by Diane Bowden | Jun 3, 2011 | Finances, Minuted Decisions
Richmond Friends Meeting Travel Policy
Proposed by Financial Stewardship Committee
Approved Eleventh Month, 2010
This paper lays out the manner in which Richmond Friends Meeting members and attenders may request financial support for travel related to voluntary service to Quaker organizations beyond the RFM community, or other Quaker pursuits. The opportunity to travel and learn more about the work of the Religious Society of Friends and to support RFM by representing our community is generally considered an act of service that enriches both the individual and the Meeting. Thus it is hoped that individuals will bear their own travel costs whenever feasible. However, no one should feel that opportunities to serve are hampered by lack of funds. In cases where personal funds are limited, Richmond Friends Meeting may supplement personal funds in the following ways.
There typically are five situations that may require occasional travel:
1) Those individuals recruited by Nominating Committee and approved by Meeting to represent RFM on Quaker organizations (examples: FCNL, AFSC, Quaker House, Friends General Conference, Baltimore Yearly Meeting)
2) Those individuals accepting leadership assignments directly from Baltimore Yearly Meeting or Quaker organizations outside of RFM
3) Those individuals chosen by RFM committees to represent our Meeting in Yearly Meeting activities
4) Those individuals requesting scholarships for Yearly Meeting participation or other Quaker opportunities
5) Those individuals who are called to travel in spiritual service and whose ministry is under the care of Richmond Friends Meeting
The guidance for financial assistance in each situation is provided as follows:
1) Those individuals recruited by Nominating Committee and approved by Meeting to represent RFM on Quaker organizations (examples: FCNL, AFSC, Quaker House, Friends General Conference, Baltimore Yearly Meeting). Each of these individual positions is under the care of an associated committee: Thus
Under the care of Ministry and Worship: Baltimore Yearly Meeting rep, Friends General Counsel rep
Under the care of Peace and Social Concerns: American Friends Service Committee rep, Friends Council on National Legislation rep, Quaker House rep
Thus, our guidance is that committees with associated individual positions under their care should anticipate any related travel expenses beyond the financial capacity of the individual accepting the position and itemize this expense in their annual budget request.
2) Those individuals accepting leadership assignments directly from Baltimore Yearly Meeting or Quaker organizations outside of RFM
When an individual is invited to serve a Quaker organization and chooses to do so out of genuine interest independent of Richmond Friends Meeting, our guidance is that participation at that level and all relevant expense should be the responsibility of the individual. (If assistance is essential in order to serve, see 4c below)
3) Those individuals chosen by RFM committees to represent our Meeting in Yearly Meeting activities
If an RFM committee decides it is useful and productive to endorse a committee member to serve in a related role at the Yearly Meeting level, the committee should anticipate any related travel expenses beyond the financial capacity of the individual accepting the position and itemize this expense in their annual budget request.
4) Those individuals requesting scholarships for Yearly Meeting participation or other Quaker opportunities
When there is a serious need for supplemental travel funds, Friends are encouraged to take their request for support to a relevant committee. The committee may a) consider reallocating the use of its budgeted funds; or b) include the travel request it its annual budget request; or c) propose to Financial Stewardship for recommendation and approval by Meeting for Business an event to raise funds to support the travel-related activity.
Technically, there are no funds in the RFM general fund budget specifically designated for travel support. Modest support is available through the Mary Hulburt Scholarship Fund for first-time attendance at Friends General Conference; this fund is administered by the Care and Counsel committee.
5) Those who are called to travel in spiritual service and whose ministry is under the care of Richmond Friends Meeting
BYM Faith and Practice clearly states on this subject:
A Friend who feels called to travel in Truth’s service to visit with families, make public speeches, speak at called meetings, or the like should lay the concern before the Monthly Meeting, preferably first bringing it to the Committee on Ministry and Counsel.
If the Meeting unites with the concern, it should record a minute describing its member’s leading and proposed service, expressing the Meeting’s approval and support, and asking for the assistance of Friends to be visited. The Meeting should provide the Friend under concern with a copy of the minute.
The Friend who sets out on such a journey should be accompanied, when practical, by a Friend in sympathy with the concern and able to give counsel and companionship. The Monthly Meeting issuing the minute is responsible for seeing that the service is not hampered by lack of funds.
Thus, our guidance is that anyone called to travel in spiritual service and whose ministry is under the care of Richmond Friends Meeting may be supported in those endeavors, if needed, by and through a relevant committee, and it is the committee’s responsibility to anticipate reasonable and relevant expenses to present in a budget to monthly meeting via Financial Stewardship Committee.
by Diane Bowden | Feb 15, 2011 | History - RFM
Richmond Friends Meeting (RFM) organized in 1795, and soon built its first Meeting House at 19th and Cary Street in Church Hill. This was the second oldest “church” in Richmond. We have a long history of religious observance and social justice within the Richmond community. In 1995, we celebrated our 200th birthday.
Richmond area Quakers established the Virginia Abolition Society in 1790. With the Civil War, RFM established the Friends Asylum for Colored Orphans, now called the Friends Association for Children. After slave emancipation, RFM member Sarah Smiley and other Quaker women helped start a school for over 1,000 free black adults and children in Richmond.
RFM purchased the 4500 Kensington Avenue property in 1957. (The Colonial Place Christian Church, an affiliate of the Disciples of Christ, built the original building in 1913. The educational annex was added in 1931.) The cost of the 4500 Kensington Avenue property in 1957 was approximately $17,500.
Deed of Sale 1956
RFM has provided office and meeting space to hundreds of community groups. Religious groups that have used the 4500 Kensington Avenue property for their programs include the Congregation Or Ami, the Metropolitan Christian Church, an unaffiliated Roman Catholic group and Muslims.
In the 1960s, RFM provided office and meeting space to the Richmond Area Association for Retarded Children. In 1967, RFM provided office space and volunteer support to the statewide antiwar Vietnam Summer Project. In 1971, RFM provided office space to the statewide Virginia Council for Human Relations until the Richmond Zoning Board opposition and a neighborhood petition of 1,200 signatures forced the interracial organization to relocate.
See below for a slide show of History of Quakers in Central Virginia
by Diane Bowden | Dec 18, 2008 | History - RFM
- Richmond Friends Meeting (RFM) organized in 1795, and soon built its first Meeting House at 19th and Cary Street in Church Hill. This was the second oldest “church” in Richmond. We have a long history of religious observance and social justice within the Richmond community. In 1995, we celebrated our 200th birthday.
- Richmond area Quakers established the Virginia Abolition Society in 1790. With the Civil War, RFM established the Friends Asylum for Colored Orphans, now called the Friends Association for Children. After slave emancipation, RFM member Sarah Smiley and other Quaker women helped start a school for over 1,000 free black adults and children in Richmond.
- RFM purchased the 4500 Kensington Avenue property in 1957. (The Colonial Place Christian Church, an affiliate of the Disciples of Christ, built the original building in 1913. The educational annex was added in 1931.) The cost of the 4500 Kensington Avenue property in 1957 was approximately $17,500.
- RFM has provided office and meeting space to hundreds of community groups. Religious groups that have used the 4500 Kensington Avenue property for their programs include the Congregation Or Ami, the Metropolitan Christian Church, an unaffiliated Roman Catholic group and Muslims.
- In the 1960s, RFM provided office and meeting space to the Richmond Area Association for Retarded Children. In 1967, RFM provided office space and volunteer support to the statewide antiwar Vietnam Summer Project. In 1971, RFM provided office space to the statewide Virginia Council for Human Relations until the Richmond Zoning Board opposition and a neighborhood petition of 1,200 signatures forced the interracial organization to relocate.
- Since 1957, RFM has provided financial assistance and social support to Russian, Vietnamese, Cambodian and Central American refugees, who have relocated to the Richmond area.
- The 4500 Kensington Avenue property has been the site of countless weddings and memorial ceremonies, not only of Friends but also from the community at large.
- In 1986, RFM, overflowing with new attenders, established new worship groups in Ashland and Midlothian. Midlothian has since become a full-fledged meeting.
See below for a slide show of History of Quakers in Central Virginia
by Diane Bowden | Dec 18, 2008 | History - Quaker, Peace and Social Concerns, Testimonies, Writings - RFM
Friends affirm a Biblical basis for the peace testimony. A Prince of Peace was prophesied who would bring in a Peaceable Kingdom. “Thou shalt not kill” is one of the Ten Commandments. Jesus taught and lived peacemaking and love of enemy. George Fox similarly counseled his followers “to live in the life and power which does away with the occasion for war.”
The material below was prepared earlier by Mary Fran Hughes-McIntyre and is excerpted from her History of Richmond Friends Meeting, 1795-1962, available in the Meeting Library. (or here:THE HISTORY OF RICHMOND FRIENDS MEETING 1795-1962)
Living Out the Peace Testimony
Friends affirm a Biblical basis for the peace testimony. A Prince of Peace was prophesied who would bring in a Peaceable Kingdom. “Thou shalt not kill” is one of the Ten Commandments. Jesus taught and lived peacemaking and love of enemy. George Fox similarly counseled his followers “to live in the life and power which does away with the occasion for war.”
Early Richmond Friends were firm pacifists, disowning from membership those who bore arms. Doubtless knowing Friends from Cedar Creek Meeting who had firmly refused to fight during the Revolutionary War, Friends in Richmond affirmed a pacifist stand in the War of 1812. Friends suffered payment of muster fines rather than fight. As part of Virginia Yearly Meeting, they concurred with the following statement:
While we view with sorrow the awful progress of war spreading desolation and Misery in the human family, let us endeavor to guard our Minds from mixing in the politics of the times, which will insensibly leven into the spirit, and will lead if not to the practice at least to the promotion of that destructive evil.
During the War between the States, some Richmond Friends chose to fight, and some were conscientious objectors. Cedar Creek Monthly Meeting (of which Richmond Friends became a part in 1841) accepted the resignation of three persons who chose to fight, but “earnestly hopes that the day is not distant when those with many others aroused by the awful juncture of war now presented to our view may be enabled to renounce principles which lead to such results and enlist under the banner of the Prince of Peace.”
In the period from 1914-1920 the Peace Committee of Richmond Friends meeting was particularly active workingfor peace and reconciliation in the period of the Great War. Peace literature was distributed in the schools, and prizes were offered in 1916 for the best essays on “Why We Do Not Need a Large Increase in our Army and Navy”: $15 first prize to a boys’ school, $10 first prize to a girls’ school. (Editor: Friends have not been free from societal sexism and racism.) Money was donated for Belgian relief in 1914, for English and Armenian relief in 1916, for French orphans in 1917, and for feeding the German children in 1920. Letters were sent to Senators and Representatives in 1916 urging opposition to the so-called “preparedness” for war. The Friends Peace Committee ran two advertisements in the newspapers, including the following:
PEACE OR WAR?
To our fellow-citizens:
In this time of crisis when our country’s highest good is the common aim of all, we voice this deep conviction of patriotic duty.
The causes for which men fight—liberty, justice, and peace—are noble and Christian causes. But war itself violates law, justice, liberty and peace, the very ends for which alone its tragic costs might be justified…
In World War II, Friends were again active in peace-making. Member Hoge Ricks met at homes in 1940 with young Friends to think through their stands on the peace testimony in anticipation of their being faced with conscription. After the war opposition to conscription continued, with visits to Congressional Representative, and a firm stand against the Selective Service Act of 1948.
A change in Friends’ custom of disowning those who bear arms in evident in 1943. A member wrote saying that he had joined the Armed Forces as a result of personal conviction, and that he doubted the Meeting wanted his membership. The Meeting decided to stay in touch with him, since “to encourage him would do more that to ostracize him.”
(Richmond) Friends were proud of having several members, who were conscientious objectors, serving in Civilian Public Service Camps. Their peace testimony was affirmed.
Thus, Richmond Friends stood consistently against war, and dealt in increasingly lenient ways with Friends who chose to fight.
* * * *
(Editor: During World War II, some 12,000 men who were conscientious objectors to war, served in non-military occupations across the U.S. Under the leadership of Mennonite, Quaker and Church of the Brethren agencies, they were engaged in mental health care and medical experiments, in forestry and diary farming, and in other important civic projects.)
