zoom & AV support proposal. At the last Executive Committee meeting, Friends approved relieving the committee of COVID policy planning and agreed to discuss this and annual sessions teleconferencing. Barry Zalph, Susan Lee Barton, and Ben Griffith will serve as a working committee to write and publicize an informal job description to do Zoom support for business, plenaries, living witness sessions and limited workshops as possible at this year’s annual sessions, preferably staffed by someone from yearly meeting. We entrust planning committee to hire and supervise this person, and to include this cost in the cost of annual sessions. It was noted that we did ask for a nominal contribution from attendees by Zoom. We agreed to adopt Earlham’s COVID rules, with a note that vaccination is encouraged and masks are required if one has had symptoms.
11. Treasurer’s Report—Wilson Palmer. Please see the appended report. The report was accepted without questions.
12. Audit Committee Report—Cathy Habschmidt. Please see the appended report. The committee examined the records for the 22-23 fiscal year and found one error, which was corrected in the current fiscal year. They commend the treasurer for his high standards and transparency. The treasurer thanked the committee for their work. Friends accepted the report.
13. Budget & Finance Committee report—David Garman. The treasurer proposed a budget based on last year’s spending. Committees or staff should let David know if they need to change their allocation. We have not changed the proportional allocation from meetings for several years; partly due to lower expenses during the intervening years, and partly due to good returns on our investments. Meetings are notified annually about their expected proportional contribution. We accepted the committee report.
14. Nominating Committee Report—Rick Boyce. The committee has been active, and have resolved an ambiguity regarding the Publications Coordinators. The committee requests Susan Lee to send out a reminder to meetings that have not appointed a representative to the nominating committee to do so. Friends accepted the report.
15. Religious Nurture & Education (RNE) Committee Report—Rex Sprouse.
As your meeting prepares your State of the Meeting report, please be aware that RNE uses this information both to craft the State of Society report and to learn how to best serve the needs of constituent meetings; so please be candid about the spiritual state of your meeting.
An overnight spring retreat is scheduled for 3rd Month, 15-16 at Quaker Hill (Richmond, IN), with the theme of “Wellsprings of Hope”. The speaker will be Stephanie Crumley-Effinger. Retreat Online Registration is now open at: https://form.jotform.com/240034078164147. The committee encourages Friends to spend the night. Events will end at about 9 pm on Friday, and 3:30 pm on Saturday. Participants can pay online or mail a check. Friends accepted the report with excitement.
16. Administrative update regarding software—Susan Lee Barton.
Susan Lee Barton distributed and reviewed a list of software that is available through OVYM, including Jotform, Slack, Dropbox, our website, Google calendar, and email as well as tools used by the administrative assistant. Please update your monthly meeting information on the OVYM website, and post announcements on the yearly meeting site. Susan Lee is very willing to help people use these tools. We accepted the report with gratitude.
17. Yearly Meeting communication.
How do we balance between keeping people informed, vs. flooding people’s inboxes? One proposal is to opt-in on the website to subscribe to different channels: events, committee proposals, or new publications. Another is to make it clearer that it is the responsibility of Executive Committee members to keep their meetings apprised of events at Yearly Meeting. Another possibility is to send occasional newsletters via email—Susan Lee already does send these to meeting clerks, some of whom have asked to be unsubscribed. One Friend reminded us that pdfs can be opened on a greater variety of devices. Barry and Susan Lee and Daniel will try an experiment in improving communications. It will take the form of an email to everyone in the OVYM directory offering an opt-in link to each of the above three streams of YM correspondence. These opt-in links will remain available on the OVYM website. This action was approved.
19. Announcements.
- April 15 is the deadline for memorial minutes, state of the meeting reports and committee reports-in-advance.
- Susan Lee will soon distribute forms for the statistical report, due by the end of this month.
- Tim Gee of FWCC sent a letter announcing resources for the 400th anniversary of George Fox’s birth, and also ways to be a hub for the World Plenary.
- Nonprofits can take a tax credit for solar and energy conservation by making a contribution to their contractors.
- FGC is doing an online retreat for Encountering the Divine April 12-14. For more information, see: Encountering Spirit (FCG): https://www.fgcquaker.org/fgcprograms/spiritual-deepening-program/-spirit-retreat-info-hub/.
- We have heard a request for a Friend who will serve as a hub for connection among pro-life Friends in OVYM. Is there someone who feels led to serve as a point of contact? Contact Susan Lee at admin@ovym.org.
20. The minutes were approved as read and corrected.
21. Closing Worship: The meeting closed with silent worship.
The next meeting will be held April 6, 2024, at noon. Hosts: Miami Monthly Meeting 169 S 4th St, Waynesville, OH, 45068
Minutes recorded by Cecilia Shore (dates for FGC retreat updated after the meeting)
