Summaries of Prior Annual Meetings
2007 Annual Meeting - Excerpted from Fall 2007 Bulletin
From Clerk's Message:
The 2007 annual sessions of Lake Erie Yearly Meeting once again were held in Bluffton, Ohio on the lovely and friendly Bluffton University campus...
The theme for our 2007 Lake Erie Yearly Meeting Sessions was "LIVING OUR WITNESS TO PEACE." The Program Committee presented us with a great variety of opportunities to explore this theme at many levels. Friends were inspired by Mary Lord's Plenary Address and examined our personal and corporate practices with worship sharing queries, workshops, and private meditation and worship. Reports from our standing committees also reflected our efforts to assist Friends in letting our lives speak in this blessed faith community as well as in our larger world communities.
We were inspired and deeply moved by the participation of the newly formed Adult Young Friends, who participated in this year's programming by providing the opportunity to spiritually honor all those lives given in the war in Iraq. The silent walk over all the names of those lost from Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, concluding with singing, acknowledgment of the deaths of Iraqi civilians, and silent worship, was a most appropriate ending to Mary Lord's message regarding "Finding Peace - Healing the Brokenness." These young adult Friends have surely been recognized as precious gifts among us...
Friends were inspired by the report and offerings from the newly formed Earthcare Committee. We are indebted to their hard work, research, and sharing of resources with LEYM Friends and meetings...
We all look forward to greeting one another in love and worshiping together in the Spirit at next Annual Meeting. Unfortunately there has been a schedule conflict at Bluffton University for the fourth weekend in June, which we set as the date for that gathering during our 2007 sessions. In order to reserve all the spaces we require, especially for the children's program, the Clerks and Arrangements & Site Committee have accepted the regular dates of the third weekend in June, the 12th-15th, for the 2008 Annual Meeting. At that time we can have all the wonderful spaces we enjoyed this year as well as no other group's competition at meal time. The A&S Committee Clerk reports that the university has the third week in June permanently reserved for LEYM.
In Love and Light,
Shirley Bechill, LEYM Presiding Clerk
2005 Annual Meeting - Excerpted from Fall 2005 Bulletin
Lake Erie Yearly Meeting's 2005 Annual Meeting in Bluffton, Ohio, was once again an important time for fellowship, spiritual renewal, and growth for our Yearly Meeting. The theme for the meeting was "The Ground of Our Being: Listening to Earth and Spirit."
Some brief highlights follow: 153 persons registered for the meeting, which I believe is a record attendance. The formation of new worship groups in Circleville, Ohio, and Tustin, Michigan, was noted. Opportunities for Bible study, worship sharing, and corporate worship deepened the spiritual life of the gathering. Kim Carlyle's plenary lecture, "Activism for the Earth, from the Spirit," challenged us to see living in harmony with the earth as a spiritual practice and to take seriously the traditional Quaker testimony of living out our beliefs in our daily lives. A summary of his talk is given [in the] Annual Records. Matt Hogan (Athens) and Becka Sommer (Broadmead) will represent us at the World Gathering of Young Friends this August in Lancaster, England. Ten years of service by Connie Bimber (Oberlin) as Treasurer and five years of service by Eric Starbuck (Pittsburgh) as Bulletin editor were celebrated as they passed on these labors of love.
The Yearly Meeting increased the suggested contribution per adult member from the Monthly Meetings to the Yearly Meeting to $34 (from $31). This increase is primarily to meet increased travel costs and costs for Young Friends' programs. The Earthcare Committee was converted from a temporary Committee of Concern to a standing committee of the Yearly Meeting. The Committee of Concern will continue its work for the coming year until Nominating Committee brings forward a new roster of members at Annual Meeting in 2006. The Ministry & Nurture Committee presented the following queries for the Monthly Meetings' consideration: "In what ways has the Living Presence awakened my faith and turned me around? As a Meeting, how do we support each other in being faithful?" Ministry & Nurture also presented helpful guidelines for State of the Meeting reports (see minute YM05-29). The Yearly Meeting joined in unity with the FCNL resolution on a "Sensible Transition to an Enduring Peace" (see YM05-27).
Paul Tinkerhess and Son, of Ann Arbor Friends Meeting, delighted and inspired people of all ages with their program of music Saturday evening. (The ice cream was good, too.) As ever, the Annual Meeting was brought to closure with the presentation of epistles, both from the various groups in our Youth & Children program and by the Yearly Meeting as a whole, followed by corporate worship.
(from longer report by Clerk Michael Fuson)