Friends Decision-Making and Clerking with Joy

Five 2-hour sessions: Monday 2/3 – Friday 2/7 (3-5pm Eastern / 12-2pm Pacific) This workshop will focus on all aspects, both theoretical and practical, of Friends decision-making. The focus tends toward being a clerk of a medium sized monthly meeting, the concepts are valuable for participants and for clerks in other Friends contexts. There will…

Workshop Description

Five 2-hour sessions: Monday 2/3 – Friday 2/7 (3-5pm Eastern / 12-2pm Pacific)

This workshop will focus on all aspects, both theoretical and practical, of Friends decision-making. The focus tends toward being a clerk of a medium sized monthly meeting, the concepts are valuable for participants and for clerks in other Friends contexts. There will be handouts and opportunities for experience sharing. Most of our time will be in a whole group setting.

There will be a suggested $10 materials charge.

Using handouts and hypotheticals, the following are some of the concepts we will examine in the course of the workshop:

• What does it mean to know the will of God?
• Sense of the meeting
• Unity
• Impasse
• Standing aside
• Being not in unity
• The role of those present
• The role of the clerk
• Preparing the agenda
• The use of committees
• Conflict
• Options if unity is not apparent
• Techniques for contributing to a climate of safety/bravery
• Discernment

Leader Experience

Since 2006, Steve has led dozens of discussions in small group settings on various Quaker topics. He co-facilitated this workshop with Arthur Larrabee several times in 2018-2020 as a transition and has facilitated this workshop a few times per year since then. Steve often serves as a sounding board for clerks in New York Yearly Meeting where he serves as General Secretary.

,O has been facilitating workshops for over 30 years on topics such as healing, reparations, and alternatives to gun violence.

Steve and ,O were both part of the first cohort of Quakers Uprooting Racism. They began a conversation about the importance of this workshop in addressing racism. They have now facilitated this workshop numerous times together.