Pacific Yearly Meeting offers workshops, conversations and other similar events online throughout the year. Look on the Pacific Yearly Meeting website homepage for upcoming workshops.
Committees are encouraged to sponsor and host workshops online. For information on how to do this, see Resources > Resources for Yearly Meeting Committee Clerks & Officers > Workshops, Interest Groups and similar Events during the year
Friends who are interested in facilitating a workshop online are asked to contact the appropriate Pacific Yearly Meeting Committee.
Here are some of the recent (and perhaps not so recent) workshop offerings:
Election Day Worship
Pacific Yearly Meeting offered an all-day Meeting for Worship on Zoom on US election day. All were welcome to attend from anywhere in the world to gather with others in prayer. Friends were invited to enter and leave at any time, closing the day with a social hour. (November 2024)
Ethical Land Transitions
The Indigenous Concerns Subcommittee (of PacYM’s Ministry Committee) hosted a conversation facilitated by Cassandra Ferrera (director of Eethical Land Transition) and Frank Lawrence (attorney for California Heritage: Indigenous Research Project). Becoming a person of place is Cassandra’s orienting cosmology, and her activist real estate career is informed by this path, committed to finding ways to decommodify and deprivatize Land. Cassandra listened her way forward, guided by the generosity of spirit, mentors, and friends who would help her co-found The Center for Ethical Land Transition. Her work transforms conventional real estate practice in service to Land, cultural reunion, and reparative justice. Frank has represented Indian Tribes for over 30 years, including serving as pro bono legal counsel to the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe for the past four years. He has taught federal Indian law, legal writing and ethics as an adjunct professor of law at U.C. Davis School of Law and has lectured on federal Indian law at the McGeorge School of Law, California State University, Sacramento, and California Indian Law Association conferences, among other venues. (February 2024)
Exploring Paths to Membership
Friends gathered to consider the query “What does membership look like for you?”, bringing more voices into the ongoing conversation about the meaning of membership and different ways to become a member. Facilitated by the Transformation Subcommittee (December 2025)
Friendly Conversation to Consider Change: Should We? Why? How?
The Committee Structures Working Group of Pacific Yearly Meeting’s Ministry Committee offered queries for Friends to consider how our Meeting structures are working for us, particularly for the Yearly Meeting. Before we consider any actual changes, we know that this work must grow from the wisdom of the entire community. (May 2026)
Names for the Divine, Wise Listening and Beloved Community: How to welcome religious expressions with divergent theologies
Sponsored by PacYM’s Ministry Committee, this workshop invited Friends to listen to one another tenderly and attentively across theological divides. We are surrounded by goads that encourage divisiveness. How do we create hospitality in our hearts and our worship communities, for various expressions of the Divine? (December 2024)
Sacred Space Healing for Respectful Dialogue
Through conscious or unconscious “othering” we cause harm to one another, especially “targeted groups” and thus to our community as a whole. The Racial Justice Subcommittee of the PacYM Ministry Committee developed this workshop to offer an experience of “Sacred Space Healing”, particularly to support presenters, clerks, committee clerks and worship sharing/interest group facilitators in preparation for Annual Session. The workshop included roleplay by “actors” from our community to make us aware of how harm happens and ways to repair it. (July 2025)
Serving as Elder, Receiving Eldering: The Mutuality of Accompaniment
Sandy Kewman and Dorothy Henderson, members of the Eldering Subcommittee of Pacific Yearly Meeting’s Ministry Committee, shared their experiences in both giving and receiving eldering/accompaniment. Participants also shared their experiences with eldering, either serving as an elder or receiving eldering as accompaniment. (May 2025)
The Life-Changing, Life-Affirming Programs of Friends Peace Teams
Friends Peace Teams is a Spirit-led organization working to develop long-term relationships with communities in conflict around the world to create programs for peace building, healing and reconciliation. The PacYM Representative to Friends Peace Teams facilitated multiple sessions featuring a video-collage that showcases Friends Peace Teams work around the world to build peaceful and just communities, empower women to become leaders, build libraries of peace materials, recognize the light in ourselves and others, and so much more. Friends Peace Teams Peace Workers & Facilitators from different regions were available to answer questions and discuss the 18 programs of Friends Peace Teams. (For more information about Friends Peace Teams, visit their website HERE) (April 2025)
What is Our Money For?
Facilitated by our Presiding Clerk, Friends were invited to a conversation about how our decisions about money reflect (or not) our spiritual values. The first session focused on personal and family decisions, while the second session is on Monthly Meetings, the Yearly Meeting, and other institutions. How do we get, keep, spend and invest money? How does it flow and work in the world? (January 2025)
Why Are We Friends? Finding the Collective Heartbeat of Pacific Yearly Meeting
The Transformation Subcommittee hosted a sharing session to consider: How do we show up for each other in community? How can we empower each other? What structures might support that? (April 2025)