Appendix C: General
App_C_Genl_()_.wpd

SAYMA 2002 Census

Financial
	SAYMA End of Fiscal Year Account Balances Report
	SAYMA Fiscal Year 2004 Budget — Approved 6/7/2003
	Notes to Budget

Faith and Practice 
	Faith and Practice Revisions Committee Report
	Approved Changes to Faith and Practice

Ecological Concerns Network Report

Southern Appalachian Friend Editors’ Report 

Ministry and Nurture Committee Report

SAYF Steering Committee Report

Oxford Monthly Meeting Letter

Epistle from American Friends Service Committee

Positions of Responsibility

SAYMA 2002 Census

Available in Hardcopy Only
SAYMA End of Fiscal Year Account Balances Report

See http://SAYMA.org/online_documents/YM2003_AccountBalances.htm

SAYMA Fiscal Year 2004 Budget — Approved 6/7/2003

See http://SAYMA.org/online_documents/YM2003_Budget.htm

Faith & Practice Revision Committee Report –2003

The Faith and Practice Review Committee has had seven meetings over two years. We presented our suggested changes to part I to Representative Meeting in September for discernment by the monthly meetings.  We received responses from Asheville MM, Athens MM, Berea MM, Celo MM, Crossville MM, Foxfire MM (lost in transit), Greenville MM, Memphis MM and Nashville MM.  Some of the suggested changes have been incorporated. In the future we will include explanatory rationale for revisions in the form of end notes or footnotes to each section.

Free Paisleys requested to be released from serving on this committee. We will miss his sense of history of SAYMA's Guide to Faith & Practice and his dedication to the work of this committee. In light of his resignation, at Spring Representative Meeting 2003, we asked Nominating Committee to seek out 1 or 2 more Friends to serve with us.

There is now a link from Documents on SAYMA's webpage to the current faith and practice; as changes are approved they will be inserted.  There is also a link to our "working" document.  We will place a link to the proposed changes to Part II that we will present to September Rep meeting to be circulated to the monthly meetings. Yellow highlighting means still in progress.  After careful consideration we reached clarity that we will not capitalize yearly meeting, monthly meeting, or worship group unless the terms are used as a specific, proper noun.

At the April Rep meeting, it was approved that the clerk of SAYMA convene an ad hoc committee with representation including members from M&N and F&P Revision to draft text that describes rightly ordered process for worship group/monthly meeting relationships and the process for a monthly meeting becoming a member of SAYMA.  After each of the involved committees has seasoned the proposed text, the ad hoc committee would bring this proposed text to Yearly Meeting for consideration. Our current practice in this area is both unclear and has caused difficult feelings in both meetings and worship groups.  

The committee is reformatting and changing the queries so they no longer beg yes or no responses but serve as prompts for discernment..  We have asked SAYF to take up consideration of Special Queries for Young Friends and ECN to review the queries under "stewardship of the earth". We anticipate that this work, too, will be done by September.

Our discernment leads us to believe that including a list of Quaker resources with address, email address, web page and a brief outline of services will better serve SAYMA than a reading list, which we propose to eliminate. We welcome suggestions of resources submitted electronically to Geeta McGahey by July 25.

Action: The attached proposed revisions, which have been circulated among Friends for the past nine months, are submitted for approval.

The Faith and Practice Revision Committee eagerly anticipates working with the Handbook committee in order to complete our process.  Our next meeting will be at Crossville Meeting House, Aug 1-2.  We are trying a two-day meeting to decrease the number of meetings each year and so decrease vehicle miles. We hope to finish the work on Part II, Resources and Queries for presentation to September Rep Meeting. We anticipate the final work will be ready by September 2004.

Respectfully Submitted,
Geeta McGahey, Clerk
Penelope Wright
Missy Ivie	Steve Livingston
Larry Ingle
Kristi Estes	

Approved Changes to Faith and Practice

See http://SAYMMA.org/online_documents/Faith_and_Practice/FP_Approved_Jun03.pdf

Ecological Concerns Network
  As a group of Friends with environmental concerns, the Ecological Concerns Network has met during Representative Meetings this past December and April and will meet at Yearly Meeting as well. 
  We maintain an email list for sharing information and challenges. Our ECN newsletter has been distributed quarterly this past year.
  We decided to share the message of The Earth Charter with the hope that it could be endorsed by the Yearly Meeting after seasoning in Monthly Meetings and Worship Groups.
  We are asking that SAYMA appoint a second representative to Friends Committee on Unity with Nature. We are, geographically, a large Yearly Meeting and link together people from many states. Our Yearly Meeting has demonstrated interest in ecological Concerns by forming the ECN and by participating in the energy survey, the carpooling effort and the compact flourescent project. We currently have four individuals within SAYMA (and connected to the ECN) serving on FCUN’s Steering Committee.
  We continue our efforts toward energy and resource use awareness in response to the Yearly Meetings’ 2001 minute on Global Climate Change. One of our group has initiated and coordinated a car pooling effort for Rep Meetings and for SAYMA’s annual gathering. This year, we have begun a project to count the number of incandescent bulbs replaced in households throughout SAYMA, meeting by meeting, by compact flourescent bulbs.
  The early morning outdoor worship at SAYMA annual gathering is under the care of the ECN.
  We have encouraged meetings and worship groups to come to Yearly Meeting with only four copies of their State of the Meeting reports so that one can be posted and read and another can be put in a notebook at a desk and be read. The other two copies can be given to the YM clerks. This is an effort at paper reduction.
  The ECN has brought forward an interest in traveling among Friends within the Yearly Meeting with the message of how our environmental concerns relate to our testimonies of peace and justice. Three individuals have indicated an interest in traveling under this concern. Three Meetings/Worship Groups have already requested and received visits on this topic. We plan to bring this outreach idea to the attention of SAYMA’s Ministry and Nurture Committee for their awareness and support.
  
  Respectfully submitted,
  
  Susan Carlyle

Report from The Southern Appalachian Friend Editors—Sixth Month 2003
The Southern Appalachian Friend, our Yearly Meeting’s newsletter, is prepared and distributed to monthly meetings, worship groups, and individuals four times per year: First, Fourth, Seventh, and Tenth months. Submission due dates are the first of these months.
By printing SAF on chlorine-free, 100%-post-consumer recycled paper, we save trees and prevent the release of harmful chemicals into our air and water. To further reduce our environmental impact, to provide for timely delivery, and to reduce paper and postage costs, we have begun to distribute SAF electronically. Please send a message to SAFeditor@SAYMA.org if you would like to be on this distribution list. Also consider if your meeting might designate one recipient who would receive the SAF (in either printed or electronic form) and make copies for others in your meeting. To help support our Creation-Friendly witness, please use recycled paper (or the clean side of used paper) to print your copies locally.       
We rely on submissions from SAYMA Friends and Friends organizations for news, articles, announcements, poetry, book reviews, and opinions. The editors would very much appreciate news from your meetings. If you want to send us your newsletter, please take a minute to circle or highlight the items that you want to share with SAYMA Friends. 
We would also appreciate submissions from meetings for the “Getting to Know You” feature. This is an article that includes a bit of the origin and history of your meeting, something about your membership, and some sharing of your concerns, successes, and challenges. We have received and printed a number of these sketches. We would like to hear from every meeting.   
Please support SAF with your written contributions. Also, please let us know how our newsletter might better serve the spiritual needs of our yearly meeting community. 

Respectfully submitted,  

Susan & Kim Carlyle
Ministry & Nurture Report to YM 2003

There are six highlights of our work this year I would like to share:

1. Clarification of our vision for Faith and Practice:
SAYMA's Ministry and Nurture Committee supports and supplements the work of the local monthly meeting's ministry and nurture groups and addresses spiritual issues that span the entire SAYMA community.

2.  Accordingly, we have responded this year to several groups and individuals who requested our attention and support.

3.  We have expanded our on-going meeting for worship, initiated at YM 2002, into a Nurture Center as a resource for all of our YM attenders.
 
4.  We conducted spiritual listening sessions each night for all those involved, or interested in, worship groups and the nurturing of worship groups.  This arose from a concern for better understanding of, and faithfulness to, our extended YM community and practices.
 
5.  We sponsored two members at an eldering retreat held at New England YM's Woolman Hill.  Kathy Burke and Turtle MacDermott will submit a written report under separate cover.  We also sponsored two members to attend the Traveling in the Ministry program and FGC consultation.  Reports already provided by Kit Potter and Judy Guerry.
 
6.  We express our gratitude to the monthly meetings who responded to our Fall letter requesting that representatives be appointed who are led to serve on SAYMA's Ministry & Nurture Committee.  We are reminded that this work need not be limited to one person from each meeting.
 
It is with joy we welcome the Cookeville Worship Group as a preparative meeting and Oxford, MISS as a monthly meeting into SAYMA
 
We continue to call upon you today to discern the gifts of those present in you meetings that are suited to the ministry and nurture of SAYMA. It is within one's monthly meeting community that gifts are expressed and discernable.
 
The following excerpt expresses this challenge we are collectively facing.  David Ferris recorded the  following in his journal in 1855.
 
"One night I dreamed that I saw a large, spacious building, in an unfinished state; and the master builder, who appeared an excellent person, came to me as I stood at a distance, and desired me to go and take a view of it; to which I agreed; and as we were surveying it and examining the particular parts I observed that among the many pillars, erected for the support of the building, there was one lacking.  I queried of him, what was the cause of that vacancy?  He replied, it was left for me; and that I was specially designed and prepared for the place, and showed me how I fitted it, like a mortise is fitted to its tenon.  So that I saw in my dream that all he said was true.  But, notwithstanding all this, I objected to my capacity and fitness to fill the vacancy, and was therefore unwilling to occupy it.  He endeavored, by the most convincing reasons, to remove all my objections, and to demonstrate that I was fitted for the place.  He further told me that they had not another prepared for it; and that the bui 
This is the challenge we face today-one of personal responsibility for acknowledging our gifts and for others to call them out.
 
Respectfully submitted by
Kathy Burke, Clerk

Southern Appalachian Young Friends
Steering Committee
Annual Report to SAYMA
6 June 2003

SAYF had five retreats during the 2002-2003 year plus two  joint Nurturing Committee, Oversight, and Steering Committee meetings.  One retreat to be hosted by Asheville Friends Meeting, January 17-19, 2003, was canceled due to bad driving conditions from snow storms. We are presently having the annual meeting of  SAYF here at Yearly Meeting.  There were eight planned SAYF events this year.  SAYF involves more meetings during the year, and more travel by persons, than any other SAYMA activities outside of Yearly Meeting itself. The details of the themes, and  attendance by Young Friends and  FAPs are attached.  The summary of financial records from the committee's Administrative Assistant, Therese Hildebrand, is attached. The work camp/retreat to Penn Center, St. Helena Island, and Yearly Meeting leadership support, are the only large subsidized expenses we have for SAYF retreats.

The year has been a good one for SAYF.  Our middle and high school young people, ages 12 to 18, are enthusiastic about the program. The   Young Friends Nurturing Committee has shown good understanding of Friends process under the leadership of Clerk Nicole Rennie this year.  We have a large class of graduating seniors, many here at the SAYMA gathering and some not able to be here.  We will really miss these senior Young Friends, who provided much guidance and leadership of SAYF this year.  There will not be many experienced High School seniors next year for planning retreats and to help with the introduction of new Young Friends to SAYF. Thus we expect to have many learning experiences next year.

We are happy for passage of the graduating seniors and encourage them to participate in the next level, Young Adult Friends (YAF).

The major accomplishments of the Steering committee this year include the updating of the medicines in the First Aid box.  This box is available at all SAYF retreats and committee meetings.  It is related to the medical release forms that each young person brings to the retreats.  Another achievement is the completion of a major section of the SAYF Handbook.  Sig Christensen and Kathleen Mavournin, Co-Clerk of Steering Committee, from West Knoxville MM, with others, have labored successfully on the Handbook for the past two years.  It builds on materials assembled by Margaret Farmer, past Co-Clerk,  from Steering Committee meetings.  Some of the Handbook sections will be used by Sig Christensen who is leading a training Workshop on Saturday, “Becoming A Friendly Adult Presence (FAP).”   The Handbook will be used to teach willing SAYMA Friends additional information about being a FAP.  This training is in addition to getting the minute of approval as a FAP from ones Monthly Meeting.

We close this report with the suggestion that more senior Friends in their late 50s and older consider becoming a FAP.  Mature Friends are needed as elders who have an understanding of who they have become as Friends.  Their maturity and their spiritual journey can be a great asset and gift to the High School Young Friends program.

Dick Houghton, Co-Clerk

Oxford Monthly Meeting Letter

Available in Hardcopy Only
AFSC Epistle

Available in Hardcopy Only
SAYMA Positions of Responsibility 6- 2003

Not posted to Web Site