It is a great privilege to serve Western Quarterly Meeting as its Coordinator

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1 BRINGING A NEIGHBORHOOD OF QUAKERS TOGETHER December 2012 The Newsletter of Western Quarterly Meeting Of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) P. O. Box Kennett Friends Meetinghouse 125 W. Sickle Street Friendly News Contents December Queries Page 2 Holiday Events Page 4 1 In Appreciation Page 3 Fundraising and Renovating Page 5 Stories of Life Page 6 Centre Meeting Seeks Caretaker Page 7 Human Trafficking Page 8 Our Meetings Page 9 A Message from Zachary Dutton Our New Coordinator and Youth Activities Coordinator It is a great privilege to serve Western Quarterly Meeting as its Coordinator and Youth Activities Coordinator. I want to share with you that I envision a Western Quarter whose primary function is to strengthen the spiritual and intergenerational community between and among our Neighborhood Meetings. We are an association of Neighborhood Meetings. The more connected we allow our association to be, the more growth and the more vitality we ll see. In the coming months, I hope we can take many intentioned steps toward this awesome goal. Sincerely, Zac Please send what you d like to share in future Newsletters (prose, poems, pictures, announcements) to westernquarter@verizon.net.

2 BRINGING A NEIGHBORHOOD OF QUAKERS TOGETHER The Newsletter of Western Quarterly Meeting December 2012 December Queries Integrity and Simplicity What does our Meeting understand to be the meaning and implication of our testimonies on simplicity and integrity? How do our Meeting s actions demonstrate this understanding? As a Meeting, what are we doing to encourage members to embody integrity and simplicity in their everyday lives? How do I strive to maintain the integrity of my inner and outer lives in my spiritual journey, my work, and my family responsibilities? How do I manage my commitments so that overcommitment, worry, and stress do not diminish my integrity? Am I temperate in all things? Am I open to counsel and advice on overindulgence and addictive behavior, such as gambling? Do I take seriously the hazards associated with addictive and moodaltering substances? Am I careful to speak truth as I know it and am I open to truth spoken to me? Am I mindful that judicial oaths imply a double standard of truth? Do I reframe from membership in organizations whose purposes and methods compromise our testimonies? 2

3 In Appreciation A Minute For Our Outgoing Secretary, Amy Vitsorek We express our gratitude and appreciation to Amy Vitsorek for her service as the Secretary of Western Quarter in recent years. She has supported the Quarter through a number of transitions in various leadership positions, including in the roles of co-clerks, recording secretary, treasurer, and newsletter [editor. Amy s service was critical to our success in] the process of re-aligning the various staff positions into a singular Western Quarter Coordinator. During these transitions she has been a consistent source of information and support, making it easier for all of us. She fulfilled her duties with care and patience. For all of this, we want to acknowledge her contributions and say a heart-felt thank you. Adopted at Western Quarterly Meeting Business Meeting, Where is the life in our communities? Visit Page 4 3

4 Holiday Events Hosted by Our Neighborhood Meetings Sunday December 16 Hockessin Meeting will host a Friendly Carol Sing which will include a tour of the progress on its renovations and holiday refreshments, from 2pm to 4pm. See page 3 for more details. Contact Richard Bernard for more info at Newark Meeting will host its annual Holiday Party at 5:30pm. A fun-filled time of shared love and warmth. Join Newark Meeting for potluck dinner, program, hymn singing, story time, and an elephant gift exchange. Contact Shelley Hastings for more info at zeppychubby[at]hotmail.com Monday December 17 West Grove Meeting will host Christmas Meeting for Worship and Carol Singing at 7:00pm. All are welcome! Sunday December 23 Marlborough Meeting invites all to come in the quiet and reflect on the meaning of the season for a Carol Sing, beginning at 7:30pm. Contact George Cauffman for more info at Monday December 24 (Christmas Eve) Hockessin Meeting will host a Christmas Eve celebration with music, readings, candlelight, cookies, and hot cider over the fire at 7pm. Contact Richard Bernard for more info at Centre Meeting will host a service beginning at 6:30pm with harp music and Meeting for Worship at 7pm. For more info contact Freeman Miller at or freeman.miller [at]gmail.com. Where is the life in our communities? Please see the last page for street addresses! Visit Page 4 4

5 Fundraising and Renovating From Our Neighborhood Meetings Love thy Neighbor. Be a Santa. The Peace & Social Concerns Committee of Hockessin Friends Meeting invites all to join them in the effort to benefit needy immigrant families recommended by La Comunidad Hispana. Some of the gifts supplied are essentials such as clothing, shoes, blankets and toiletries. But every child also deserves toys and books. Hockessin Meeting to Host Holiday Open House and Showcase Renovations Near Completion Click on this link for Flyer From 2:00pm to 4:00pm on Sunday, December 16 Hockessin Friends Meeting will host fellowship and give a tour of their renovations. If you are able to help bring Christmas joy to some of those who need it most, please make a financial contribution, large or small. Write LCH Christmas in the Memo line on checks made out to Hockessin Friends Meeting. 5

6 Where is the life? Reporting on Stories Of Growth and Life Building Community Through Active Communication Margaret Ingalls Walton on London Grove Friends Meeting Miwal[at]verizon.net London Grove Friends Meeting is doing a good job keeping our members and attenders in touch by . If anyone has an item about which the rest of the meeting should be aware, she or he contacts a member of the in-reach committee and the information is sent out as an . In the past weeks we ve been alerted to the need for F/friends to visit or send cards to members recovering from surgery or illness, to jobs needed for underemployed individuals, to reminders about Meeting or Quarterly-Meeting-wide activities, and to the details of memorial services after deaths in our community. The s go out as soon as the information is received, and they do a lot to keep people connected. The Movement of the Spirit, How Space Matters, and the Imperative of Religious Education Megan Barth on Centre Monthly Meeting I have felt the Spirit moving powerfully at Centre Monthly Meeting in Delaware. I can look back and see how far we ve come. First of all we made major renovations to our schoolhouse in the early 2000 s. This made a great space to teach our children, who were numbered initially at two and who grew to ten. As someone once wrote, If you build it, they will come. The renovations inspired us to host a potluck every month. We also host our annual day-long retreat in our new space at least every other year. The renovations most importantly brought our community closer together. Being a Quaker parent, I find that the religious education of our children is very important, but it is also exhausting. Often parents are left with the task of developing the curriculum, gathering the materials, and teaching the classes, which means they don t attend Meeting for Worship very much. It seems unfair that they always teach first day school, but everyone goes through this phase. We have also slowly begun to balance the support of the First Day School program more evenly between parents and nonparents. It requires a lot of work, and in the end it strengthens the Spirit for the entire Meeting. 6

7 Announcing a Service Opportunity Centre Monthly Meeting Seeks Caretaker We seek a caretaker who will live in the Caretaker s house keep our buildings clean mow the lawns and the burial ground see to safety and security build a fire in the woodstove on Sunday mornings The Meeting will provide the use of the home, which is large enough for a family. The Caretaker(s), in return, will provide care of buildings and grounds and make an agreedupon monthly payment to the Meeting. The residence at 108 Adams Dam Road was built in 1919 and has been used continuously to house the Caretaker. It is neither a rental nor an income property for the Meeting. And the care-taking is not employment. The arrangement between the Meeting and its Caretaker involves instead an exchange of services and considerations. To learn more or to express interest in the opportunity, please call Freeman Miller at Click on this link for application materials. We are located at the intersection of Centre Meeting Road and Adams Dam Road, east of Centerville, Delaware. 7

8 A Proposed Minute on Human Trafficking For Monthly Meetings To Consider Friends, Western Quarterly Meeting invites all monthly meetings to season a minute on Human Trafficking. We ask monthly meetings to report on their discernment. Please send any reports back to Western Quarterly Meeting so they may be shared with our entire community. The minute, along with your reports, will be reviewed again at Western Quarter's February 2013 worship with attention to business. Bob Frye of London Grove Monthly Meeting has provided an explanation of Human Trafficking. This explanation is included to ground our discernment. Explanation Virtually every nation on earth has laws abolishing slavery, but today an estimated 27 million people are in bondage. They are victims of illegal Human Trafficking, which the United Nations defines as a crime against humanity. Slavery is no longer racespecific. Every race, ethnic group, nation, and city has its share of slaves. They are invisible to us because the holding of human beings as slaves is illegal, and thus kept in the recesses of society. But the trafficking in human beings is now the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world, surpassing the illegal arms trade in Over 80% of enslaved people are female, over 50% are children. They may have sewn the garments we are wearing, or grown the beans for the coffee we are drinking. They produce much of the cocoa for the candy bars that we pack with our lunch. Slaves can be found in the massage parlors and street corners in our cities. And they are even held captive as domestic servants in the most affluent neighborhoods of the major cities of this nation. It is a global and local crisis from the brick kilns of Pakistan to the tobacco fields of North Carolina. They are trapped, subjected to violence and fear of imprisonment, and exploited. Robert Frye Peace & Justice Committee London Grove Monthly Meeting The Proposed Minute: The Western Quarter of the Religious Society of Friends shares in the pain and suffering of those trapped as victims of Human Slavery in this country and throughout the world. Slavery is an affront to our Quaker testimonies and to human dignity. We decry this abomination that has been allowed to spread across the world. We share a moral outrage at human trafficking that leads to slavery and to human bondage through violence and the threat of violence. We encourage the members of our Quarter and Friends everywhere to be mindful that our faith is reflected in our everyday lives, and to consider how they might alter their consumer and lifestyle decisions to avoid purchasing products that have come from sources that promote slavery. Above all, we hold in the light the millions of human souls who today are suffering under the yolk of enslavement and those survivors who have been rescued but will work for a lifetime to recover. We support the work of individual Friends and the work of the End Modern Slavery (EMS) Working Group of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in their leading to witness to the reality of this evil. November 13,

9 BRINGING A NEIGHBORHOOD OF QUAKERS TOGETHER December 2012 The Newsletter of Western Quarterly Meeting Of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) P. O. Box 693 Kennett Friends Meetinghouse 125 W. Sickle Street Our Meetings Centre Meeting Worship 11:00am Center Meeting Rd & Adams Dam Rd Wilmington, DE (Clerk) Fallowfield Meeting Worship 11:00am 800 Doe Run Rd Coatesville, PA (Clerk) Hockessin Meeting Worship 10:45am 1501 Old Wilmington Rd Hockessin, DE Kendal Meeting Worship 10:30am 1109 E Baltimore Pk Kennett Meeting Worship 11:00am 125 W Sickle St Kennet Square, PA (main #) London Grove Worship 9:30am 500 W Street Rd Marlborough Worship 11:00am 361 Marlborough Rd (Clerk) Mill Creek Worship 10:30am 1140 Doe Run Rd Newark, De New Garden Worship 10:00am 875 Newark Rd Toughkenamon, PA Newark Meeting Worship 10:30am...meets at the Newark Center for Creative Learning 401 Phillips Ave Newark, DE West Grove Worship 10:00am 153 E Harmony Rd West Grove, PA