Action Concerning Cluster Bombs

Friends Committee for National Legislation is urging the following action:

Urge your senators to add their names to the growing list of elected leaders from both parties who have cosponsored the Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act (S. 594).

Action Concerning Violence in Darfur

Violence in Darfur and its' surroundings (murder, rape and displacement, by the janjaweed, of unarmed farming families) has reached levels not seen since the beginning of the genocide more than 5 years ago. South Sudan, rich in oil, could be the site of the second genocide of this century.

China has refused to suspend transfers of arms to Sudan until El Bashir's government brings the atrocities to a halt. El Bashir has been backing away from all peace agreements.

In coming weeks, Congress will vote on an emergency supplemental funding bill for protection and aid. World food prices have skyrocketed. The World Food Program has announced (per an American Jewish World Service report) that rations will have to be cut in half, due to costs and endangerments to those who deliver humanitarian services to Darfur.

President Bush has threatened to veto the bill if it contains a penny more than he originally requested.

Congress must do its' share, the U.S.' fair share, to ensure adequate funding for aid.

Please, call the excellent Senator Chuck Schumer (212-486-4430), and/or Senator Hillary Clinton's headquarters (703-469-2008), and ask their staff to tell them to make--or keep--Darfur a priority when the voting for the bill comes up.

Just one or two brief phone calls. Please, continue, or begin, to be a part of our fragile world's moral conscience. Thanks so much.

State of the Meeting, 2007

As we struggled with writing the State of the Meeting report, it became clear how divided Bulls Head Friends are in our perceptions of the Meeting. Our first draft was characterized by some as ‘depressed.’ As our struggle has taken us well beyond the deadline for submission to YM, it might be more helpful to write this as a memo to ourselves rather than focusing on ‘presentation’ to the larger body.

We are a Meeting of deeply centered and caring worship. We cherish that gift but acknowledge to each other that Bulls Head Oswego Monthly Meeting has, in other ways, changed. We have become smaller in numbers and perhaps in aspiration.

Many Friends point out that we are still coming out of a period of mourning for Friends we have lost and traditions that have had to be relinquished. On the other hand, newer members are bringing energy and positive transitions. Some of them speak with joy about having found a deep and caring community. We provide support groups for Friends who have asked for them, and an ongoing series of ‘Friendly Bunches’ that meet for fellowship. We are able to rally around members in crisis and provide practical, emotional and spiritual support. There are many members and attenders, however, with whom we have lost touch, and whose needs we do not know. We have proved that we can rally when the need is obvious or spoken; we have currently lost the organizational ability to seek out and tend to those who do not come through the doors on a regular basis.

Our communication systems within the Meeting are in disarray. No one feels able at this time to maintain a newsletter, and our past simple but clear method of telephone communication has deteriorated in a confusion about mixing electronic, phone and US mail contacts. Many Friends feel out of touch, even marginalized. One friend has begun a website Bullshead.quaker.org on our behalf, which we are slowly learning to use.

We sustain fewer committees. We recently combined the committees for Care & Counsel (formerly Overseers) and Ministry and Worship, and the work of the combined committee is proving overwhelming; much is falling by the wayside. We pay for the cleaning of our 2 small buildings rather than clean them ourselves. We do not have a First Day school or Religious Education committee; we have a Peace and Social action liaison person but no committee. We help support a student at Oakwood Friends School, and another in Bolivia, but otherwise Peace and Social Action concerns are now largely left to the private responses of members. Many of us are active, individually, in the larger world and larger Quaker bodies, and we believe the Meeting provides strong spiritual nourishment for individual effort.

Indeed, everyone seems to agree on the richness of our Sunday morning Meeting for Worship. Worship brings us together. We love each other, and we cherish that time together. If we can look clearly at and acknowledge what we have let go, maybe we can begin to articulate what we want to be and how we want to move forward as a group of individuals in community. That seems to be the work at hand.

April Meeting for Business

Bulls Head Oswego Monthly Meeting for Business

April 13, 2008

Present: Vonn New, Valerie Suter, Mary Foster Cadbury, Nettie West, Robert West, Karen Snare, Christopher Sammond, Chris Cadbury, John Perry, Julia Giordano, Denise Sherman, Henry Muller, Sybil Perry.

Minutes are numbered from the beginning of the calendar year.

2008-16 The clerk reads from Faith and Practice.

2008-17 The clerk will email and mail to us the Nominating Committee’s slate of suggested appointments for 2008, ready for first reading at May Meeting for Business.

2008-18 Two of our members died recently: Curt Beck on March 21^st and Hans Janitschek on Feb. 21. We ask the clerk to send a letter to each family about their passing.

2008-19 The Nominating Committee wonders since we now have Mary Cadbury providing our calendar, should we take out the entries for newsletter editor and assistant, and substitute an entry for calendar editor? The meeting agrees, although we miss the newsletter. We note that anyone who has news can contact Vonn New to post it on our meeting web site, which is Bullshead.quaker.org We ask Ministry and Counsel to consider ways to disseminate information, both at the meeting house and at the web site.

2008-20 The Nominating Committee has a concern for religious education.

They wonder if the meeting is satisfied with the way in which children are

cared for when they come to meeting, and whether the committee should be looking for a Religious Education Coordinator. We see that children are not coming regularly, but we want to find a way to welcome children when they do come and, more, to begin planning for regular young attenders. We ask Nominating to find a Religious Education Coordinator to take action for us.

2008-21 Ministry and Counsel presents the State of the Meeting Report. Friends listen and ask to add our web site. We approve the report. THE REPORT IS ATTACHED.

2008-22 Denise Sherman and Karen Snare report on the Spring Sessions of New York Yearly Meeting, held last week at Oakwood Friends School in Poughkeepsie. The Meeting is grateful to hear our representatives’ full oral reports of what happened.

2008-23 The Treasurer presents the treasurer’s report for first quarter, 2008.

Friends accept this report. THE REPORT IS ATTACHED.

We adjourn to meet at the appointed time for Meeting for Business on May 11^th.

Julia Giordano, Clerk
Sybil Perry, Recording Clerk