Report to BFM Business Meeting on
BYM Annual Session
August 3 through August 8, 2010
The theme this year, 'Leading for Today: Lessons from History,' was examined in three plenary sessions and several workshops which looked at aspects of the history of slavery in the United States and Friends' involvement.
The Annual Session also provided Friends with the opportunity to learn more about Kenyan Friends through the formal reports as well as private conversations with members of the BYM delegation of seven Friends who attended meetings of the Friends United Meeting (FUM) General Board and the United Society of Friends Women International, both held in Nairobi in early July 2010. Several of the delegates also visited and gave one-week 'short courses' at Friends Theological College in Kaimosi, Kenya. A total of 190 Kenyans attended the three courses offered. Ann Riggs of Annapolis Friends Meeting, the principal of the college, also was present throughout the week and offered a promising update on the status of the college, which has become accredited since Ann assumed her position there. BYM has supported Ann financially for the last two years in her work to strengthen the college.
J.E. McNeil, one of three BYM representatives to the FUM General Board, reported that the board earlier in the year held a special called meeting at which it considered whether FUM should continue to exist. The board concluded that yes it should continue and it established a task force to look at ways to reconfigure the organization and how it does its business and supports its overseas missions. FUM's General Secretary, Silvia Graves, will retire at the end of 2011 and a search committee has been appointed to identify her successor. Silvia attended the Annual Session again this year and led a morning Bible Study.
J.E noted that there are internal tensions within other FUM yearly meetings, not just in unprogrammed ones like BYM. She said that the General Board continues to struggle over the personnel policy and at the moment the issue is at a stalemate. However, J.E. expressed confidence that the 'way will open for change in the future.' She noted as a positive sign toward change the decision taken by the board earlier this year that FUM is an 'association' of yearly meetings rather than a denomination in which the yearly meetings are members.
In the area of BYM finances, the budget for FY 2011 was approved at Annual Session. This budget calls for revenue of just under $1.8 million. Of this $411,230 is expected from monthly meeting apportionments and $791,920 from the Camping Program (mainly tuitions). The 2011 budget also anticipates contributions of $140,000, which will be a stretch from the $77,533 received in FY 2009. But Robinne Gray, the YM development director, said she was 'optimistic.' As of the end of July, about $41,000 had been received through contributions for this year's budget, about $20,000 of which was earmarked for the camps. There are now 40 households that make contributions through the new auto-give program totaling more than $1,000 per month.
As in the past, the Camp Property Management Committee made an appeal this year for a particular camp project, this time for a 'pond' at Camp Shiloh which is estimated to cost about $85,000. Thus far about $15,000 has been raised for the project, and several thousand dollars were given or pledged during Annual Session.
The Annual Session accepted the Trustees' recommendation to remove from the Yearly Meeting's accounts two unfunded designated funds. One of these was a $26,100 set-aside fund earmarked for FUM, to be paid once the question of BYM's financial support for FUM is resolved. In an emotionally charged business session, Friends ultimately accepted the fact that while this line item had been included in past budgets, no money had actually been set-aside for the fund (and given the Yearly Meeting's current financial situation, there is no prospect of adding $26,100 to next year's budget). The decision to eliminate this fund was taken as part of a larger step to clear the Yearly Meeting's books of some $300,000 in a dozen unfunded designated funds. The removal of the FUM set-aside fund was particularly troubling for some Friends who felt that BYM has a moral obligation to itself to pay this money to FUM once the yearly meeting's financial obligation to that body is resolved. While BYM has not made general contributions to FUM since the time the set-aside fund was established in 2004, it has financially supported certain specific FUM programs or projects including Ann Riggs' leading at the Friends Theological College.
The FY 2011 budget, approved at Annual Session, includes a $6,300 contribution to FUM. How this budget item will be handled is dependent upon approval or non-approval of the 2008 recommendation made by the Committee of Four Committees to support FUM without restriction. Discussion of this minute will be taken up again at Interim Meeting in October. A decision at that time could reinstate the Yearly Meeting's prior policy of contributing to FUM or it could continue the more recent practice of supporting particular FUM programs directly without contributing to FUM's administrative overhead.
Submitted:
Liz Hofmeister and Susan Kaul, BFM representatives to BYM
