Minutes, Nurture Coordinating Committee, 11-11-2017

NURTURE COORDINATING COMMITTEE MEETING

November 11, 2017 - Fall Sessions 2017, Caldwell NJ

Present: Jeffrey Aaron, Acting Clerk, Melanie-Claire Mallison, Dennis Haag, Abigail Burford, Melinda Wenner Bradley, Fred Dettmer, Dare Thompson, Rima Segal, Susan Stillman, Charlene Ray, Michael Clark, Lucinda Antrim, Karen Snare, Regina Haag, Ed Seliger, Jillian Kiana Smith, Steve Mohlke, Callie Janoff, Howard Gibbs-Hobgood, Christine DeRoller

1. Friends settled into worship. We introduced ourselves around the circle.

2. The annual ARCH grant has been out for review and is now before us for consideration. APPROVED.

3. The Young Adult Concerns Committee has not functioning for at least a year. The former clerk of YACC, Glenn Josey, confirmed that there are three named members to YACC and they are inactive. The committee never minuted agreement to be laid down because they have not met. Friends spoke movingly regarding the committee, the work, the challenges, and the path this committee provides for younger Friends moving into adulthood.
The sense of this group is that it is time to lay down the Young Adult Concerns Committee. Approved.
The hard part is what happens next? The Yearly Meeting has a responsibility to care for its members, seekers and attenders, to raise up our practices, and to inform the community no matter their age of the ways to bring energy to their gifts, their concerns, and their path to supporting their faith via emergent leadership. The opportunity before us is to share this responsibility across the yearly meeting, across our monthly meetings -- creating inclusion and energy at every turn and in every circle.

4. Nurture Coordinating Committee is without a clerk. Liaison Committee asked our YM assistant clerk to serve as acting clerk until the end of these Fall Sessions. Fred Dettmer took over as acting clerk so that the YM assistant clerk could present a trial proposal from Liaison Committee for next steps. The first step the Liaison Committee recommends is to suspend NCC in the absence of a person led to be clerk and the lack of active participation in the life of the Coordinating Committee by its constituents. Second, four of the affiliates under the care of NCC (FUM, FWCC, FGC, and Oakwood Friends School) would be grouped as "Affiliates" under the direct care of the NYYM assistant clerk, tentatively named the Affiliates Liaison (AL) ex officio and serving especially for the purposes of reporting and finances (vouchers and budgets, etc.). Donation lines such as Friends Council on Education and Friends for LGBTQ Concerns would also be reviewed and possibly placed under the care of the AL. Third, during its suspension, the committees under the care of Nurture would be moved to other Coordinating Committees in the following fashion: JYM Committee placed under the care of General Services; Aging Concerns Committee, Epistle Committee, Powell House, and Youth Committee placed under the care of Ministry.
This group approves suspending Nurture Coordinating Committee and in the interim, restructuring its work per the proposal from Liaison Committee. One Friend stood aside from this approval.

5. The minutes were read and approved.

Melanie-Claire Mallison, acting Recording Clerk
Jeffrey Aaron, acting Clerk