As members of the meeting are aware, Dave and Emily Sutton will be completing their faithful service to the Meeting as our Friends In Residence at the end of the summer. The Monthly Meeting for Business has created a working group to explore the future needs of the meeting and the role that the FIR position might play in the future.
The Working Group requests the following:
Each standing committee is asked to consider the following queries and forward their thoughts to the working party before March 30, 2011: How is this committee impacted by the role of FIR? What are specific priorities and/or main concerns of this committee in considering whether Meeting keeps the same FIR structure or changes it?
Copies of the current FIR job description and agreement have been distributed to each standing committee clerk and are posted on our website (below). Friends are encouraged to take a look at it.
Members of the working group will also be contacting individuals from Westport and within the wider body of NEYM Friends for their input on Friends in Residence models.
The working group asks that Ministry and Counsel be particularly sensitive and responsive to the emotions and spiritual health of our Meeting during this process. Friends expressed a desire for transparency and centered listening throughout, in hopes that we will emerge from this discernment as a loving community in fellowship and Light.
All Westport Friends are encouraged to share their thoughts and reflections with the working group, both within the standing committee meetings and informally, via phone, email, snail mail, or face to face conversation. Members of the working group are Betty Ann Lee, Buddy Baker-Smith, Gretchen Baker-Smith (clerk), Greg Marsello, Melinda Foley-Marsello, and Jay Vieira (recording clerk).
Please review the 2003 FIR Agreement here.