DQM 2021-05-30

Dover Quarterly Meeting

held on Zoom

30 May 2021

Present:

• Dover - Jnana Hodson, Jeremiah Dickinson, Beth Collea, Ginny Kristi
• Weare - Marian Baker, Dick Ludders, Ann Ludders,
• Souhegan - Erik Cleven
• Nashua - Muchuma Niva, Sychellus Wabomba
• Concord - Kathi Connors, Sara Smith, Jennifer Smith, Mark Barker, Heidi Babb
• N. Sandwich - Susan Wiley, LeeAnn Stevens
• Gonic - Jill Taylor

08/21  Previous minutes were approved as received.

09/21  Treasurer’s report - As attached.   $100.62 available in Restricted funds.   $1,289.71 available in Unrestricted funds.  LeeAnn Stevens shared that after difficulty getting the new signatories set up in the bank, that it would be helpful to keep Marian Baker as a backup signatory on the account.

The transfer of the bank account to the new treasurer has not yet been finalized due to needing to update the minute of authorization for the change in signatories with more details required by the Credit Union.  This report was accepted with gratitude.  We are setting up a Quarterly Meeting address and email account so that any future change in signatories will be much easier.  We are not currently listed on State of NH of organizations, although the Credit Union grandfathered us in, but we need to get this resolved soon.

We approved the minute with gratitude.

We approved keeping Marian Baker as a back-up signatory.

10/21  Authorization for new signatories of our bank account

With regards to our accounts at Holy Rosary Credit Union, we authorize the following changes:

• Jeremiah Dickinson, Clerk -- added as signatory, effective Jan 31, 2021
• LeeAnn Stevens, Treasurer -- added as signatory, effective Jan 31, 2021
• Marian Baker, Recording Clerk -- shall remain as signatory, effective Jan 31, 2021
• Muriel Farrar -- removed as signatory, effective Jan 31, 2021
• Address shall be updated to the new Treasurer's home address: 400 Webster St, Manchester, NH 03104
• Telephone number shall be updated to the new Treasurer's mobile phone: 303.710.5439
• The following email address shall be added to the account: doverquarter [at] gmail [dot] com

11/21  Right relationship with Native Americans

Sara Smith, reported that the NEYM committee had a Listening session last week over the apology but has not yet come up with the official document for this year’s session.  The committee has been sharing resources with various  meetings to help us all learn our true history.  No feedback negative to the apology has been received.  Question arose as to why we are focusing on this issue at this time.  Sara explained that NEYM has a Legacy Gift Fund received from the sale of property in Massachusetts.  A meeting in southern Massachusetts, that includes members of the Mashpee Nation, asked for a grant to enable them to relearn their native language.  The Legacy Fund had not been set up to fund such a project, but last year they brought a minute to the Yearly Meeting sessions to ask us to find a way to have right relationships with the local Native Americans from whom our ancestors took away their land.  There are around 7,000 Native Americans in NH.  The clerk then asked each meeting to report that they have done on this topic this year.

Weare Henniker Meeting - They have Sherry Gould, a local member of the Abenaki, coming to their meeting on September 12^th.  Marian shared that as Hillsboro celebrates its 250^th next year, she has recently received a NH Humanities Grant to focus on the Abenaki who were already living on the land.   A History Alive event will be held the 21-22 August to which others are invited to come learn more from archeologists, and Abenaki artisans, singers, storytellers, people about the history, the meaning of Indian names of land forms in NH.  Marian will also be leading two book discussions on Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer this month.

Gonic Meeting is blessed by having a member who is Iroquois.  They are doing a book study on The Gathering.  Their Iroquois attender gives insights, such as when considering putting up a sign at their meetinghouse acknowledging it being located on land taken from Indigenous people, they were told that Native Americans do not want white man’s signs.  Gonic does not want study of this issue to end in just one year.  Hearing from different cultures is helpful.

Dover has a Racial awareness group.  They have approved supporting the letter of apology at their business session, as a beginning of the process.  They are also working with Dover City Council as well, where there has been some resistance to the idea of apology or reciprocity.

We need to educate ourselves first, not to expect Native Americans to educate us.  They do not expect our work on this issue to end soon.

We approved sending this list of local meeting reports on how they have been working on the issue to the NEYM  Committee on Right Relationship, and to put the issue to approval of the Letter of Apology on the agenda for our next Quarterly Meeting.

Announcements were made about

• An Abenaki art exhibit in Contoocook at Two Villages Arts Studio this month.
• Two useful Facebook sites include the Abenaki Trails Project and the Cowasuck Band of Abenakis.

12/21  Dover Sanctuary Renewal Report.  Thanks were given for the donation from the QM.  Dover Meeting has approved their building plans and contractors are studying the plans and estimating costs.  Due to added cost of a sprinkler system, the total estimate is likely above the $85,000 originally estimated.

Fundraising initiatives cover a wide spectrum from making and selling Bluebird Houses to hosting a Burial Shroud Making Workshop next fall.  We have a dual purpose for all of this work.  We hope to offer mercy and refuge to community members in need of Sanctuary and we hope to embody the Beloved Community as we live into a community-based response to the immigration crisis.  They invite Friends and others to a special celebration and witness for Immigration Justice – part of a national celebration at three sites in the US displaying large original banners.

Familias Separadas Art Exhibit and Party.  Sunday, June 13, 2 p m., Dover Friends Meeting (Quakers), 141 Central Ave., Dover, NH.  Join Dover Friends and others for an extraordinary afternoon of original public art, a dance performance  inspired by immigrant stories, speakers, and food. Large-scale, original banners convey the journeys to justice of two asylum seekers who had been detained at the Strafford County House of Correction.  Grace Kindeke is a local artist working with the project to finalize the banners.  She is an AFSC-NH staffer.  Maggie Fogarty, Director of AFSC-NH will offer reflections.  Familias Separadas is a national justice through public art initiative led by Michelle Angela Ortiz.

Start your afternoon at the Car Rally at Strafford County Jail.  Meet at the Courthouse across the street at 1 p.m.  Travel to Dover Friends Meeting by 2 p.m.  The official invite will be sent out with these minutes.  Others acknowledged what Dover is doing, building the community, and not just getting lost in financial details.

13/21  Sharing from the Recorded Ministers in our Quarterly Meeting.

Marian shared about her recent challenges at a recorded minister.  Brian Drayton will be asked to share at the next Quarterly Meeting.

During Covid, Marian ended up staying in the States longer than usual.  She has sent some financial support and encouraged several Kenyan women who continue to travel into Uganda and Tanzania to lift up other women.

While here in USA, she has helped build up a Northeast Region of USFW (United Society of Friends Women).  This brings together women from programmed and unprogrammed meetings in New York, New England, Quebec, and Baltimore YM areas.  By zoom, they held a Spring Gathering yesterday where Jane Mutoro from Kenya was main speaker.  As Covid restrictions lessen, Marian expects to visit the Congolese, Swahili-speaking Friends Churches in Quebec, CA and Buffalo, NY.

She has also, due to her close to 50 years in Kenya, been helping create the first Quaker Archives for Africa.  The hard copies will be housed at Friends Theological College in Kaimosi, Kenya, and tapes of oral interviews will be in the new Africa QREC (Quaker Religious Education Collaborative) office in Nairobi.  They will be working to get the materials digitized as well.

14/21  Updates from each meeting

• Dover has been talking about holding meetings in the meetinghouse, but wants a hybrid meeting (both in-person and via zoom).
• Concord – Hybrid meetings started last week. Working through bugs in system. Have 8 people No one in present- closed windows this week.  Risks are small but not zero in the meetinghouse and rest on line.  They are glad to have people on zoom from a long distance.  Jennifer Smith is willing to help those who have questions about health issues.  Hybrid is complicated, especially when there are hearing differences.  A bit daunting.  NEYM has people willing to help and can help you try out special devices.
• Weare-Henniker Meeting started meeting in person in May.  They have no electricity/wifi, so hybrid is not available.  They keep their doors open and wear masks.
• N. Sandwich distributed keys for people so they could go to meeting any time.  They are limited to three people in heated area, but opened up today in their unheated summer meeting room that was too cold today.  They use zoom for business and M&C meetings.  They have helped one bedridden member to join in zoom via phone.  They are working on hearing assistance issues, and have electricity, but no broadband capability at their meetinghouse.
• Nashua meeting for 19 months in person, including some from Kenya using both smart phones and computers.  They are very grateful to Dover Quarter for sharing their Zoom link has been helpful.  They have also had connection with Lawrence meeting as well.
• Gonic Meeting, because they are a small group, they continue to meet inside their building.  They might open the  windows. Some join in their study groups.  It is valuable to keep the connections and community going.
• West Epping is not yet meeting in person.
• Souhegan meets in a fully screened in porch of Brian and Darcy’s, as the school is not available.  They have an attender from France.  They are continuing via Zoom as well as in person.

15/21  Our next Quarterly Meeting will be held on August 29.  We hope to meet in person, possibly in Dover, as we[ll as] a place with internet capability.  We can see the banners on the meetinghouse if we go to Dover.

Respectfully submitted,

Marian Baker, Recording Clerk

 

Dover Quarterly Meeting of Friends

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, Religious Society of Friends

℅ LeeAnn M Stevens, Treasurer, 400 Webster St, Manchester, NH 03104

Respectfully submitted,

s/ LeeAnn M Stevens

Treasurer, submitted 2021-05-30

**Restricted Funds are the “Mary G. Morrell and Horatio S. Morrell Trust Funds.  Such funds are dedicated to help ‘poor...ministers… in the service of the Lord.’” (In the 1^st Month 2000 Dover Quarterly Meeting for Business minute, the treasurer was directed to maintain the $1000.00 of the Restricted Funds as “principal” in keeping with restrictions on the funds, with the remainder available for use by the Quarter.)  In 7^th month 2017, it was agreed that interest earned on the H.S. Morrell Trust Fund will be accumulated and available as allowed by the Fund.