Peace & Social Concerns Committee Annual Reports

Every spring, each Committee of the Yearly Meeting is requested to prepare a report of their activities over the prior 12 months. These reports are gathered and shared during Annual Session, and then are printed in the Yearbook for that year.

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2016 Report	2017 Report	2018 Report	2019 Report	2020 Report
2021 Report	2022 Report 2023 Report 2024 Report

2021 Peace and Social Concerns Committee Annual Report

Due to the pandemic, the Peace and Social Concerns Committee (PSC) met virtually this year. Here are some of the activities we undertook during a very challenging time:

We redistributed the Call to Action Against Systemic Racism, adopted in June 2020 by a coalition of BYM committees, work groups and individuals, to all Monthly Meetings, encouraging them to take actions and share information on their activities within BYM.
We posted such Monthly Meeting anti-racism reports to a BYM website, making it easier for Meetings to see what others are doing and encouraging collaboration.
The minute approved by BYM on Israeli annexation of Palestinian lands was shared with all Monthly Meetings.
The PSC Committee co-sponsored a workshop Sept. 17 on nonviolence, presented by George Lakey. Over 1,000 people participated in the on-line workshop, and another thousand people subsequently watched the recording. The workshop consisted of training in nonviolence, including strategizing ways to be prepared for and to try to prevent a possible coup following the election. The title of the webinar was “What to do if there is a Coup: Nonviolent Civil Resistance.”
The End of Life Working Group, under the care of the Committee, held two on-line webinars which addressed (1) advanced planning and medical directives and (2) working with persons who are aging and experiencing changes in cognition and capacity.
The Committee co-sponsored a workshop presenting “A Quaker Statement on Migration,” developed by AFSC, Britain Yearly Meeting, FCNL, Quaker Council for European Affairs, and Quaker United Nations Office. This statement was presented to Interim Meeting and approved endorsing this statement and recommended it to local meetings and individual friends for further education and endorsement.
PSC co-sponsored a webinar on the recently enacted UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. We subsequently asked Interim Meeting to endorse the interfaith letter on the treaty, signed by both FCNL and AFSC, which was accepted, and distributed to BYM Meetings to urge our members of Congress to ratify the treaty.
The Committee conducted a poll of Friends to see what workshops people were interested in for the future.
The Committee co-sponsored a workshop on Afghanistan, focused on what we can learn from that expensive and deadly 20-year war. Over 100 people registered for it, and the recording was subsequently made available.
We distributed four quarterly PSC newsletters and used two (2) surveys to ask Friends their preferences as to webinars/workshops.

Our current PSC Committee includes Jean Athey and Bob Rhudy, co-clerks; Barbara Bezdek, Phil Caroom, Andy Conlon, Jamie DeMarco, Lucretia Farago, Peter Farago, Bob Goren, Bette Hoover, Darcy Lane, and Joy Sylvester-Johnson, members.

Our Committee participants from affiliated organizations are Susannah Rose, Prisoner Visitation and Support; Denna Joy, Quaker House (Fayetteville, NC); Susanne O’Hatnick, Interfaith Action and Human Rights; Adrian Bishop, Right Sharing of World Resources; and Bob Rhudy, Friends Peace Teams.

We also include Patti Nesbitt, clerk, End-of-Life Working Group; Phil Caroom (liaison, Quaker Voice of Maryland); and Darcy Lane (liaison, Working Group on Civil and Human Rights of Transgender and Non-Binary People).

2020 Peace and Social Concerns Committee Annual Report

At our first committee meeting during Annual Session last July we agreed to undertake a strategic planning process to determine our Committee's priorities in relation to BYM's Monthly Meetings, their peace and social concern committees, and all our members and participants, and how we can best serve their interests and needs. We shortly thereafter created a planning sub-committee, clerked by PSC co-clerk Jean Athey with members Marcy Seitel, Bette Hoover, and Barbara Bezcek. Following two sub-committee meeting, they announced their intent to host a day-long planning retreat at Sandy Spring Monthly Meeting on Saturday, April 18th. This intended retreat had to be cancelled because of the Covid-19 pandemic, and was replaced by two zoom meetings on April 25th and May 23rd with participation by Friends from throughout BYM, and with likely further PSC planning meetings in the future.

Our Committee also planned to conduct our annual Networking Day for members of local peace and social concerns committees and other participants on May 9th at Langley Hill Monthly Meeting. The sub-committee to plan the meeting was PSC co-clerk Bob Rhudy and former PSC clerk Phil Caroom. Phil emailed a survey throughout BYM to determine preferred topics for workshops during the day-long gathering, receiving priorities for international peace-keeping; end-of-life topics; refugee and immigration issues; and reparations. We worked with Langley Hill and presenters for Networking Day and these workshops, when we determined that because of the pandemic that we would have to cancel this face-to-face gathering. We have since determined that we would provide some or all of these workshops via zoom over the next few months, starting with the End-of-Life 2-hour zoom workshop on Saturday, June 27th, joined by nearly 40 Friends from thoughout BYM.

Our Committee has distributed throughout BYM information about and encouraged participation in the Ribbon Project to create ribbons encircling the U.S. Capitol on August 8th, the 75th anniversary of the United States' atomic bombing of Hiroshima to oppose the escalating threat of nuclear war. Given the continuing threat of the pandemic and the difficulty of large gatherings, this is now planned as a virtual event.

At our June 9th Committee meeting, we sought to develop a statement to distribute throughout BYM encouraging Meetings and participating Friends to oppose police violence and systemic violence against African Americans and people of color. When we communicated this action to our Interim Meeting Clerk, she asked us to work with BYM's Working Group on Racism, Growing Diverse Leadership Committee, Working Group on Reparations, and STRIDE to seek to develop a joint statement for this purpose. Over the next two weeks we worked with these BYM groups (with former PSC clerk Phil Caroom as draft leader, Clinton Pettus, Lauren Brownlee, and other Friends) to develop, ratify and distribute “A Call for Action from BYM Friends To All Our Monthly Meetings.”

Our current PSC Committee includes Jean Athey and Bob Rhudy, co-clerks; Scott Cannady, Samantha Magrath, Lucretia, Farago, Peter Farago, Bob Goren, Ann Benner, Andy Conlon, Jamie DeMarco, Bette, Hoover, and Darcy Lane, members.

Our Committee participants from affiliated organizations are Susannah Rose, Prisoner Visitation and Support; Denna Joy, Quaker House in North Carolina; Suzanna O'Hattick, Interfaith Action and Human Rights; Adrian Bishop, Right Sharing of World Resources; and Bob Rhudy, Friends Peace Teams.

We also include Marcy Seitel (facilitator, End-of-Life Working Group) James Bell (clerk, Working Group on Refugees, Immigrants, and Sanctuary); Phil Caroom (liaison, Quaker Voice of Maryland); Nikki Rikkards (co-clerk, Working Group on Reparations); and Diane McHale and Sharon Stout (co-clerks, Working Group on Civil and Human Rights of Transgender and Non-Binary People).

2019 Peace and Social Concerns Committee Annual Report

BYM PSC committee Friends had another busy year. Beginning with 2018 Annual Session, our Committee presented two proposed minutes: 1) as to some Friends’ concerns as to the “End of Life (EOL)” and proposed Maryland legislation as to assisted suicide for individuals in sound mind but certified by doctors as having only a few months to live; and 2) as to some Friends’ concerns as to transgender individuals’ right to federal employment and other civil rights. Annual Session approved the latter minute, but left concerned Friends to continue seasoning the former among Monthly Meetings.

During that Annual Session, we also were happy to: 1) recruit a new representative to Right Sharing of World Resources (Adrian Bishop), 2) sell organic, free-trade olive oil from Nazareth in the BYM Bookstore, in support of a peace-seeking Palestinian farmers’ co-op; and 3) via our clerk, present a workshop / panel discussion on “Diversion in our Criminal Justice System for those with Mental Health Disorders.”

On Nov.17, BYM PSC member (Jean Athey) coordinated a well-attended, public program on “What We Can Do to Prevent Nuclear War” program at Goucher College, Towson, Maryland, in connection with the Back from the Brink Campaign endorsed by BYM in 2017.

At Interim Meeting sessions in the winter and spring, we also assisted Friends with leadings to present recommendations and to obtain approval for BYM minutes including: 1) Maryland legislation as to an affordable prescription drugs initiative (support approved); 2) a BYM immigrants, refugees, sanctuary minute that urged defunding and reorganizing two federal agencies (Immigration & Customs Enforcement-ICE and Customs and Border Patrol –CBP), 3) a minute opposing federal restrictions on Transgender individuals’ employment rights; and, after seasoning at the Monthly Meeting level, 4) another minute to establish an EOL working group.

On 4/6/19, our Peace & Social Concerns Committee again offered a “Networking Day” at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC, with participation by 35 Friends from a dozen Monthly Meetings in D.C., Md., Virginia, and West Virginia. This year, Networking Day also invited participants’ choice between four 90-minute workshops (topics selected by prospective participants’ online survey) two morning, two afternoon:

A) How Friends can respond to the renewed threats of nuclear war;

A) How Friends can help those with mental health problems in our jails;

B) Immigrants, refugees & sanctuary in our midst (updates and new resources);

B) Friends’ slow historic progress towards the abolition of slavery & beyond.

Post-Networking-Day evaluations showed strong approval of this year’s Networking Day format and time frame-- and for the tasty vegan lunch options again provided by BYM’s Right Relations with Animals Working Group (RRA)! RRA members also described their ongoing efforts at discernment, two recommended readings and sharing with Meetings around BYM.

Two other major initiatives came to our BYM PSC committee’s attention in spring 2019: 1) the proposal from Chesapeake Quarter to establish in Maryland the state-level equivalent of FCNL, tentatively to be named “Quaker Voice for Maryland (QVM),” and 2) the proposal from BYM’s Growing Diverse Leadership and Working Group on Racism to begin a reparations or “truth and reconciliation” initiative to consider remedies for slavery and historic institutional oppression of people of color. Both groups have held early meetings and will invite BYM Friends further discernment at via a work shop and an interest group, respectively, during Annual Sessions. Non-Maryland Friends are invited to participate with the QVM work shop with their own state(s) and D.C. in mind.

Again this year, our BYM PSC committee continued recent years’ e-newsletter to monthly meetings’ Peace and Social Concerns clerks (their preferred way of hearing from us, according to our surveys). The newsletters presented items about: 1) Networking Day, 2) pending minutes at Interim Meeting(s), and 3) many miscellaneous topics including information about possible responses to Trump-administration environmental policy, Quaker Voluntary Service (QVP) for young adult Friends & more. We also have asked Monthly Meetings for advice on assisting young Friend to prepare for possible conscientious objector status in case the U.S. should reinstitute military conscription.

Finally, BYM PSC Committee thanks our BYM representatives to:

-the federal Prisoner Visitation and Support program (Susannah Rose);

-the Quaker House in North Carolina (Denna Joy);

-Interfaith Action for Human Rights (Suzanne O’Hatnick); and

-Right Sharing of World Resources (Adrian Bishop).

In conclusion, BYM-PSC Committee again thanks the Friends who helped make this year’s Networking Day successful, and to bring new minutes and initiatives into focus. We also encourage all to continue sharing the good work of your Monthly Meetings via email newsletters, social media and future Networking Days.

2018 Peace and Social Concerns Committee Annual Report

It has been a busy year for BYM PSC committee Friends, pursuing our charge to “stimulate and coordinate activities of Monthly Meeting Peace and Social Concerns Committees,” and occasionally to serve as a “conscience of the Yearly Meeting,”

BYM PSC members quickly began this year’s work, drafting and gaining BYM Friends’ support for a minute opposing statements -- during the time of our 2017 Annual Session -- by President Trump that he might consider a nuclear first-strike (“fire and fury”) against North Korea. Other U.S. Quaker groups later joined this effort.

At BYM Interim Meeting sessions in the winter and spring, we also assisted Friends with leadings to present minutes and recommendations as to:

1) BYM and Monthly Meetings’ possible support for the national “Back from the Brink” campaign, which calls on the U.S. to: renounce the option of using nuclear weapons first; end the sole, unchecked authority of any U.S. president to launch a nuclear attack; take U.S. nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert; cancel the plan to replace its entire nuclear arsenal with enhanced weapons; and actively pursue a verifiable agreement among nuclear-armed states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals.

2) Maryland legislation a) to increase the state’s support for renewable energy & related jobs and b) to allow physicians assistance for “End of Life” options for terminally-ill patients with the mental capacity to request this;

3) a recommendation to lay down BYM’s affiliation with National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) which has not been active in recent years and, instead, to network with the similar-purpose regional organization (Md., Va., DC) Interfaith Action for Human Rights (IAHR); and

4) a possible BYM minute in support of transgender individuals’ employment and other human rights.

On 5/12/18, our Peace & Social Concerns Committee again offered a “Networking Day” at Friends Meeting School in Frederick Co., Md., drawing 30 Friends from a dozen monthly meetings in D.C., Md., Virginia, and West Virginia.

Networking Day began with 45 minutes time for Friends to sit together at tables over coffee, juice, and vegan baked goods, sharing the most notable Peace & Social Concerns programs at our respective Monthly Meetings. These ranged from Adelphi’s strawberry festival raising $10,000 per year for various causes to Frederick’s & Herndon’s Student Peace Awards recognizing student initiatives in each county high school. Various Meetings support immigrant families, homeless shelters, Black Lives Matters programs, and environmental concerns. Two Meetings (Adelphi and Annapolis) support Kenyan widows with Quaker connections; others sell fair-trade olive oil to support a peace-oriented Palestinian farmers’ co-op. Many Meetings support FCNL’s advocacy teams, Maryland Alliance for Justice Reform (www.ma4jr.org), and other projects to improve criminal justice and to reduce mass incarceration. (See appendix with a Meeting-by-Meeting list.)

This year, Networking Day also invited participants’ choice between four 90-minute workshops--two morning, two afternoon:

A) How Friends can speak to polarization, racism and micro-aggressions in our communities;

A) Addressing homelessness, reentry & poverty – shelters, “open tables” & crossing the divide;

B) Immigrants, refugees & sanctuary in our midst (updates and new resources)

B) Issues and outreach: Peace festivals, “Back from the Brink” campaign against nuclear weapons and first strikes, death-with-dignity, LGBT, animal rights, and more.

Post-Networking-Day evaluations showed strong approval of this year’s Networking Day format and time frame-- and for the tasty vegan treats served by BYM’s Right Relations with Animals Working Group (RRA)! RRA members also described their ongoing efforts at discernment and sharing their concern with Friends around BYM.

Also, Networking Day led Friends to urge that two minutes and two recommendations from our workshops should be presented to BYM Interim Meeting in Frederick on June 9. Interim Meeting approved these:

1) We endorsed the “Poor Peoples Campaign (PPC),” joining AFSC, FCNL and many other faith groups, a 50th anniversary revival of Martin Luther King’s last movement. PPC observes that the U.S. has moved backwards in recent decades in various areas including: voting rights, mass incarceration, poverty (relative to cost of living), and calls on Americans and our leaders to reverse systemic racism and bias against other minorities (immigrants, LGBT, the disabled), uniting to build a peaceful economy rather than a war-oriented economy. BYM also calls on Monthly Meetings to endorse and support the PPC. See https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/demands/

2) We also endorsed “Back from the Brink,” a campaign against U.S. possible first-use of nuclear weapons and other items, initiated by Physicians for Social Responsibility and joined by AFSC, FCNL and many other groups. We also designated Jean Athey (Sandy Spring MM) as a BYM liaison to this campaign and urged Monthly Meetings to endorse and support this. See https://www.preventnuclearwar.org/

3) We approved a minute in support of Transgender individuals’ valued place in our communities and of their legal rights. (Friends at Interim Meeting urged that an expanded version of this Minute be returned to Annual Sessions.)

4) Finally, we presented a proposed “End of Life” Minute as to proposed legislation to assist those with terminal illness and the competence to make their own choices to do so with legal assistance of the physician. Recognizing that Friends will want to season this proposed Minute further, we did not ask its immediate adoption but made arrangements to circulate it among Monthly Meetings and to hold an Interest Group at Annual Session before its later consideration.

During the past year, our committee also continued efforts to facilitate communications between Monthly Meetings via a quarterly email newsletter and our committee’s BYM “Peace and Justice Exchange” Facebook page, offering items about:

-Various Meetings’ refugee / sanctuary / immigrant efforts connected by our BYM working group;

-The national “March for Our Lives” event opposing gun violence;

-50 year revivals of MLK’s March on Washington (August), “ACT Now!” (April) & Poor Peoples’ Campaign (May-June);

-Using humor to deflate hate groups;

-Remembering young Friends’ conscientious objector documentation - in case it is needed;

-Resources to educate & respond to U.S. increasing but under-reported drone warfare;

-and more.

Finally, BYM PSC Friends also took BYM Clerk Ken Stockbridge’s advice and drafted a Committee-level “Manual of Procedure” for ourselves so that, some day, our successors can read how we attempt to keep ourselves on track.

We again thank our BYM representatives to:

-the federal Prisoner Visitation and Support program (Susannah Rose);

-the Quaker House in North Carolina (Denna Joy);

-the now-laid-down National Religious Coalition Against Torture (Malachy Kilbride) and the now-picked-up Interfaith Action for Human Rights (Suzanne O’Hatnick).

While BYM-PSC officially maintains a liaison for Right Sharing of World Resources (RSWR), no Friend has stepped forward in the past year to network with this program. RSWR now actually is an independent 501(c )(3) organization. We invite Friends to consider whether we still are led to maintain a liaison to RSWR.

In conclusion, BYM-PSC Committee again thanks the Friends who helped make this year’s Networking Day successful and encourages all to continue sharing the good work of your Monthly Meetings via email newsletters, social media and future Networking Days.

2017 Annual Report

On 4/1/17, our Peace & Social Concerns Committee again offered a “Networking Day” program for Friends from distant monthly meetings to gather and share insights and experiences. After an online interest-survey and much planning, Networking Day took place at Friends Meeting School in Frederick Co., Md., drawing 46 Friends from 16 different monthly meetings in DC, Md., Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Networking Day began, after greetings, coffee, pastries and brief silence, as Joan Liversidge led Friends in “Debate Into Dialogue” exercises, raising our awareness of how best to communicate about difficult issues and with those who do not share our views. Then, participants joined in two of five workgroups on topics including: 1) effective reponses to climate change, 2) refugees' & immigrants' problems - how can Friends help, 3)support for alternatives to mass incarceration, 4) responding to racial injustice and 5) economic injustice.

Post-Networking-Day surveys showed that a majority participants considered the event “useful” or “very useful” so plans now are underway for another spring 2018 Networking Day. But, we also will follow survey suggestions for somewhat longer, more interactive workshops next time on new topics.

Various Meetings’ refugee / sanctuary / immigrant support projects;
Friends’ support for environmental and criminal justice reform;
An interfaith program supported by several Monthly Meetings to sell organic, free-trade olive oil produced by a coop of Palestinian growers, who also are active in Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts;
and more.

Perhaps most significantly, we recognized that Friends from many Monthly Meetings have pursued strong leadings to offer assistance for refugees and immigrants in our communities; these various meetings have taken many steps towards becoming “Sanctuary” churches and supporting those facing detention and deportation. For this reason, our committee requested and Interim Meeting approved a minute, officially designating a “BYM Working Group on Immigrants, Refugees and Sanctuary.” Efforts to organize the new Working Group will continue during this year’s Annual Session.

Also at Interim Meeting, our committee requested and obtained support for a new “Maryland Clean Energy Jobs Initiative” that is championed by BYM young adult Friends. We also have encouraged BYM’s Unity with Nature Committee and Monthly Meetings to support this state-level initiative which we hope can spread to be nationwide.

We thank our BYM representatives to:

the federal Prisoner Visitation and Support program (Susannah Rose);
the Quaker House in North Carolina (Denna Joy);
the National Religious Coalition Against Torture (Malachy Kilbride).

While BYM-PSC officially acts as a liaison for Right Sharing of World Resources (RSWR), this program actually is an independent 501(c )(3) organization. We defer to their separate report.

In conclusion, BYM-PSC Committee thanks Friends for their energy participating in this year’s Networking Day and encourages their suggestions on further improving BYM’s mutual assistance on Peace & Social Concerns issues, both in person and online!

2016 Annual Report

At BYM’s 2015 Annual Session, our Peace & Social Concerns Committee decided to renew a “Networking Day” program that would invite monthly meeting representatives to gather and share insights and experiences from our respective meetings. We also wanted to offer a focus on how to involve Young Friends in peace & social concerns.

After many email interest surveys and much planning, Networking Day took place at Sandy Spring Friends School on Sat. morning , 4/2/16, and drew 42 Friends representing 15 different monthly meetings in Md., Virginia and West Virginia.

After coffee, pastries and brief silence, we were welcomed by 5 young Friends holding a simultaneous peace conference with Muslim neighbors from nearby high schools & by inspiring remarks from peace educator Colman McCarthy.

Then, participants selected among 4 workgroups: 1) how to respond to climate change, 2) refugees' & immigrants' problems - how can Friends help, 3) alternatives to mass incarceration / racial injustice, & 4) how to start and improved community service programs (e.g., homeless shelters, mediation / alternatives to violence, tutoring – mentoring, etc.)

Post-Networking-Day surveys showed that participants considered the event “useful” so plans now are underway for a second, April 2017 Networking Day.

Also, during the past year, our committee has attempted to improve communications between meetings by means of an email newsletter and our committee’s BYM “Peace and Justice Exchange” Facebook page. (We have laid down another group-discussion-webpage due to lack of active use.)

Via our email newsletter and Facebook page, we also have shared information with monthly meetings including:

Various Meetings’ options to their follow “Black-Lives-Matter” campaigns
FCNL, Md. and Virginia criminal justice initiatives;
Reconciliation with Muslims programs, an AFSC Mideast tour & info. on the “Tent of Nations” Palestinian olive oil ministry; and
Responses to the Syrian refugee crisis.

We thank Susannah Rose for becoming BYM’s new representative to the federal Prisoner Visitation and Support program. (Her report is attached.) And we appreciate Denna Joy representing us on the board of Quaker House in North Carolina and Malachy Kilbridge representing us on the National Religious Coalition Against Torture. While BYM-PSC officially acts as a liaison for Right Sharing of World Resources (RSWR), this program actually is an independent 501(c )(3) organization. We defer to their separate report.

In conclusion, BYM-PSC thanks Friends for their energy participating in this year’s Networking Day and for your suggestions on improving next year’s intended program!

2015 Annual Report

During the past year the BYM Peace and Social Concerns Committee has focused almost exclusively on a project that we took up the year before and described in our 2014 report to Annual Session. This is a digital initiative for enhancing the inter-connection of Monthly Meetings’ peace and justic work. Having set up last year a rough version of a web-based forum, we have devoted our energies to refining, ramifying, and testing it via multiple email correspondence, conference calls by telephone, and face to face meetings over laptops at such venues as Interim Meeting in March, a Friend’s home, and a couple of urban wi-fi cafes. We have worked steadily with a view to developing a resource ready to introduce to BYM Friends at Annual Session, in the hope that they will embrace and test it during the year that follows. We have sought to combine the advantages of a highly familiar web platform (Facebook) for rapid and easily accessible publication of MM projects and events, with those of a more structured web platform (Free Forum) with such features as a calendar and organization of entries by topic (e.g., Militarism, Immigration) and by individual MMs, with some attention to the political jurisdictions in which they operate.

Such tunnel vision as ours has had the benefit of producing this year’s result. It has also entailed, as a demerit we must acknowledge, our neglecting what have often in past years been primary concerns of this committee: discernment and sifting of the very numerous specific programs and actions that we know Quakers are called to pursue in the world. We have proceeded, however, on the strength of our understanding – also expressed in last year’s report – that such programs and actions are far likelier to succeed at the Monthly Meeting than at the Yearly Meeting level; and that, therefore, PSSC’s energies within BYM are best spent fostering what MMs are already doing on their own, and encouraging them to take better informed advantage of a range of Quaker resources that includes, most importantly, each other.

We find our efforts this year to have been consonant with certain recommendations made to us by the ad hoc Vision Implementation Committee, in a report to which we have been specifically asked in this report to respond. The VIC urges that we “facilitate MMs’ sharing their experience of carrying out the work of peace and social concerns” – which aptly describes the primary purpose of our web resource – and that we “link MMs with specific concerns about things happening in the world to the Quaker organizations that deal with that concern”: a secondary concern but a real one for us in creating digital links on our site to just such organizations.” We have not paid attention to the two recommendations that precede these in the VIC report, which direct us respectively to facilitate the “discernment processes” behind individual MMs’ peace work and to help guide them to a “spiritual grounding” for that work. For one thing, we have had our hands full with a range of practical questions and technical details; for another, in jointly pondering these recommendations we have encountered doubts in ourselves whether such interventions have a proper place in the remit of a YM committee such as ours.

While we have not been consistently attentive to the several Working Groups and organizational liaisons that it forms part of our charter to oversee, we do have a variety of reports to make about each.

Right Sharing of World Resources [www.rswr.org] is a Quaker 501(c)3 organization that supports grassroots income-generating projects that are found compatible with three guiding principles: (1) local self-reliance, (2) sustainability, and (3) mutual support and accountability among group members. Most recently RSWR has been on the front lines of the Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone by coordinating a special collection to fund educational and preventative materials. The ongoing micro-loan projects also address root causes of disease by strengthening the country’s economic fabric. RSWR operates largely through donations, including those from BYM and many of its individuals and monthly meetings. At a time when the organization has welcomed a new General Secretary, Jacqueline Stillwell (now clerk of New England Yearly Meeting), BYM Friends are encouraged to give all they can, and to consider joining the WG. Its clerk Karen Grisez, who is a RSWR board member, will host an Interest Group at BYM Annual Session.

Israel / Palestine Working Group has become inactive this year, and has in effect laid itself down. WG participants were deeply disappointed by the response of Friends at the 2014 Annual Session to the proposed minute on Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions. Much work needs to be done to counter the lack of awareness to the oppression of the persecuted Palestinian people. At present Friends continue their work individually outside of a Quaker context and in their local meetings. It is unclear if BYM can respond to the central query which created the working group two years ago.

Prisoner Visitation and Support, based in Philadelphia, has lacked a BYM liaison this year, but we are glad to report that the Nominating Committee is ready with an appointee, Susannah Rose, for Annual Session to consider.

At Quaker House in Fayetteville NC, likewise, the board representative from BYM moved away this year. His vacated place will be filled, we hope, as the nomination of Denna Joy goes forward at Annual Session.

For the National Religious Coalition Against Torture no report has been received as this PSCC report goes to press in Sandy Spring.

Nationally nowadays, if not indeed globally, these are not propitious times for peace and social justice movements. On one hand, the clarity of vision that many movement veterans can remember from decades past is more elusive than it once was; imagining new modes of understanding a changing world and acting within it poses steep challenges; how to balance local with planetary perspectives, and where to apply our energies, are problems that seem to defy satisfactory solution. That such times call especially upon Quakers, and need the leadings of the Spirit, may be truisms here, but they bear repeating. We strongly hope that our endeavors this year to get Friends connected to each other will help them share those leadings and heed that call.

In Peace and Light

Chip Tucker (Charlottesville), Clerk

2014 Annual Report

The BYM Peace and Social Concerns Committee’s work for the past year has been unglamorous but essential. Meeting over the past year in Frostburg, Hopewell and Annapolis, and through phone conference calls, we focused on different ways to network with Monthly Meetings and their Peace committees, following the Manual of Procedure’s direction to “gathe[r] and disseminat[e] information” across the Yearly Meeting, and to “stimulate and coordinate activities of Monthly Meeting Peace and Social Concerns Committees” (p. 16).

These functions—linkage and communication—rather than work that promotes particular causes or public actions, may be the best role for a Yearly Meeting Peace committee that spans several states and serves dozens of Monthly Meetings impressively diverse in the size and focus of their peace and justice activities. Seeking to help Quaker peace workers within BYM become more integrated and mutually aware, we have employed two methods:

First, we traveled to visit Monthly Meetings’ Peace committees for traditional face-to-face discussions to learn what various committees do, how they go about it, and where the Yearly Meeting might assist. Visiting maybe a third of the constituent Monthly Meetings, we were struck both by differences among them and by similarities. At some Meetings, peace work is done by a “committee of the whole”; at others, it is referred or wholly delegated to a standing committee; at larger Meetings, multiple subgroups pursue specific issues. At the same time, most Monthly Meetings hold steady in their witness against war and in the practice of local benevolence. New trends emerge as well: in recent months, awareness in many Quaker places has quickened about the injustice of mass incarceration. Our Monthly Meeting hosts have seemed grateful for the Yearly Meeting’s interest, as expressed by our visits and those by BYM’s Vision Implementation Committee, in which peace concerns have been prominently raised. Together with that committee, we also held a conference day at Alexandria Meetinghouse in Third Month that affirmed our mutual leadings.

That conference also affirmed our resolve to proceed with a second branch of our plans to put BYM Peace committees in touch with each other: This is a digital initiative to solicit and publish on the BYM web site ongoing news of Monthly Meetings’ peace and justice activities. We plan an online format to let Friends learn what is going on in other Monthly Meetings:

what has and hasn’t worked,
how Monthly Meetings may collaborate locally with like-minded community allies, and
how we may bring such local efforts into relationship with state and national movements.

This BYM digital space also could offer a forum where Monthly Meetings may read each others’ posts and conduct conversations; where Meetings large and small, far-flung and metropolitan, can enrich understanding, share energy, and broaden their sense, not just of what Quaker activism can become, but – just as important – what it already is.

Your Monthly Meeting’s Peace committee should have received by now an email survey about your local activities. We urge you to complete and return the survey to us promptly, if you haven’t done so already. Also, here in Frostburg, an early beta-version of our web forum is available for your inspection and comment. If you haven’t seen it, please see Josh Wilson.

We have high hopes for this digital initiative: If we get it right, moderate it discerningly, and keep Friends across Yearly Meeting involved, we believe it may alleviate some of the unease in isolation and stagnation in routine that our travels this year have disclosed here and there in the Yearly Meeting.

Two Working Groups report to BYM’s Peace & Social Concerns Committee: 1) The newly established Working Group on Israel-Palestine sends a report, appended here. 2) The Working Group on Right Sharing of World Resources has not provided a current report as yet.

PSCC also has oversight of some other organizations associated with BYM. Here is a brief summary of their activity this year:

Prisoner Visitation and Support, whose board meets in Philadelphia, now is the only organization permitted to place visitors in federal prisons and detention centers – this, in a country increasingly reliant on prisons to address serious social problems. While PVS has recently struggled to raise funds, volunteer recruitment and Board involvement this year have increased. As a result, at a few facilities, prisoner waiting lists are down in the past 6 months.
Quaker House in Fayetteville NC remains viable amid mounting demand for its services from service men and women who question, or seek to terminate, their relationship with the military.

The National Religious Campaign Against Torture council meets monthly by phone conference, typically for its national headquarters to brief localities about emerging and ongoing initiatives. BYM’s member delegate has sent out action alerts to Monthly Meeting Peace committees about matters such as the long-standing incarcerations at Guantanamo and CIA interrogation practices.

Each of these organizations, we note in closing, like the BYM Working Groups, exemplifies activities we effectively may share through the expanded web page we are eager to see BYM develop.

In regretted absence, but in the Light, Herbert "Chip" Tucker (Charlottesville), Clerk

2013 Annual Report

In August 2012, the Peace and Social Concerns Committee embraced the issue of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict as our work for the year. This commitment came out of the request by Sandy Spring Meeting that we consider their minute about Friends withholding investment in some companies profiting from Israel's occupation of the West Bank. Recognizing that Friends (as well as many others) passionately share the hope for an end to Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as part of a broader peace with justice, the Committee embarked upon a broader look at efforts to resolve conflict in the Middle East.

At the outset it is important to recognize the steps taken by the American Friends Service Committee, Friends Fiduciary Fund and the Friends Committee on National Legislation concerning peace in the Middle East. In December, 2012, AFSC and FCNL joined other religious organizations in asking Congress to require that Israel conform to international and humanitarian and human rights laws if it is to receive US military assistance. (The letter transmitting their request called attention to persistent illegal Israeli acts reported extensively in US government publications.) AFSC has published Principles for a Just and Lasting Peace, a study of the issues that must be addressed if lasting peace is to be achieved, and has also worked with other organizations to stop investing in companies associated with Israel's occupation of the West Bank. At the same time, both within the Quaker world and among other faith and social action groups, other voices for peace regard some of the above-mentioned efforts in different and sometimes opposing ways. These can at times be contentious issues; creating a safe place to talk about them has been a goal of our Committee’s work this year.

This summer Secretary of State Kerry is making frequent trips to Israel and the West Bank, meeting with political and business leaders, and re-energizing some hope that renewed talks may lead to peace. Such peace talks would include Israel’s recognition of Palestine roughly along the 1967 borders (with land-swaps where this is not practical), and reviving the Arab Peace Accord of 2002, which accepts, as a condition for an Israeli/Palestinian peace agreement, that the Arab states in the region will recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

During the past year, we realized that we had much to learn, and we have learned much. After a year, while we do not necessarily have answers, we do have better questions. Friends are often called “Seekers”, and to refine the questions that guide our seeking is part of the work of building peace. Laboring under the weight of this concern, and trying to discern and nurture the leadings of individuals, and at the same time to understand what it may be ours to do collectively at a Yearly Meeting level, our Committee has been preoccupied with clarifying procedural matters that we have regarded as essential preliminaries to more perceptible motion forward. As a result we have seemed at times, even to ourselves, stuck at a preliminary stage.

The longstanding conditions in the Middle East create an understandable prompting to take action, issue position statements, and look for opportunities to make BYM a visible public presence. But within BYM there are also Friends for whom deep and loving listening to others itself constitutes a significant act, albeit one that can look outwardly like doing nothing. Thus our committee has developed relations with groups such as Telos Group and J-Street, two very liberal groups who are vocal in promoting peace but are not supportive of the BDS (Boycott/Disinvestment/Sanctions) movement. We have a relationship with a Rabbi from Rockville who passionately wants peace as well, and wants to have a relationship with Quakers but has been troubled by things he has read coming from Quaker circles. We have met with BDS leaders in DC, and had great conversations exploring ways to support each other. We have come to appreciate that BDS has many moving parts – political, economic, geographic, even cultural – and in our communities each of these has different implications and meanings for people. To choose a side can be a part of speaking truth to power; by the same token it can be a source of community division. The goal of promoting peace that is grounded in equality and justice for all challenges us as Friends not only to support each others’ leadings to speak and act, but to do so in a way that fosters safe space for the expression of diverse opinions and doubts. If we cannot create and exercise this safe space among ourselves, how can we expect others to find their way to peace?

We have accordingly considered, and forwarded to Interim Meeting in 6/2013, a request from six Friends for the establishment of a Working Group that undertakes to consider “how Baltimore Yearly Meeting, its monthly meetings and individual Friends could respond to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in ways which shall promote peace with justice for the two peoples and end the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories.” We firmly hope that during the next three years this Working Group will bring to our Committee reports of progress in its tasks of shedding light, promoting discussion within the Yearly Meeting, and discerning recommendations for collective action.

We invite all within this body to hold in the light the work of the many peacemakers working to bring peace to this troubled region. As our Committee turns to other matters arising, while we continue to labor with the issue that has absorbed our energies during the year just past, we will explore what we can and should do to promote peace, an exploration that entails not only seeking facts, but operating from the loving spirit of the quiet peacemakers. To quote Quaker peacemaker John Lampen, “True listening is not just a matter of informing ourselves. It is an act of love.” As we have struggled to put our faith in practicing this act of love, we will continue to hold in the light the work that goes forward, and put our faith in the power of that love to bring peace.

2012 Annual Report

This committee has these items to report:
• We committed to having items in each edition of the Interchange newsletter, and we met this goal 2 out of 3 times. There were articles about Prison Ministry and about ending torture. The missed article was supposed to be about HIV and the potential for self-testing. The clerk of the committee will be presenting on this at Annual Sessions. There will also be more about this throughout the fall.

• The committee has been charged with finding a replacement to serve on the Board of Directors for Quaker House. To date, no one has been found.

• From the Prisoner Visitation and Support board representative David Connell there is this: “In the past year Prisoner Visitation Service (PVS) has continued to focus on growing it’s volunteer base and maintaining fiscal stability. Volunteer recruiters are focusing on several priority areas where there are either no visitors or long waiting lists. They are also working to form relationships with local coordinators and encourage them to view PVS as a resource for support. They also made an effort to follow up in a timely manner with all new applicants, attempting to shorten the interval between when a prison volunteer submits an application to the time when she/ he is officially appointed. Please contact David Connell (connelld@sidwell.edu) if you would like to learn more about volunteer opportunities with the only nationally based organization that facilitates volunteer visitors in federal detention facilities.

The committee has also had challenges. We are learning what it means to be a working committee in the 21st century. Many committee members have passions and knowledge about a wide range of issues, as well as busy schedules. We are still on a learning curve about how to communicate more fluidly via e-mail and other new technologies so we can remain informed and get more educated about issues, while being mindful of the importance of not mistaking this exchange of information with the tried-and-true practice of coming together, seeking unity and harmony in the presence of each other as we make decisions. This report is in itself a reflection of the changing process as the inclusion of work that happened via e-mail is new and perhaps not something all are comfortable with. Even the content of this report—which has been shared with the committee—has only had input from a few members and, as such, should be held in that light.

Just as there will not be peace without justice, there will not be peace without harmony. If we cannot be practitioners of justice AND harmony within our own spiritual body and in our wider circles, can we realistically expect peace in the larger world? This is the tension we are learning to hold and will continue to be a part of our upcoming work, and ask for the loving support of the Yearly Meeting as we proceed.

2011 Annual Report

As has been our tradition the past few years, we listened to concerns brought by committee members and others about international events, and helped season them into letters to government officials that were then presented to Yearly Meeting for approval of the message. These messages were then sent from BYM and also shared with all the monthly meetings with a request for them to also send a similar message if so led. We have no formal feedback mechanism to learn what other meetings may have done with those letters or recommendations.

In June 2010, a letter to President Obama calling for his action after Israeli response to the flotilla trying to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza was drafted.
In August 2010, another letter to Barack Obama concerning a House Resolution supporting Israel’s use of any means necessary to eliminate nuclear threats posed by Iran was drafted.
In March 2011, we heard a presentation from members of Annapolis Friends about the “Fund the Community: Bring the War Dollars Home” campaign that they are involved in. The committee agreed that this is a great campaign but, because of the political and geographic nature of the work of this campaign, it would be good for Monthly Meeting PSCC’s to individually connect and coordinate. As a committee, we are exploring ways to better connect with FCNL as a resource for helping to nurture this kind of effort since the action called for is political lobbying and advocacy.
Annual Networking Day was held at Sandy Spring on Saturday, 9-11-2010, from 10 until 3. Lunch was provided by Sandy Spring’s Hospitality Committee. Speaker in the morning was Nathan Harrington, member of Sandy Spring and public school teacher who is creating an intentional community in the Congress Heights section of Anacostia in D.C. Nathan shared about the struggles, joys and realities of living in intentional community in DC, the realities of working in public schools in poor and often violent neighborhoods, and what he hopes can be accomplished. One reality he confronts, as an example pertinent to Friends, is that he struggles with military recruitment in the schools in poor neighborhoods, recognizing that there are increasingly less opportunities for youth to leave these communities and military enlistment presents itself as one of the few options.
The Committee sponsored one workshop at 2010 Annual Session. Bethany Criss, executive director of the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund presented on her work.

In addition to these activities, members of this Committee have been involved in other work under the care of this Committee.

Betty Brinson is leaving her role as BYM representative to the Board of Directors for Quaker House. We are seeking a replacement.
The Criminal and Restorative Justice Committee is now a working group under the care of the Peace and Social Concerns Committee, but we have not had any reports. John Fogarty had served on this Committee and informed us that the group is no longer active. The purpose of the Committee had been to address incarceration and criminal justice concerns. It sought to encourage prison ministry, find volunteers for visitation, to be a resource for Monthly Meetings, maintain a speaker’s bureau and act as a conscience to the YM on prison concerns and the death penalty. The Committee was also charged with naming a representative to serve on the Board of Directors of Prisoner Visitation and Support which meets in Philadelphia 2-3 times a year. This position also remains vacant.
Right Sharing of World Resources Working Group: We have received regular and informative reports from Karen Grisez and Joan Gildemeister. Presentations were made at a number of monthly meetings and at Warrington Quarter in York. Joan purchased a laptop and loaded the Right Sharing DVD and presentation onto it. Karen has just joined the Board of Right Sharing. Karen and Joan will be giving a workshop about Right Sharing on Thurs., 8/4 at Annual Sessions. We encourage Friends to consider learning more about and supporting this work as best we can.

As we move forward, we are also looking at our charge in the Manual of Procedure and considering what our role should be in relationship to the Yearly Meeting and Monthly Meetings. We have identified three possible functions:

Act as a delegated BYM clearinghouse with a special eye to discernment of the leadings of individual Friends who bring issues and projects before it,
Act as a switchboard, keeping tabs on peace & justice activities undertaken by the YM and constituent MMs, and endeavor to make local initiatives aware of each other,
Act as a resource so that we can offer support and stimulus to the Peace Committees of MMs.

This fits with the description in the Manual of Procedure, but how to do this in an effective and visible manner remains to be discerned, especially since several other committees are also involved with social issues. One challenge is how to support and cross fertilize each other instead of “staking out turf.”

We are aware that we live in challenging times with many worthy causes and callings among our collective body. We are compelled to find ways to nurture our collective efforts so that we are greater than the sum of our parts, and that our messages are grounded in the Testimonies. To do this we are called to look for ways we can serve the Yearly Meeting by exploring and developing opportunities for action that cut across the issues and the Testimonies. We may, at times, question Minutes and statement letters that are brought to us. In what ways are they divisive and definitive? In what ways are they effective? Are there other ways we can build relations in our communities to plant seeds of compassion and love so that our messages have a broader reach? In what way are we calling on others to change, but not calling on ourselves to change? In what ways can we break through the separations we have created along identity and issue lines so we can see and act on the bigger issues that underlie the causes?

These are also times of profound change, economically, politically, culturally and socially. It is our belief that these times are thirsting for the principles upon which Quakers have built our foundation. We Friends are challenged to find new ways in this changing landscape. For this Committee, we will continue to explore and nurture new ideas and new pathways that move us towards the kind of world we envision can be, recognizing that our journey may never get us there but can move us closer. We also ask that all the Friends in the Yearly Meeting join us in consciously trying to be that world when we gather so we can be stronger agents of change as loving and peaceful presences. As it is written in James 2:18, “But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” We look forward to being a part of Friends showing our faith through our works.

Peace and Social Concerns Committee