New York Quarterly Meeting Friends met at the Quaker Cemetery in Prospect Park on Saturday, July 19, 2025, for meeting for worship with a concern for business.
About 34 New York Quarterly Meeting Friends met at the Quaker Cemetery in Prospect Park on Saturday, July 19, 2025, for meeting for worship with a concern for business. Friends heard reports from the NYQM Executive Director and the new clerk of NYQM, Scott Blumenthal of Morningside Meeting, and reports from the Great Lakes Africa Education Committee and the Friends Cemetery Committee. The Handbook Committee is starting to work on updating the NYQM Handbook and will be contacting NYQM committees for suggestions (here is the Handbook). NYQM Trustees brought two recommendations that the body approved: moving the month that the budget is presented from January to October, and granting an addition amount of funding to the Relief Committee.
The Concern for Quaker Living (CQL) Community Wellness Working Group reported on the first year of partnering with University Settlement to provide services to NYC Quakers. The gathered Friends approved renewing the contract with University Settlement for a second year.
The clerk identified a thread that ran throughout the reports: how are Friends addressing the suffering we see around us? An organizer of the Quaker Walk to Washington reported that their walk energized the meetings they passed through and re-activated many Quakers. The organizers are planning a series of threshing sessions that will gather together regionally-clustered meetings to collaborate on future actions. A Friend from Manhattan Meeting reported on the Davanga School, in a high-poverty area of Kenya, that is working to complete construction of a second story. The school has been a project of Manhattan Meeting from its start and is financially supported by the quarter.
Friends expressed a desire to make activism -- the supporting of actions and groups that align with our testimonies -- easier and faster within our quarter. There are some legal, security, and Quaker practice concerns, but Friends agree on wanting to do Witness work. This conversation is ongoing.
The minutes from the meeting, including links to all reports, are now available.
