Sunday
NYYM and Conflict – March 2007 Spark
I received a few days ago in the paper mail, the March 2007 Edition of the NYYM Newsletter, called ‘Spark’ which discusses the theme - The protracted conflict affecting 25% of the Monthly Meetings of NYYM.
Yet, the example of how the hierarchy within New York Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) approaches and resolves conflict, by force and by avoidance, is the institutionalized hypocrisy made clear in NYYM's latest window dressing – March 2007 Spark.
In the March 2007 edition of Spark: 'peace' - the antonym of 'conflict' was mentioned over 50 times while 'integrity', the core Friends Testimony, was mentioned only once.
Can Friends (or anyone) have peace without integrity?
Would this drawing look more natural if the caricatured Friend had stronger legs, and body, those which integrity and the other Testimonies would represent?
Reprinted with permission.
Signe Wilkinson, Philadelphia Daily News,
Washington Post Writers Group
What I noticed first in the current edition of Spark, upon quick scan of the pages, is the return to the telltale control of information by controlling who can speak. March 2007 Spark contains the words of the 'inner sanctum' Friends, and those coveting that status - by the names showing in the feature bylines. This is an example of how NYYM manipulates and increases conflict through avoidance of diversity of opinion. The issue is written to suggest conflict is located in Monthly Meetings, and well it might, in some locales.
But, conflict most surely also exists in the New York Yearly Meeting office. (from my own experiences there, where there is little supervision, no published time and task specific job descriptions for the full and part time employees, and where is employed a financial process, which has not been published or even shared with the Financial Services Committee. (Financial Management Guidelines – noted on page 20 of the 2004 Yearbook).
And conflict surely occurs between the elitist hierarchy which perpetuates itself and the office bureaucracy - and the common everyday Friends in the 65 constituent Monthly Meetings.
The second most recent edition of Spark - was about ‘Our Meetinghouses’ (why or how does place, all of a sudden, become important to Friends?) - and to me looked like a generous effort to reach out to the masses. The ‘Meetinghouse’ edition included bylines from new writers - many of whom are not part of the inner sanctum. 'Outsider' Friends like these writers were previously or are possibly still concerned about NYYM’s relevance. Outsiders are also concerned with the Monthly Meetings’ disproportionate financial contributions to the overweight NYYM operating budget.* (please see the charts below)
I am a witness to New York Yearly Meeting - a self-perpetuating bureaucracy in tight control of information about itself, and its (over) use of the resources of time, talent and money. We might wonder why any Friends would mind being transparent, open and truthful, if there would be nothing of malfeasance to cover?
While I was a member of NYYM, and participating on the Yearly level on the Financial Services Committee, I was asked once (by an insider whom I’ve known for many years) why I didn’t treat those who could let me into the inner sanctum of NYYM with more respect (when I could see obfuscation and evidence of financial malfeasance in their closed affairs). I didn’t respond to the Friend then, maybe because I felt the question was simply absurd. My answer now is: It’s because I feel quite strongly that there should be no inner sanctum of any living Friends body, including NYYM. There should be a healthy exchange of participants over time, which there has not been in NYYM. The inner sanctum within NYYM is most exemplified by what is called the Liaison Committee, now including a paid employee, the General Secretary, and which also includes the Clerks of the Coordinating Committees and the Clerk of the Yearly Meeting. The elite also are comprised of Trustees, and various General Services Section committee clerks. (Audit, Financial Services, Sessions, Personnel).
Here's one example of how NYYM used its hierarchy to control information to perpetuate its paid positions.
The Liaison Committee blocked a Witness Coordinating Committee minute in 10th Month 2005, where was approved an ‘information and news sharing infrastructure’, conceived and designed that Yearly Meeting Witness Committees could share news of their goings-on, minutes, announcements, pictures, links – whatever - directly with the world, all in one networked place on the Internet - all written, produced and published organically by the committees themselves. The recipients of this information, of course included the Editor of Spark, a paid employee. But the approved minute was blocked. The Liaison Committee, if asked, will say they ‘simply’ required the protocol be changed, to force the information to flow through the “NYYM Office”. Hence, the elite forced a Coordinating Committee, already up in the hierarchy, to go outside of its approved minute and make much more ongoing work for the person or persons who would implement the infrastructure. This, totally and simply, in my view - because the elite are there to conserve power and resources for themselves and the paid employees as the ultimate ‘why’ of NYYM’s existence. Historically, paid people have reasons to alter the truth.
And the truth is Friends, that while NYYM is being propped up by a few who are allowed to speak- those who George Fox called simply ‘professors’ - have their trips and mini vacations at the Powell House Retreat Center, Annual Sessions at Silver Bay, and Triennials at FUM, and FWCC, and the Gathering at FGC - paid-for. These are Friends who want to abdicate their first and most important responsibility - to their Monthly Meeting - and ascend higher and higher until their lives and the NYYM office might be located on a big puffy cumulous cloud somewhere – out of reach of those poor pedestrian Friends back on earth who just can’t possibly understand the hierarchy and complexity of the New York Yearly Meeting 'leadership'. (Maybe with electronic funds transfer becoming more widely used, Friends can just beam their money off a satellite right to the office and to the ministers on the cloud?)
Exclusion by force has been utilized over the years, through the implementation of the Coordinating Committees in the 1970s, (to put up a defense against the tsunami of soul searching hippies giving testimony at business meetings - when they came into and then left the Society during that turbulent time - the 1960’s and 1970’s).
But, as I’ve said, NYYM is simply a dead structure being perpetuated by a small insular elite group which to me has obviously been in power since the early 1990’s and the Friends World College equity action by various NYYM friends vs. the Trustees.
I’ve previously provided links to another Friend’s two missives (You Can’t Get There from Here – 1986) and (Looking for the Promised Land – 1988) of the late 1980’s which preceded the Friends World College divestiture debacle, which were read widely within NYYM. This Friend’s witness to NYYM suggested that the problems, potentially in conflict, and in making NYYM relevant to the Eternal Life, go back in time even further. What I’ve shown through evidence of financial malfeasance, (malfeasance of the NYYM elite, includes apportioning too many resources for itself, and basically living outside of the constituent Monthly Meetings’ means), as NYYM”s operating expenses are approximately 1.5 x higher than each of two of its similar neighbors – New England and Baltimore Yearly Meetings.
| Full Time Employees | | | | ||
| | | 1980 | 1990 | 2000 | 2005 |
| NYYM | | | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| NEYM | | | 3 | 4 | 4.5 |
| BaltYM | 3 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
| MM Contributions - to YM Adjusted for Inflation (2005 Dollars- ,000's) | ||||
| | 1980 | 1990 | 2000 | 2005 |
| NYYM | 313 | 423 | 402 | 476 |
| NEYM | 147 | 272 | 268 | 280 |
| BaltYM | 160 | 249 | 318 | 364 |
| Philadelphia | 879 | 1,101 | 1,037 | 1,078 |
Membership Gain / Loss
| | | 1980 | 1990 | 2000 | 2005 |
| NYYM | | -19% | -18% | -17% | -9% |
| NEYM | | 6% | 12% | 2% | 0% |
| BaltYM | | 2% | 18% | 14% | -2% |
| Philadelphia | | -18% | -5% | -8% | 0% |
What is obvious is that anyone who criticizes NYYM, especially as I have done to the financial basis for, or expression of the malfeasance, will be driven out. Before I was fully driven out, I was also removed from the Witness Coordinating Committee in 7th Month 2006, after I refused to comply with the Liaison Committee’s overruling to have the process (in the approved 10th Month 2005 News and Information Sharing Infrastructure) flow through the NYYM office, for approval and posting, instead of from the Committees directly to the public. Yes, it was me who conceived and was ready to implement the solution to having NYYM' s witness concerns add plumage to the Quaker bonnet notifying the world of its work in service to those receptive to NYYM Witness concerns.
Then, after two Friends, including myself, asked to have the Financial Services Committee meetings at (far away Silver Bay in the Adirondacks) Annual Sessions in 7th Month 2006 available to be attended via teleconference, the attempt to include more of the 9 constituent Regional Treasurers in the decision process was blocked by the NYYM Treasurer. The Clerk of the Financial Services Committee went along with the Treasurer’s wishes. I was then uninvited to the 2007 budget meeting in 9th Month 2006, when I asked the Treasurer a question that needed a specific and quantifiable answer regarding over $20,000 per year which is being spent, most probably in some way not related to costs being incurred by NYYM. (Please see 9/19/2006)
The main reason I was driven out was that I had previously written an open letter to Monthly Meetings in 5th Month 2005. A general reason I was driven out included general independence of thought and the lack of fear to speak up when I felt I could not tolerate untruth.
I believe another reason for being shunned was the essay I published in Friends Journal article in 7th Month 2006 – ‘The Costs of the Quaker Faith’ which proposed that if Monthly Meetings take stock of their own conditions, and find a balance in their annual expenditures divided into four major categories - said that Monthly Meetings would understand their missions more clearly and heal themselves, by providing the occasion for less major conflict to occur in the first place.
Force combined with avoidance can include placing the NYYM representative sessions outside of the realm of possible attendance for those who might have a conflict with the in-crowd – such as it is being done this coming 4th Month in Western New York State, where 95% of the NYYM membership lives more than 3 hours drive or flight away. I’d estimate that 80% of the NYYM membership lives more than 5 hours drive or flight and drive away from this location. I’ll go into why this is being done in a later letter, but it includes a large decision or decisions that NYYM doesn’t want many members to be present, to avoid a conflict which involves a lot of money, all flowing toward NYYM, from Monthly Meetings which are declining in membership. Hmmm, Representative Meeting was held there 3 years ago, and another large decision was approved, maybe the April 2007 meeting agenda is related to that?
The process of resolution of conflict by force or avoidance is the hypocrisy housed in NYYM and expressed in its latest window dressing – March 2007 Spark.
So, take March 2007 Spark with a grain of salt. Consider that Peace was mentioned over 50 times and Integrity, the core Friends Testimony, was mentioned once. Can Friends have peace without integrity? This was my question in 7th Month 2006 Friends Journal. Evidently the elite at NYYM thinks the answer is ‘Yes’..
