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    REPORT FROM YEARLY MEETING 2001 TO HAMILTON FRIENDS (6/9/01)


    I was honoured to be asked to be a delegate to Yearly Meeting (YM) on behalf of Hamilton Friends. Being a delegate is a considerable responsibility. For me, it means attending all the business sessions and reporting on the major decisions made during the week, as well as providing a personal impression of the gathering.

    Yearly Meeting 2001 was, to my mind, the best YM I have attended and a truly wonderful experience. There was a warm, relaxed and affirming sense of community throughout the week. I believe this may have been an outcome of the three workshops held in the first day of the sessions.

    Unfortunately, I was unable to attend any of the workshops because I was clerking the Annual General Meeting of Ecumenical Committee. However, our time was well spent as we seasoned two important issues from which arose two carefully worded minutes. These minutes were presented to YM and approved with little need for further discussion or explanation. Seasoning issues before taking them to the business sessions was a feature of this years gathering and facilitated the smooth functioning of the meetings for business. All the business was completed by Friday afternoon - a rare accomplishment! There was a strongly felt spirit of worship throughout the business sessions.

    Some of the major items approved by Yearly Meeting were:

* To support the Canadian Council of Churches and the Evangelical Church of Canada in taking the Harvard onco-mouse issue to the Supreme Court of Canada.

* To join Kairos, the group that has resulted from the restructuring of the inter-church coalitions, and to nominate several Friends for various positions.

* To continue to support Project Ploughshares and to recognize that it is not a pacifist organization.

* The launching of the Quaker International Affairs Programme in Ottawa.

* To continue our affiliations with the wider Quaker bodies ie, Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC), Friends General Conference (FGC), Friends United Meeting (FUM), and Friends Committee in Unity with Nature (FCUN).

* To support the Treaty Initiative to Share the Genetic Commons (see attached Minute from CYM Young Friends). Our Young Friends are a remarkably active, knowledgeable and articulate group.


    The theme for YM "Seeking Unity with Nature" was a thread we were conscious of throughout the week. Tom Baugh, who lead the daily Bible/Quaker Study focused his presentations on the Bible, creation and environmental justice. Tom is a biologist-ecologist and theologian with an interesting slant on creation. He is also a dynamic lecturer. The most exciting idea I gained from his lectures was the intentionality of creation - of the Big Bang. Tom gave us a query to consider at the end of each session. On Day Two he gave us "How am I living as a co-creator working with God to bring forth a renewed Earth?"

    Also on our sustainability theme, during Buddy Bazaar on Sunday after noon, we had the opportunity to determine our own individual Ecological Footprints. At another time we sang, to a familiar tune "This land is precious, this land is holy, this land is shared by all of life".

    All was not business! We had a delightful picnic on Wednesday afternoon before the Sunderland P. Gardner lecture that evening. Sarah Chandler was the lecturer. She is a member of Lilooet Worship Group and Vernon Monthly Meeting. She lives in Lilooet, BC, at Bruin's End organic farm/orchard with her husband Trevor. Sarah has been a committed human rights worker and an active member of Canadian Friends Service Committee's Quaker Aboriginal Affairs sub-committee for many years. Her lecture "The Unbroken Treaty" was focused on aboriginal concerns in Canada. Before the lecture began we were welcomed with drumming by a Mic Mac woman on whose ancestral land we were living. Sarah's lecture will be included as a pamphlet in the next issue of the Canadian Friend. The lecture was revelational for me. My mind never wandered during the ninety minutes of the lecture. Sarah is presently attending the United Nations World conference Against Racism as the only Canadian member of the FWCC delegation.

    Yearly Meeting was a wonderful opportunity to renew friendships with Friends we had not seen since last year, and to make new friendships. One of the things I particularly appreciated was the caring, consideration and respect shown to the younger Friends by the older Friends and vice versa, both in business meetings and on campus. Our Equality Testimony was alive and well at King-Edgehill.

    I cannot close without mentioning the inter generational nature of the business sessions. Attending these meetings were three breast feeding babies, several octogenarians (and one very well behaved dog!)

    There is much more to report so if you have any questions, please ask me. I'll be delighted.

                            Mona Callin, Delegate
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