Outreach Committee Minutes

Houston, TX , October 29-30

Participating: Gail Fletcher, John Fletcher, Marshall Gibson, Ruth Hamilton, David Millar, John Payton, Karen Peissinger-Venhaus, Maria Collee, Susan Swanstrom, Allen Stockbridge (via phone)

Susan announced that she is resigning from the SC and clerkship of Outreach. David Millar is the new Outreach clerk.

EQAT

George and Ingrid Lakey have been working on the Earth Quaker Action Team, (EQAT) headquartered in Philadelphia. Their focus has been opposing mountain-top removal.  They have expressed interest in collaborating with QEW. Their activist focus may provide QEW with a collaborative opportunity to reach out to younger Friends, which is a current emphasis of Outreach.

Unconference

David Millar introduced the possibility of QEW co-sponsoring an "unconference" for younger Friends. John Fletcher suggested Scattergood School as a possible co-sponsor. John will call Scattergood to explore this possibility.  Unlike a conference, which has scheduled formal presentations given by previously accepted presenters, an unconference provides an open space for any young person who wants to do so to share a leading, vision, idea for a project, etc., for subsequent discussion and seasoning in a breakout session by any interested unconference attenders.

If QEW decides to sponsor such an event just prior to the FGC Gathering in Grinnell, IA next June, our interest would be to provide an opportunity for youth to be heard on their own terms, not to recruit them into QEW. An advantage of holding the event in conjunction with the FGC Gathering would be ease of attendance at both gatherings and easy access by unconference presenters to present also at the QEW Earth Center at FGC. David Millar and Allen Stockbridge will investigate possibilities for remote participation and the use of social networks. It may be possible to draw on mini-grant funding to seed such an event.

After considerable discernment, Friends presented the following minute for Steering Committee approval:

SC Minute 2010.10.XX.  Steering Committee approved QEW co-sponsoring a national “unconference” for young Friends and young adult Friends to share with each other values, visions, projects, and actions about earthcare.  Following the “unconference,” participants will inform QEW and other sponsors how to support and complement identified earthcare leadings.

Outreach realizes much detailed planning is needed to successfully host such an event and invites interested Friends not on Outreach to participate.

Relationship between Outreach and QEW Staff

Susan expressed her understanding that Outreach is to develop policies that staff then implement. One area where there has been confusion about the respective roles of Outreach Committee members and staff has been in implementing the ambassador program. Ruah's expectation has been that Outreach should do more of the legwork in implementing the program. Similarly, who has responsibility (the Committee or staff) for overseeing yearly meeting representative functioning, such as providing them with talking points in fulfilling their role, requesting their annual reports, welcoming new SC members?

It was suggested that to help reps keep on tract with outreach work between face-to-face SC meetings, Outreach members divide the list of yearly meeting QEW SC representatives among them and agree to call a few reps monthly to keep every one accountable. However, no plan to implement this idea was adopted.

Mini-Grant Report

Ruth Hamilton reported that there are a couple of openings on the Mini-Grants Committee. She invited interested Friends to contact her. Anne Mitchell and David Millar are currently on the committee. Friends decided that Mini-Grants should remain under the care of Outreach. Ruth expressed a concern that QEW develop a more succinct statement of purpose to use in fund-raising. The current vision and witness statement was reviewed and suggestions were made on how to use it in explaining what QEW does.

FWCC Cluster Groups

Friends were reminded that the SC has committed to convening cluster groups on global change in their respective yearly and monthly meetings.

John Payton
Recorder

Conference Call Minutes--February 21, 2010

Participating: Ruth Hamilton, David Millar, John Payton, Allen Stockbridge, Susan Swanstrom (clerk)

FCWW Meeting in Baltimore—David Millar

David Millar and Hollister Knowlton will request travel reimbursement from Ruah for attendance at this meeting if needed. Such a request would then be forwarded to Outreach for approval. David reported that the queries and any accompanying documents for the meeting, which are common worldwide for this FWCC consultation, would be available by Feb 22. After they are officially released, he will assure that QEW Friends have access to them either on our website or through Qew Ning, our social networking site. David underscored the important opportunity this consultation provides for youth involvement and for North American Friends to listen. It could have great impact on preparations for the FWCC world conference in Nairobi, Kenya, which is planned for 2012.

John Payton was asked to send these minutes and those of our January 17 meeting to Louis Cox for posting on the newly redesigned QEW website.

After this meeting David will send us all a pdf of instructions for a carbon fast for Lent that was developed by a Canadian social justice organization called Kairos. It may be of limited interest to Quakers already committed to voluntary simplicity. He also announced an upcoming Zero Growth Economy conference , to which many major figures such as Geoff Garver, co-author of Right Relationship, have been invited.

David’s calling our attention to these events raised for Friends the issue of how we can better serve as a resource for our QEW yearly meeting representatives.

Mini-grant report-Ruth Hamilton

Ruth reported that the grant submission deadline is May 1. Her committee recently received a request from Homewood Meeting in Baltimore to partially fund a project to install solar power in their meeting house. A mini-grant would enable the meeting to make an initial payment on this ambitious project. The committee is still in discernment about whether applications should be funded as they are received. Funding is currently available for 10 grants of $250 each. Continuing Counsel Committee agreed to put a line-item on the spring QEW SC meeting registration form asking for donations for the mini-grant program.

William Penn House Eco-Camp—Susan Swanstrom

Friends agreed to send QEW materials to the eco work camp that is planned for June.

Non-profit Organizational Guidelines—Allen Stockbridge

Based on his work in non-profit organizations, Allen stressed the importance for organizational effectiveness of assuring that everybody has a task to perform and that we all accountable to one another for completing these tasks. Because QEW is in transition with the prospective hiring of a new Executive Secretary to take office in January 2011, now may be an ideal time for Outreach and the SC to consider the direction we want the organization to move in. Are Outreach and the SC working or guidance bodies ? Before our next meeting, Allen will distribute a one-page document to guide our discernment on what kind of organization we want to be. This topic will also be on the agenda of the spring SC meeting.

Revised QEW Talking Points for Reps

Prior to the next meeting Susan will distribute revised “talking points” that she would like us to review and come prepared to discuss.

Next Meeting

The next meeting will be on March 28 at 5pm eastern time.

John Payton

Recorder

Conference Call Minutes, January 17, 2010

Participating: Ruth Hamilton, David Millar, John Payton, Susan Swanstrom (clerk)

Agenda:

* Need for QEW representative to FWCC Section of the Americas meeting in Baltimore in March

* Schedule for QEW spring meting

* Ambassador planning

* Report on mini-grants program

In response to a inquiry on how to deal with questions on how the Obama administration is doing on climate issues, Ruth was provided with information on how to subscribe to the energy and climate change listserv that Devin Helfich of FCNL publishes.

Susan announced she will continue as clerk of Outreach at least through the QEW Steering Committee meeting in Chicago in April.

David Millar and Hollister Knowlton will represent QEW at the FWCC meeting in Baltimore. David reported he has a general description of the 5 queries that will guide the world consultation on climate change that FWCC in planning. The consultation will meet in various geographically based clusters, the locations of which will be decided soon. QEW will probably be asked to take a major role in planning the consultation, and a likely result of this meeting is that the work of QEW will become better known. One issue being addressed in planning the consultation is how to involve more evangelical Friends. David asked those with connections to evangelical Friends to send him their contact information. David also mentioned that there is some fear on the part of Friends from other parts of the world that American Friends will take over the planning process.

Ruth reported that we are two grants (i.e. $500) short of where we would like to be in the mini-grant program. Her subcommittee would like to see some fund-raising so that we are able to make ten $250 awards. The policy of establishing a deadline for the receipt of applications to the min-grant program worked well the first year but not last year, when it was not announced in BFC. After some discussion, Friends agreed to recommend to Ruth's subcommittee that a deadline for receipt of applications be established with the understanding that applications received after the deadline would be held until the next round of awards. Friends also recommended that a line be placed on the registration form for the spring SC meeting, asking Friends to donate $10 to the mini-grant fund. Such donations would be voluntary. It was suggested that our mini-grant model might be suggested to the Alliance of Religions and Conservation, an inter-religious environmental organization.

Ruth has updated the slide show on projects funded by the mini-grant program and will make if available to SC members for use in their role as ambassadors.

David Abazs will be taking a group of students from the Scattergood Friends School down the Mississippi River this spring.

In response to the Outreach proposal that QEW hold one annual face-to-face meeting in Chicago in the spring., the CCC asked Outreach to season the proposal further. They were not in unity with holding the meeting in the spring, which would require changing QEW's fiscal year. Among Outreach members, there was some concern that Chicago was not a naturally "inspiring" location for our meeting, even though it is centrally located and closed to good public transit.

It was suggested that we contact experts on various aspects of earth care who work in the Chicago area to help plan theme-based programs and field trips to add to our contact with nature during our Chicago meetings. It is likely that these contacts would also be able to provide alternative ways for differently abled Friends to participate in outdoor events. Some Friends raised the issue of schedule conflicts or the press of other activities in the fall, a factor in favor of holing the annual meeting in the spring. CCC did like the idea of mixing business and program throughout the annual meeting schedule. Susan was asked to confer with Ruah on the numbers of participants we have had at spring and fall meetings over the last several years. This may shed some light on which time of year Friends prefer for our meetings.

Comment was made that we need to be kinder in our response to those who have not submitted their ambassador reports when due. The anger expressed on this issue last year might discourage Friends from taking on this role in the future.

There was no immediate news on the search for Ruah's successor as General Secretary.

John Payton

Recorder