What’s Your Coordinator Been Doing Lately?
I find it hard to accept that I have been serving as your Coordinator for nearly 11 months already! I appreciate all the support you have shown as I learn how everything functions and how the events are planned. In addition, it has been exciting to support the Aging Concerns Working Group of the Quarter and their events.
The Concord Quarter Working Group on Aging Concerns meets monthly (and is open to anyone in the Quarter), and a piece of my role is to support the group. In March we offered a workshop on “Aging in Place” held at Goshen Meeting with George Schaefer, the Aging and Care Coordinator for PYM. It was well attended and well received. The Aging Concerns Facilitator training ran last weekend, and was very successful! I was excited to see the project come to fruition after a year’s worth of planning that started even before I came on board. We are also working to develop support and structure after the training so that the volunteers continue to feel supported.
I also attend Philadelphia Yearly Meeting sessions and bring back my impressions. On March 24, PYM Continuing Sessions were held in Harrisburg, further west than usual, in hopes of attracting some who normally don’t attend. There were no new attenders, but there were a number who appreciated having a much shorter travel time. We heard about the new process for how a minute of concern should come to the Yearly Meeting, a procedure which was missing from the new structure. We also heard about the rejuvenation of the Undoing Racism Group with new Clerks and a website and energy around this important work. And we heard from the Discernment Team and their examination of how the conflict in Upper Dublin Meeting became so serious, and what could be done to prevent a future situation like this. Their report is on the PYM website, along with all the other reports presented. Most moving to me was the group of Middle and High Schoolers who shared their messages with us and then attended the March for Our Lives in Harrisburg that day.
A recent meeting with other Quarterly Meeting Coordinators and the PYM Youth Programs staff was also helpful. This meeting had been delayed until Melinda Wenner Bradley, the new Youth Engagement Coordinator (and a West Chester Meeting member) was in place and all her facilitators were hired. It is always great to hear what is happening at PYM with youth programming, and with other Quarters. New communication lines always open up.
Event planning is also part of my role. We had a very successful Square Dance hosted by Willistown in February, and Tubing on the Brandywine is set for June 24 jointly planned by Western and Concord Quarter. Stay tuned for further details! Do you have an event or project you would like to see on a Quarter level? Let me know! And if you have a meeting event you would like me to publicize, let me know by the 15th (preferably) of any month.
Lynne Piersol
Concord Quarter Coordinator