Message from Sandy Kewman, Pacific Yearly Meeting Presiding Clerk
Dear Pacific Yearly Meeting Community,
Shan Cretin, co-clerk of M&O, and I are happy to report on the request to affiliate with Friends General Conference which was approved at our Annual Session, 2019.
We were informed that Friends General Conference Executive Committee approved the request of Pacific Yearly Meeting’s affiliation with FGC on October 7, 2019. During the Central Committee Meeting on October 24 and 26, 2019 the decision was announced to the wider community of FGC. Frank Barch, Clerk of FGC Central Committee, stated in an email the following:
I am so greatly pleased to be able to welcome Pacific Yearly Meeting into the Friends General Conference family! As I was certain, Executive Committee rejoiced to receive and approve your request for affiliation. This indeed made it a happy meeting last weekend!
Welcome, and thank you! If I can offer support or explanations, I am at your service.
Frank Barch, Presiding Clerk
FGC Central Committee
This is the Minute recording their decision:
(53-19) Pacific Yearly Meeting’s affiliation with FGC: Jean-Marie Prestwidge Barch (Clerk of the Committee for Nurturing Ministries) brought a recommendation that we accept Pacific Yearly Meeting’s request to affiliate with FGC. Friends APPROVED joyfully. We are inspired by the faithfulness of Pacific Yearly Meeting’s years-long, careful process to come to the point of requesting affiliation. There are directly affiliated monthly meetings within Pacific Yearly Meeting. In the future, the yearly meeting affiliation will take priority. Jean-Marie shared that there are two monthly meetings in Pacific Yearly Meeting that are in Mexico. We are aware that there are multiple yearly meetings in FGC with Spanish-speaking people. We wish to explore the possibility of FGC providing materials in the languages of the people we serve.
Heather Levien has been named as an interim representative of PacYM to FGC. The PacYM nominations committee is considering naming an additional interim representative and will nominate regular representatives in July who will serve a 3 year term. At that time, representation by the directly affiliated Monthly meetings of PacYM will be subsumed under the PacYM representation to FGC, therefore, there will be no need for the directly affiliated monthly meetings to nominate their own representatives to serve after the July PacYM Annual Gathering. In the interim, some monthly meeting representatives to FGC are maintaining an active role during this transitional period.
When PacYM’s affiliation was announced at the recent FGC Central Committee Meeting (October 24-27), it was pointed out by the General Secretary, Barry Crossno, that 70 years ago during the 1948 Conference, the Central Committee formed a committee to explore “widening the influence” of FGC. The following September 1949, the Central Committee asked this ad hoc committee to explore drawing other yearly meetings into affiliation with FGC, particularly Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Orthodox, the recently formed Pacific Yearly Meeting, and the recently united New England Yearly Meeting (Gurneyite and Wilburite Orthodox Friends in New England Reunited in 1945). Barry warmly welcomed PacYM as the newest affiliate.
Warmly,
Sandy