by WebPost | Sep 28, 2024 | Finances, Wayne Taylor Ad Hoc Committee
Our committee (Barb Pedrotty, Denna Joy, Scott Morrison, Randee Humphrey/clerk) has been hard at work since May 2021, considering the potential ways and means of distributing the residual estate left to Richmond Friends Meeting by the late Carl Wayne Taylor "to directly benefit the needy in the greater metropolitan Richmond area." It has been a complex as well as gratifying process, given that Mr. Taylor had no prior direct personal connection to our Meeting.
The committee shared two items in the September business meeting. First, Scott Morrison agreed in Richmond Circuit Court on August 27 to act as successor Administrator of the Carl Wayne Taylor estate for the purposes of closing out the final accounting due to the City of Richmond's Commissioner of Accounts.
The original Administrator (who was not associated with our Meeting) has been unable to fulfill the duties and expectations of the role. Richmond Friends Meeting's trustees, Financial Stewardship committee, and Clerk reviewed the scope of the Administrator role and agreed that Scott's service in this legal capacity was both appropriate and warranted. Scott will be preparing and filing overdue tax returns; assuming responsibility for the estate bank account, including preparing and filing a formal accounting and final disposition of the assets in the account; paying out remaining filing fees and possibly late filing penalties; and finally, distributing any remaining assets to Meeting, as the sole beneficiary of the Taylor residual estate.
The second update is simply to encourage Meeting members and attenders to review the Wayne Taylor ad hoc Committee folder on the RFM website during October. By the end of September, the folder will contain annual summaries of our research activity since May 2021 and an updated PowerPoint deck that provides an overview of our leadings. The committee will be reporting again in November on its work.
by WebPost | Jul 21, 2024 | Activity, Adult Spiritual Education, Announcement
Join us on Sunday, September 22, in person from 9:15-10:30 am in the Community room. In this session we'll be exploring Quaker Process. Friends make decisions about how to tend to Spirit, how to care for each other, how to nourish ourselves and our families, how to contribute to the wider communities of city, nation, all nations, and the earth. We make these decisions without the ease of hierarchy, majority vote, and, for unprogrammed friends, without clergy or paid staff. In this session, we'll explore the process we use in moving forward.
The program will focus on two practices fundamental to Friends in making spirit-lead choices and for acting: Committees and Business Meeting. As part of this session, we'll focus on terminology that may not be familiar to newcomers.
It's our hope that longtime Friends will be refreshed and refocused in Quaker process and that new attenders will come to feel comfortable in the Society of Friends and Richmond Friends Meeting.
by WebPost | Jul 21, 2024 | Activity, Announcement, Race & Racism ad hoc
The Ad Hoc Committee on Race and Racism has been researching the history of our meeting through a racial lens. We will present our findings on Saturday, August 24, in the community room at the Meetinghouse. Coffee beginning at 9:30; program from 10:00 to 11:30. This is the second of three educational programs intended to help us discern ways forward.
by WebPost | May 20, 2024 | Gaza, Israel, Minuted Decisions, Peace and Social Concerns
We, the members of the Richmond (VA) Friends Meeting are heartbroken and stricken with horror and grief at the recent renewed eruption of violence in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. We call for an immediate ceasefire by both Israel and Hamas, the prompt release by Hamas of all hostages, and the release of all uncharged prisoners by Israel. We call on the U.S. to urge Israel to expedite the flow of humanitarian aid to relieve the tremendous suffering that has been created in Gaza with the immediate provision of food, shelter, water, and medicine. We strongly urge the United States to no longer provide Israel with weapons or funding for weapons.
As Quakers, we believe that each life is sacred, and we know that the use of violence as a means of settling conflict is unacceptable and leads to further violence, which we see happening around the region.
We strongly condemn Hamas’ horrific deadly October attacks on Israeli civilians, the inhumane treatment of civilians, and the taking of hostages, many of whom are still being held and are in danger. We also condemn the ongoing unrestrained and violent response by Israel in its siege of Gaza, which has left tens of thousands of civilians, including elderly, women, and children, dead or wounded and caused a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. People are suffering, dying, and being displaced in Gaza as a preventable humanitarian crisis worsens. Also, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank are increasingly endangered by escalated violence by settlers and the military.
We hold in our hearts and in the Light all those in Israel, Gaza, the West Bank and beyond, who grieve and mourn the deaths of their family and friends. We hold in the Light those who await the return of their loved ones who are being held by Hamas or who are held in Israeli prison without charges or trial. This ongoing violence continues to rip the hearts of those who grieve and leads to fear and hatred of the “other.” We condemn Antisemitism and Islamophobia and their accompanying rhetoric which dehumanizes the “other.”
We further call for Israelis and Palestinians from Gaza and the occupied West Bank to undertake a meaningful dialogue, with the support of international powers including the US. All must use every available resource to support a diplomatic rather than military resolution to the conflict - a resolution that prioritizes safety for all Israelis and Palestinians and which accords equal human rights to the Palestinians and respect for all.
We ask that Friends hold in the Light this urgent concern for peace and, if you are so led, to join us in calling for what we have set forth in this Minute.*
*Thank you to Virginia Beach Monthly Meeting for the template used for this Minute.
Approved at Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business, May 19, 2024
by WebPost | May 19, 2024 | African American heritage, Announcement, Business Meeting, Minuted Decisions, Richmond Community Hospital, Social justice
Richmond Friends Meeting recognizes that inequality and injustice on race are deeply rooted in our society. Our faith community continues to deliberatively examine this cruel history and to face the on-going realities of systemic racism. We are committed to work with other groups who promote racial healing and seek to dismantle some aspect of structural racism.
We stand with others in calling upon Virginia Union University, an HBCU (Historically Black College and University), to abandon plans to demolish Richmond Community Hospital and instead explore plans to restore and repurpose this building.
Richmond Community Hospital stands as a witness to the harsh reality of segregation that necessitated its construction when Jim Crow laws prevented black citizens from being treated in white hospitals. This brick building also stands as a monument to the struggles and triumphs of the people who came together to care for each other. Historic restoration of this 1932 Art Deco structure is the best way to honor this legacy of determination.
Virginia Union University plans to raze the building for parking and apartments. An unspecified offer to “memorialize” the structure has been offered. The Historic Richmond Foundation has twice offered to convene a group of engineers and architectural historic preservation specialists to independently assess the state of the structure, but Virginia Union has not replied to their offer.
While we appreciate the financial challenges now facing VUU, we are called to add our voice to the chorus calling for preservation of the Richmond Community Hospital building.
Approved at Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business, May 19, 2024