What standing up for integrity means to me, and hopefully to Friends

Read the previous post - Potential Employee and Financial Fraud

The Inn, at Silver Bay, Lake George, Adirondack Mountains - at Sunrise
The Luxurious home for 50 years - NYYM Annual Sessions

I’ve received numerous messages from Friends after my recent communications - some are appalled at my language, (most likely that they simply are offended that I claim that any Friends act in ways less than integral, and instead say they don’t like my language) others are appalled at the obvious breakdown of integrity in the Society, specifically within one Yearly Meeting, which has no history of a broadly based self-government.

New York Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends has exposed its underbelly, presented in the form of financial evidence (the clearest and most telling evidence), the organizational hierarchy, and malfeasance of authoritarian cover-up attempts by paid and elite non-paid persons. Consider the attempted cover up by the Clerk of General Services rebutting my original letter of 5/17/2005. (I stand by all the facts I presented in that letter). These symptoms all present, to the objective observer, as manifestations of the root malaise – the less visible inner condition of a Society in decline. (NYYM has covered up the decline saying membership is now rising. It is not.)

What is strange, or more precisely, poetic justice, is that the more Friends in NYYM try and cook the books, the more they try and cover up malfeasance and the more they try to say that their hierarchy isn’t a hierarchy – it comes back to haunt their own very Society, in the short and long term. I believe there’s a shorter aphorism – We reap what we sow. The most pernicious lie, is the one we tell ourselves.

I’ve lost f/Friends by standing up and saying what I’ve said. I’ve been blackballed in bringing Quakers in the News as a learning tool and community outreach mechanism to Friends organizations, some of which retain very little connection to the Quaker Church. Good. Pat yourselves on the backs. Those of you who’ve whispered, and those who’ve out-and-out threatened me, have killed something that had a chance to bring that connection to Friends and their wider organizations.

Over the past four years, I’ve tried to make change in NYYM from within – beginning with a question to the body of NYYM in December 2002, when I asked if an increase in the NYYM Operating Budget in 2003 - in the face of constant membership decline and a poor economy - was ‘responsible’. I’ve also lost those whom I knew were not my f/Friends in the first place, those who made themselves out to be my confidants. Those are the ones who profess to say prayers for me, in public piety, trying to deflect attention from the obvious - the basic corruption or disconnection between New York Yearly Meeting, and its constituent Monthly Meetings. These are the ministers and those who wanna-be, who would prefer a membership decline, a more manageable religious hierarchy, paid for by dead Friends’ money.

Attack me instead of trying to fix what is wrong with NYYM. It’s a painted-Indians, wagons-circled theater piece played ad nauseum, now with ministers on the sidelines saying prayers for someone who is ‘attacking’.

I mean for NYYM to improve, but I think its time for a suspension from wider bodies, until NYYM can show integrity of governance, in order to again represent in those bodies.

Most likely these ex-friends are asking God for me to step in front of a bus – rather than to hear truth about NYYM, and for the Society to change – to make the connection in the true grass roots manner of Friends.

One who has integrity, it is said, must be willing to loose something, to sacrifice something for his actions and pronouncements about those actions – for one’s own civil disobedience, and dare I say it – for one’s activism. Otherwise, activism is hollow, self-aggrandizing egoistic charade – similar to sign carrying and chanting and screaming and shouting, when no one is listening. I think Gandhi had something to say about civil disobedience? Didn't Jesus have something to say about public piety?

But, I’m going to have to chalk it up to having many doors close and others open as I move forward.

Why NYYM should be suspended from representation to Wider Bodies – Part 1

Follow the money.

Lets start off with one very simple example of why NYYM should be suspended from representation to the wider bodies. NYYM contributes a financial pittance to wider bodies compared to other neighboring, similar sized Yearly Meetings.

Budgeted Contributions 2005
	FWCC	FUM	FGC
NYYM	4,500	9,000	9,000
NEYM	5,300	17,800	14,300
BaltYM	11,700	30,200	31,000

2005 NYYM Operating Budget = $547,000

One will then consider the business model of the wider bodies as Yearly Meetings start to chintz on their wider contributions. FGC has placed its emphais of late, in ‘development’ or fundraising from wealthy individuals. FUM is in dire straits. FWCC is also. The wider bodies are all looking for new business models to support themselves – mostly in dead Friends money and in large gifts from wealthy individuals. Am I incorrect? Consider that NYYM gives only $8,000 per year to each FUM and FGC, while it gives half of that amount to FWCC – as annual contributions.

New England and Baltimore Yearly Meetings, with more employees each, and operating budgets each of 1/3 less than NYYM, give 2 - 4 times more than NYYM gives to each of the wider bodies. A line-by-line comparison of NYYM, NEYM and Balt YM. See page 42

Budgeted Contributions 2007
	FWCC	FUM	FGC
NYYM	4,000	8,000	8,000
NEYM
BaltYM

2007 NYYM Operating Budget = $530,000

At the next Representative Meeting, stand up and ask NYYM -Why are NYYM’s contributions to wider bodies so low? Then sit back and observe the ‘powers that be’ as they speak, and squirm.

We're even giving NYYM from now until early April to figure out their answer to this question. But, a hint to those who read my words - there is no other answer - except that NYYM is corrupt. NYYM is a like a rogue and declining city-state among civil prospering nations - all other s pay their fair share to affiliated wider bodies.

So, at the next Representative Meeting, sit back and listen to the answer: You’ll get a dose of what George Fox declared was the marker of the untrue, the mark of a lie - by those who run on in many words.

Again, NYYM’s financial and hierarchal condition is a symptom of a decline in Quaker membership, which cannot or simply will not prioritize grass roots support of wider governments any longer. Yet the governments seem to ‘have to’ survive. The wider church governments feel they have to survive without grass roots mandate and bottom up financing which would indicate the vibrancy and health of the organic Quaker church.

And yes, growth is difficult, sometimes even painful - but necessary for any living organism, or organization. Remember when we were growing up, how hard it was? Of course we do, and we don’t want to relive it. Or we don’t remember how hard it was, and we simply like how things are - and we figure, if it’s not broke(n), don’t fix it.

Growth occurs at Monthly Meeting levels. No amount of reliance on a wider body, at a posh and exclusive Annual Session, as NYYM sponsors, will help your Monthly Meeting take ownership of its condition. NYYM has a slogan on its website – A Radical Faith, a Simple Witness. A Simple Faith- A Radical Witness.

Here’s my radical and simple witness – If it ain’t broke (and it is, by the way) break it, and put it back together better than it ever was.

Yours in Friendship,

Glenn R.

See the essay that (was called non-objective, and ) got me disinvited from the Budget Saturday Meeting September, 2006. This was the beginning of the eventual shunning from NYYM.

Read the previous post - Potential Employee and Financial Fraud

Evidence of Financial and Employee Fraud at NYYM

Dear Friend,

I call on New York Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (NYYM) sometimes called 'Quakers' to show its members, and representatives of wider bodies, its payroll records and time sheets for the past two years, for all NYYM employees.

I also call on NYYM to answer discrepancies noted in potentially $100,000 spent out of a total $530,000 annual operating expenditure of New York Yearly Meeting, located at 15 Rutherford Place, New York City.

These wider bodies are: Friends General Conference (Philadelphia) FGC, Friends United Meeting (Indiana) FUM , and Friends World Committee for Consultation (London) FWCC .

--------

The total 2007 Approved New York Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (NYYM) Operating Budget is approximately $530,000

Evidence will show potentially:

- Full-time salaries are being paid for partial no-show jobs

o estimated cost of such could be up to $80,000 per year

o one or more employees might have moonlighting jobs

- Budget lines of the Operating Budget have been purposely misstated for years

o one known example is the Office Rent (and surcharges)

- Treasurer’s reports beginning balance for one year and ending balances of the previous year did not equal on at least 3 occasions in the last 5 years

o this is obvious malfeasance hiding in plain sight in the Yearbooks

- NYYM audits are very superficial and are very unlikely to show any impropriety – note the low cost not found anywhere in the budget

o also note that New York Quarterly Meeting hires an Auditor for approximately $13,000 per year, and said costs is obviously noted in its one million dollar annual expense budget.

- there is potential for a personal relationship and potentially a conflict of interest between a bookkeeping service principal and one of the NYYM Trustees, a former Treasurer of NYYM

o It is highly unlikely that there are more than 50 transactions per month, not including payroll, (the NYYM Treasurer refuses to share the average number of transactions per month) and this number of transactions, double entry or single entry, could be logged by a bookkeeper in ½ day per week – total cost approximately $5,000 per year. Total cost of Bookkeeping service is now budgeted at $28,200, which includes payroll services

o outsourced Payroll services for three full time employees and one or two part time costs approximately $1,000 - $2,500 per year (costs that BaltYM, NEYM incur respectively)

o the NYYM Clerk of General Services Coordinating Committee has also refused to share NYYM’s Financial Management Guidelines, announced in the 2004 Yearbook on page 20, which ostensibly describe the inner workings of the financial transactions between the bookkeeping service, the Treasurer (in Buffalo) and the office (in New York City). The Clerk of General Services Coordinating Committee is also the Treasurer of the Trustees of NYYM.

o So, we wonder where over $20,000 – 25,000 per year has gone each year ?

- The rent for the NYYM office has been misrepresented on proposed and approved Operating Budgets for at least the past 3 years

o NYYM has stonewalled any discussion on moving the Yearly Meeting office to a more affordable and central location

§ again, those who serve on the key NYYM committees and positions are mostly paid employees of other ‘Quaker’ organizations which has caused a conflict of interest in contradiction to good governance

I find it ironic, possibly hypocritical that the NYYM General Secretary was in attendance recently in New York City to witness a tax resistance case in Federal Court. This because NYYM has questionable internal governance issues of its own, including financial non-transparency, into which we will delve in this communication. I’ve created a tax revolt of my own to try and bring the NYYM government to account – to be transparent to its members.

At this moment, NYYM is asking New York Quarterly Meeting, a growing urban Quarter, however still very dependent on trust funds given by dead Friends for the maintenance of the Society, to meet its financial commitment to NYYM for 2006. This is because the largest Monthly Meeting of NYQM, (also the largest MM in NYYM) failed to make its budget in 2006. I think that New York Quarterly Meeting Friends might have become wise, in that deep down they knew in short changing their giving to their Meeting’s budgets, all with very high percentages going to NYYM, what I, a former member of said Quarter, am about to comprehensively and publicly expose here.

The NYYM General Secretary has the ultimate oversight of all NYYM office operations, at least in his very vague job description it does give us that assurance, although he attends the NYYM office less than one day per week on average. We have no time and task specific job descriptions for the other full and part time employees other than the self-descriptions on page 38 - here. How can the General Secretary have ultimate oversight over the office if he’s not there more than four days per week? First and foremost, there exists evidence of questionable non-attendance by one or two of the three full-time employees at the NYYM office for which NYYM spend tens of thousands of dollars per year to rent. In addition, there are hundreds of thousands of dollars per year spent in these full time salaries, and part time hourly wages.

It is time for Friends to ask NYYM to come to account for the evidence of employee and financial fraud presented in this letter. (The elite NYYM members have seen the evidence of employee fraud in late 2006, however it is questionable as whether they will do anything considering the front-and-center potential cover-up the General Secretary gave in his Fall report. The General Secretary, hence, is apparently the mouthpiece for the NYYM elite and .

I intend to name the NYYM elite in a later communication. [Update 11/5/2007 - Here are the elite who should resign]Again, these are the Trustees, the Treasurer, and in key committee clerking positions who have been given, or have usurped a large amount of power due to the complacence of the total NYYM membership – which as I have stated – is probably really 1,500, not 3,500. I cast no aspersions on any individual’s power-hungry or egoistic character when these persons are placed in the religious group dynamic of a detached elite.

The General Secretary is paid approximately $75,000 per year in addition to full benefits (now including retirement) and at least 4 weeks vacation per year. He works mostly from his home, and lives in a rural area approximately 100 miles from New York City. He pays his own way into New York City on his less than once per week visits to NYYM office. The General Secretary of Baltimore YM is paid around $60,000 per year and must live in the Baltimore/Washington metro area. The Field Secretary of New England Yearly Meeting works from his home in the Boston metropolitan area, visits the office in Worcester approximately once per week, and is paid approximately 50,000 per year. Both Baltimore and New England Yearly Meetings have been growing slowly but steadily for the past 35 years. NEYM and Baltimore YM also spend approximately 1/3 less per year than NYYM.

The NYYM Administrative Secretary is paid approximately $60,000 per year, in addition to retirement benefits, and has worked for NYYM for approximately 15 years. The Administrative Secretary was the former Editor of Spark in September 2003.

These and others may have committed employee fraud against the members of NYYM who (thankfully still) mostly pay their salaries. I’ve written about the vitality of Friends, and part of this vitality includes living within our means and maintaining the direct financial connection Friends have with our religious lives – including with our paid employees. There are trust funds at various monthly and quarterly meetings in NYYM which dim this connection, but mostly the members of NYYM are responsible to give their own money for the costs that the Society incurs.

Please feel free to examine the evidence – a log of random office visits and telephone calls to confirm attendance and non-attendance of the key personnel. If the personnel were not in when the callers called randomly, What about the times the office was not called ? How many times were they not in on those occasions? After considering those questions - then examine the potential cover-up in the General Secretary’s Report Fall 2006. Pretty slick. Especially since the evidence was delivered to the elite electronically and to the paid employees a month before the General Secretary’s fall report.

The General Secretary has also tried to obtain a refund from New York Quarterly Meeting (the landlord for the office) or from Friends Seminary (another tenant in the building doing construction) for 2007 somehow because NYYM is in dire financial straits due to mismanagement. Why would a landlord give a reimbursement to a tenant for 2007 for things that happened in 2006?

Regarding this ‘refund’ - complaints that the NYYM employees were forced to inhabit small and ‘deplorable’ conditions over the summer of 2006, were laughable, especially since two of the three employees were severely overweight at that time. According to a former New York Quarterly Meeting employee the temporary NYYM office for the summer of 2006, was an above-ground space, and was actually nicer than their normal underground digs.

NYYM has also misstated (I believe on purpose) the ‘Office Rent’ line in the NYYM budget for at least 3 years – stating office rent at $23,800 per year for each year 2005, 2006 and 2007. The Clerk of Financial Services received a letter, copied to me, also on the Financial Services Committee, from New York Quarterly Meeting in June 2006, stating that the ”rent for the NYYM office will stay unchanged for 2007 at $25,500 per year”. The letter also stated that The Yearly Meeting office will be surcharged approximately $2,000 per month in electricity costs – bringing the total cost for 2007 – to $27,500. The Clerk of Financial Services disallowed the amount on the 2007 proposed and now approved budget to change from $23,800.

Financial Malfeasance

Treasurer Report Alteration

163,234	188,702	203,520	207,699		Opening Balance
381,602	416,916	427,785	487,570		Total Receipts
364,754	399,595	422,135	490,869		Total Disbursements
$180,082	$206,023	$209,170	$204,400		Closing Balance
2001	2002	2003	2004

Administrative Costs

Early in my short career on the Financial Services Committee of New York Yearly Meeting, I asked the Treasurer, still the Treasurer today, why couldn’t we have more detail on various expense lines – for example, the expense line – Administrative Cost.

His answer was simply that the Bookkeeping Service would have to charge us more.

This is why our curiosity is going to have to keep coming back to this phantom bookkeeping service, for which we have no name, and no assurances that there is not a conflict of interest between the service and those who contract and work with it in NYYM.

Future postings are being planned for this weblog:

- Recommendations for implementation of signed annual statements confirming explicit or implicit conflicts of interest by NYYM Trustees, Treasurer, Committee Clerks, and Employees

- Recommendations for NYYM committee and position resignations

- An open letter to FGC, FUM and FWCC regarding the need for their oversight into corruption at NYYM and a decision (without participation of NYYM representatives) regarding suspension of representation of NYYM to those wider bodies

Go to the most recent - Misrepresentation of membership numbers - in the previous post

Go to the next previous post regarding Censorship and the lack of independent oversight at NYYM

It's Time for NYYM to Come Clean with Membership Numbers

See my previous Letter of 1/4/07 and its anonymous responses.

Dear Friends.

This is to follow the letter above, as some Friends asked for specification of various assertions, I made. I intend to show any and all evidence as time permits going forward.

Lets begin with the membership data - the decline in membership undermines every aspect of governance in any Friends Society.

NYYM reported that membership grew from 3501 to 3512 from 2004 to 2005.


NYYM reported that membership grew from 3512 to 3529 from 2005 to 2006.


Does anyone surely believe that after 35 straight years of decline, only after the costs of the Yearly Meeting go up by 1/3 within a two-year period, and only after I publish the sad but true fact of this long membeship decline, that the membership somehow rises for two years straight ?

In NYYM (Self) Job Descriptions, from the Advance Reports 2006 we find an hourly employee was charged with gathering membership data from Monthly Meetings for the 2006 Yearbook.

Would Friends feel moved to ask NYYM for transparency into how this data was gathered for the 2006 Yearbook? Were there multiple persons involved in compiling this data in the NYYM office? For example, did one person collect the data and someone else tabulate it? Can Monthly Meetings corroborate the numbers in the 2006 Yearbook to a central objective person or committee?

I’ve traveled over NYYM to many Monthly Meetings and found a few examples where the membership numbers are obviously misstated by someone or more persons (paid) who had a vested interest to show higher than actual membership numbers. I ask Friends to consider appointment of an independent (if this is truly possible) auditor or committee to examine each Monthly Meeting membership total.

For example, I notified the General Secretary’s Task Group in 7^th Month 2006, that Scarsdale Meeting had reported 100 members without change since 2003 (and maybe for longer) . I asked this group, with oversight of the General Secretary, to 'come clean' with the membership numbers in the 2005 Yearbook. I visited Scarsdale meeting and there were 12 people in attendance on a non-holiday good weather First Day in 2006. For another example, I visited Manhasset Meeting on same such day in 2006 and found 9 persons present when their stated membership is 85 members. Granted Manhasset meeting was at that time, in early 2006, trying to reconcile its membership numbers. However the 2006 NYYM Yearbook, published in 12th Month 2006, doesn't show a substantial change. How odd?

Try this test in your own meeting. Find the published membership number of your Monthly meeting. Is it higher or lower than 3x the average number of attenders on First Days? If so, your membership number is overstated. At most, there are 3x as many members, as there are those in attendance on a given First Day.

3x the number in attendance is generous – mostly it would even be 2x the average attending number on First Days as a good quick estimator of the 'real' membership of your meeting.

So, Scarsdale really has – at most - about 40 members, and Manhasset has 30 (at 3x). Let’s ask independent minded Friends to look at more Monthly Meetings, then recommend that NYYM ‘come clean’ with its ‘real’ membership number?

NYYM membership declined each year for 35 years - until I published a report of the decline in October 2004. In 2005, NYYM then saw a membership growth for the first time in this period. In 2006, somehow it grew again – miraculously enough after the General Secretary arrived, and NYYM was in budget deficit for 2005 and 2006?

Again, does anyone surely believe that after 35 straight years of decline, and only after I publish the sad but true fact of this decline, that the membership somehow rises for two years straight?

This membership ‘increase’ also occurred after NYYM received my letter of 5/17/2005 to all Monthly Meetings stating the membership decline among other issues of malfeasance and mismanagement. I was subsequently asked to resign from the NYYM Financial Services Committee by the Clerk of said committee. This was the second time that I was asked to resign. I refused and hence asked the committee clerk to resign – he didn’t.

The first time I was asked to resign from the committee was in September 2004 when I spoke up to inconsistencies in NYYM spending and job duties at the NYYM office. This attempted force-out was a two on one lunch meeting where the new General Secretary and said Clerk tried to convince me to resign Financial Services Committee service. I refused.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I find there is a strong vested interest in paid employees to show a membership increase for the past two years straight when it is highly unlikely that this increase has occurred. The General Secretary has used this membership increase in his latest report to NYYM – front and center. But, only after he first creating a public relations diversion for other collected NYYM office visits data, as his reason to be employed along with the other staff members for whom we have no serious job descriptions. He ‘needs to’ start his report in bringing our attention to the conditions the employees, those who have been in the office, have endured over the summer of 2006.

I also suspect that there are those insiders who have a vested interest in keeping the paid employee status quo, in drawing more resources from Monthly Meetings than they can afford. This because the attitude of said insiders is that NYYM is an entity which is unaccountable to the Monthly Meetings, and it is a ‘higher’ organization rather than an organization which draws its authority from the grass roots. They truly don’t want a connection. They most likely just want the money to continue centralized power structure and the summer vacation at Lake George.

I would guess that NYYM has less than 1500 members - not 3500 or whatever number has been published. This is from first hand experience in visiting over 1/3 of Monthly Meetings of NYYM in a one-year period.

NYYM will only grow in the manner of Friends – by spreading out roots (by spending resources) in witness and nurture from the bottom to form strong activities and small new (preparative) societies at more numerous local levels.

In Friendship,

Glenn R.

See my previous Letter of 1/4/07 and its anonymous responses.

NYYM (Self) Job Descriptions

In light of the 50% higher cost of operation of NYYM vs. NEYM and BaltYM, I find the self-made job descriptions an insult to anyone with business experience. (These self-descriptions are in the absence of time and task specific approved job descriptions, which are not published by NYYM). Please see page 38 of the 2006 Advance Reports, for the best description we have of what goes on at NYYM Headquarters, at 15 Rutherford Place, New York City.

Farewell Letter 1/4/2007

Please click here to see my letter to Monthly Meetings of NYYM - 5/17/2005

January 4, 2007

Dear Friend,

I’ve left New York Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends and moved in the direction of what I feel is my spiritual journey. I’ve joined Baltimore Yearly Meeting and a local Monthly Meeting where I was raised to which I feel close, after being censored and shunned regarding my persistent witness to blatant malfeasance of governance in my former Society.

Granted, my Quaker family were never members of New York Yearly Meeting (NYYM) before I arrived, however I still feel a duty to inform Friends of the malfeasance living cancerously in NYYM. Here are succinct statements for the benefit and longevity of organic Quakerism - written to my f/Friends everywhere to consider.

1. NYYM, formed in the mid 1950's, has begun its end as a forced religious governmental construct. Three obvious death knells have been:

• The institution of an organizational hierarchy - the ‘Coordinating Committees’ in 1976 and its resultant insular in-crowd control of power by the same old same-olds.
• The divestiture of its ‘diamond in the rough’ more or less by the current insular elite - Friends World College in 1991
• Concurrent with severely declining membership, the institution of permanent paid positions instead of the continued insistence on sojourning paid positions. Pension benefits are now given employees. This was evidently approved by the Personnel Committee (also insiders) - out of view of the constituency. As membership declines, money sent to NYYM from local Monthly Meetings will come more and more from dead Friends’ bequests, hastening the end of Friends’ direct connection to the Faith.

2. NYYM elite and paid personnel have mismanaged time, talent and money behind a wall of non-transparency. The NYYM Operating Budget is approximately 1.5x New England and Baltimore YM budgets, while both have more employees than NYYM, and Baltimore and New England are growing steadily in members over a long period of time. NYYM has misrepresented finances and membership numbers in the most recent two years to make themselves look better. Friends sometimes criticize profit-making business for such breakdown in ethics, but Friends who are not accountable to their constituency, as some are in NYYM, can do it themselves. The NYYM Ministers (Recorded Ministers) and those who covet these titles support malfeasance in that their titles are protected by the unquestioned continuance of NYYM as a governmental body.

3. NYYM Annual Sessions occur at the same exclusive destination far from just about everyone at Lake George in the Adirondacks each year – which is out of reach in time (7 days) and money for most Friends. This ‘vacation’ for the elite and others is the ultimate reason-to-be for the forced governmental construct of NYYM.

4. NYYM draws excessive resources of time, talent and money ‘up’ into the hierarchy out of local Monthly Meetings – instead of allowing the resources to flow ‘out’ laterally for growth in the organic manner of Friends. This removal of resources from Monthly Meetings - the basic units of Friends Society, simply helps to destroy Quakerism in our region.

Although the NYYM elite and paid staff talk of membership growth, they act in ways to hinder growth, through the centralization of authority and resources. The geographic expanse of NYYM is simply too large - it wastes time, talent and money that could be spent in local and regional concerns.

5. NYYM has recently published membership numbers which have been manipulated or misrepresented most probably by paid employees to show growth in NYYM in the last two years (2005 and 2006). These two years of ‘growth’ occurred co-incidentally after 35 straight years of decline, and after this decline was published widely by a Friend in November 2004. The official NYYM membership decreased from 6,800 members in 1970 to 3,500 in 2004. Although membership growth occurs at the Monthly Meeting level, it can decrease due to malfeasance and other concerns at both the Yearly or Monthly levels. A Friend has traveled to Monthly Meetings and seen evidence of this ‘official’ membership misrepresentation in 2005 and 2006.

6. If Monthly Meetings of NYYM come to unity they are certainly within their right to choose another Yearly Meeting in which to affiliate. Monthly Meetings can also decide to form new Yearly Meetings which may make up smaller, more natural, governable bodies.

7. If other Wider Bodies and Yearly Meetings come to unity (obviously with NYYM members removing themselves from the decision process), they are within their rights to de-certify New York Yearly Meeting as a recognized Friends body.

If Friends want more detail, I’ll consider supplying evidence in support of these statements, which might involve asking NYYM to make itself transparent with published time and task specific job descriptions, publishing of the Financial Management Guidelines, and the publishing of more itemized operating budget lines.

In essence, the complacence and malfeasance evident in NYYM trouble me, even for those I love whom I’ve left. There are timeless truths and timeless expressions of these truths. Fraud and the complacence that allows it - are not two of these expressions. In essence, my NYYM Friends: if Friends want to begin to change the world – look closer to home.

In Friendship,

G.R.

Please click here to see my letter to Monthly Meetings of NYYM - 5/17/2005

Letter of Concern 5/17/2005

If you would like an in-format version of this letter, please send a request to qinfriend 'at' gmail.com

New York, New York

May 17, 2005

TO: Clerks of each Monthly Meeting in NYYM

FROM: Glenn L. R., a member of Manhattan Monthly Meeting, New York Quarterly Meeting

Dear Friend,

Would thee pass this letter to an appropriate committee in your Meeting, or address some or all of these concerns with your Monthly Meeting?

This is a letter concerning the apparent disconnectedness between Monthly Meetings and New York Yearly Meeting, of the Religious Society of Friends. Joshua Brown, a former pastor at South Glens Falls Meeting, wrote an essay, ‘You can’t get there from here’ almost 20 years ago, in 1986.

This letter of my concerns is a continuation of Joshua’s concerns and hopefully will address clearly the issues we face concerning our internal business affairs. Hopefully the consideration and possible discussion and action we take will bring us closer together within Monthly Meetings, as well as within our Yearly Meeting body.

In Friendship,

Where have we gone?

A Letter from a Concerned Friend

To: Monthly Meetings of New York Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends

– May 2005 – by Glenn L. R.

Dear Friends,

This is a letter concerning the apparent disconnectedness between Monthly Meetings and New York Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. I will describe my view of the disconnectedness in three major areas of concern: Membership Issues, Budget Issues, and Transparency Issues.

I ask Monthly Meetings or committees therein, to consider: How do Monthly, Quarterly, Regional and Yearly Meeting re-connect ourselves in the large geographic expanse we occupy? How will we re-connect in the Life and Light within, in commonality and mutual understanding?

Membership Issues

Are we aware of the facts about our Monthly and Yearly Meeting membership decline, especially compared with our neighbors, Philadelphia, Baltimore and New England who are stable or growing in membership?

Have we reconciled our declining situation to circumstances that we can or cannot change? Do we understand that a declining membership beginning in the Monthly Meeting, undermines all participation, financial and otherwise, in the work we might do at all levels of our Religious Society?

Budget Issues

Can we begin to lovingly describe our condition in our Monthly Meetings by telling a story about ourselves with our finances?

Might you begin by considering the income, expenses, assets and budget of Poplar Ridge Monthly Meeting? Does your awareness of how New York Yearly Meeting operates, as partially supported by a large part of your Monthly Meeting budget, work to fulfill Fox’s admonition - ‘Let your lives speak’?

Might the deep consideration of how your Monthly Meeting spends its budget be the first step in making or renewing a covenant between our faith and our actions?

Transparency Issues

Are we true participants in a process of self-governance that is organically connected? Or do we ignore the process because of the growing inability or unwillingness to do hard work? Have we been transformed by the world in the only way possible for modern Friends to exist?

Do we at local levels receive sufficient feedback, support and transparency from those who ‘run’ our wider Yearly Meeting and wider Friends organizations?

Have we become so specialized ourselves in the modern world, and hired professional administrators to try and fix this disconnectedness?

Where do we go from here?

Joshua Brown, a former pastor at South Glens Falls Meeting, wrote, ‘You can’t get there from here’ and Looking for the Promised Land, almost 20 years ago, in 1986 and 1988. These were two essays about the issues facing New York Yearly Meeting – before he left to become the pastor at West Richmond Friends Church, in Indiana.

Internal issues, in his opinion, prevented, and, in my own heartfelt opinion, still prevent New York Yearly Meeting from being integrally connected, and being truly progressive - moving forward in the Spirit, in continuing revelation.

I don’t want to ‘run on in many words’. I simply present facts in the following pages, mostly related back to our membership, finances and transparency up and down in the Yearly Meeting. I hope Friends will consider these facts and discuss them and communicate up and down with other Friends in our Yearly Meeting about where we are led to go.

The presentation of these facts might be annoying to some, it might be blasphemous to others, it might be eye-opening to some others, or it might be energizing yet to others.

I’ve heard a Friend say to me, “Everyone is entitled to one’s own opinion, but not one’s own facts.”

The following are ‘our facts’ to consider:

Membership Issues

Facts/Reactions/Facts in light of reactions

Quakerism in the US has declined in membership in the last 35 years from ~120,000 members in the US to ~90,000 members in 2005. /Mainline traditional Protestant Christian churches are also declining at approximately the same rate as the Quakers./Religious groups which give participants self-determination, and participation in their beliefs and governance are increasing in membership over the last 35 years. (Buddhist, Earth Religion, Wiccan, etc)

Sympathetic groups like Unitarians and the Bretheren are increasing in membership in this period also.

Membership in New York Yearly Meeting has declined by ~50% from 1970 to 2004 (6800 members in 1970, to 3500 in 2004) and membership continues to decline at the same rate.

Membership in similar-sized New England and Baltimore Yearly Meetings has increased moderately in this same period.

/

1. and 2. We’ve been cleaning out our rolls of inactive members.

3. Since Friends are cheap, and the method of paying for New York Yearly Meeting was by head count, Meetings were more likely to remove members who were not active in this time period, to reduce their share contribution to the Yearly Meeting./

1. 35 years is much too long a period for this reaction to be valid.

2. In decentralized organizations such as NYYM, NEYM, or BaltYM, there has not been any top-down requirement for independent recorders, and independent Monthly Meetings to empty rolls or to keep inactive members on rolls.

3. NYYM stopped using the head count method of apportioning the cost of the YM in the late 1990’s. The rate of membership decline since 1970 has continued at the same rate since 2000 to the present.

Membership in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting declined at a similar but less steep rate as NYYM over the same period, but slowed in 1980 and 1990 and stabilized in 2000./It’s just the way it happened.

The 1960’s membership bubble burst.

The 1960’s ‘protest’ Friends came in and drove away a number of less ‘militant’ Friends./PYM initiated a study of Diversity and Outreach¹ in 2000 to determine the attitudes and makeup of their Meetings. Feedback from these surveys are used to help with an open self-awareness.

The outreach attitude or atmosphere in MM’s in PYM is changing, Meetings were not even listed in the phone book, but attitudes changed. A real push occurred from MM level in cooperation with YM to get indoor plumbing, wheelchair access in Meetinghouses, and local paper listings, billboard ads, etc.

The ‘Making new Friends’, pilot project started with 8 meetings (out of 110) that wanted to grow. PYM provided support for those Meetings – and has at least one employee² dedicated to this project, which started about 2000.

The 1960’s is gone and the world we live in is much different now.

New York Yearly Meeting had 3501 members as of summer 2004.

The maximum participation at Annual Sessions at Silver Bay is 750 including both adults and children.

/

There is camping and a few hotels nearby which would increase the 750 number slightly, but you must travel by bicycle (on narrow heavily traveled roads) or by car each day to get to Silver Bay. /

At most, 1/5 of NYYM’s membership can possibly participate in annual sessions.

Much of the fellowship and interaction at Sliver Bay occurs at the meals.

Although Annual Sessions are self-financing, or outside of the Operating Budget, the cost to attend has gone out of reach for many Friends./One Friend has said, “Although I’ve gone to Silver Bay for 40 years, I’d consider other locations for annual sessions if the costs for annual sessions were cheaper and the duration shorter.” “Since I’m here to work, I don’t consider it a vacation.”

The Advancement Committee budget of $12,000 for 2005, plus trust fund distributions of an undetermined amount helps pay for scholarships for Friends who cannot afford to go to Annual Sessions at Silver Bay./Annual Sessions are 7 days in a place which, although reasonably priced considering other ‘vacations’, is expensive as a meeting place for the business of annual sessions.

The Advancement Committee uses most or all of its budget for Annual Sessions scholarships, and very little or none for Outreach programs, which are meant to increase membership.

The NYYM website homepage features a slogan:

“QUAKERS--A simple faith.

A radical witness.

A radical faith. A simple witness.”/A non-Quaker friend of mine said, “I wouldn’t be interested in a group where the word ‘radical’ was used to describe itself”.

“Why do Quakers really need a slogan, especially one that confuses the public and further marginalizes the faith?”/Synonyms of ‘radical’ are:anarchistic, communistic, complete, entire, excessive, extremist, fanatical, far out, forward, freethinking, gone, iconoclastic, immoderate, insubordinate, insurgent, insurrectionary, intransigent, lawless, leftist, liberal, militant, mutinous, nihilistic, progressive, rabid, racist, rebellious, recalcitrant, recusant, refractory, restive, revolutionary, riotous, seditious, severe, supremacist, sweeping, thorough, ultra, ultraist, uncompromising, unruly, violent

//¹ this summary presentation of Diversity and Outreach is available in electronic format from qinfriend 'at' gmail.com

² Lyle Jenks, PYM

Tel. 215 241 7225

Budget Issues

Facts/Reactions/Facts in light of reactions

New York Yearly Meeting has a 2005 budget of $550,000 while NEYM and BaltYM which are slightly larger in membership size, have 2005 budges of

~ $375,000 each.

/Its more expensive to operate in New York City.

The (reasonable) rent for the Yearly Meeting office has increased from 13,000 per year in 1991 to $24,000 per year in 2005.

We must pay our employees fairly./The relocation of the New York Yearly Meeting office to a more central, and less expensive location was studied ~15 years ago.

In this age of communication technology, there is possibly no need to have a fixed office. The Yearly Meeting office could be relocated every 5 years or office staff could work from a home office with proper communication capability.

Of course we should pay our employees fairly, but if an employee works from home there is normally a salary adjustment for that.

The NYYM General Secretary position was approved by many Monthly Meetings as proposed to be $70,000 in annual salary, to establish a residence in New York City, and work three days per week in the office, and to supervise the office staff./None/The NYYM General Secretary works one day per week on average in the NYYM office.

The Field Secretary of NEYM working mostly from his home in Boston, MA, is paid much less than the NYYM General Secretary who works mostly from his home north of Poughkeepsie, NY.

This is a testament to how much more the NEYM Field Secretary should be paid, or how much extra NYYM is paying for its General Secretary.

NYYM has budgeted $9,000 each in membership contributions to FGC, and FUM - Wider Friends organizations in 2005./None/Baltimore has budgeted ~2x NYYM amounts. ³

New England has budgeted ~1.5x NYYM amounts.

There are mixed messages about the cost and need for a ‘bookkeeping service’ ($26,000 budgeted in 2005) when members of NYYM office staff potentially participate in the bookkeeping process./

“How is NYYM

support of the Sharing Fund with staff, bookkeeping service, and the treasurer’s accounts been included or excluded in your [report]”

/

Lack of transparency in office processes does not mean that anything is awry, however, Quakers are (historically?) known for their openness and transparency.

New York Yearly Meeting approved a 7% or ~$35,000 deficit for the 2005 Operating Budget.

New York Yearly Meeting has consistently overestimated its expenses in budgets (compared with actual expenses for the corresponding years) by an average of 6.7% since 1991./

“This deficit budget is intended for a one-year period (2005) only.”

Attempts were made to balance the budget between Budget Saturday (9/18/2004) and 12^th Month Representative Meeting -instead of in spring meetings of the NYYM Financial Services Committee./

After reductions were made in all sections in fall 2004, the NYYM General Services Section 2005 budget (~$390,000)was approved at 71% of the total (~$550,000) Operating Budget.

The General Services budget represents the cost of administering ourselves as a Yearly Meeting body.

Powell House, the NYYM retreat center, is now a substitute for, or the evolution from the Quaker tradition of Inter-visitation.

The Yearly Meeting subsidy for Powell House is around $70,000 per year, or 13% of our 2005 Operating Budget./

Powell House is an important asset in the life of NYYM./

^{Even with the Yearly Meeting subsidy in the Operating Budget, costs to arrive at, and attend Powell House are not inexpensive for many Friends.}

//³ BaltimoreYM lists a contingency amount equal to what would be contributed to FUM, on a special line for ‘other’ due to consideration of FUM’s Personnel Policy regarding sexual relations between unmarried persons.

Transparency Issues

Facts/Reactions/Facts in light of reactions

NYYM has 3.5 employees without any dedication to specific committees or functions.

Baltimore YM has 5 employees,

NEYM has 4.5 employees. These employees are dedicated to specific committees and functions of the Yearly Meeting.

/New York Yearly Meeting has a small but dedicated staff and job descriptions are given in verbal reports at different times./New England and Baltimore Yearly Meetings have written job descriptions, reporting structures, and time allocations to various committees available to the public for its paid office staff.

At this time, NYYM does not plan to issue any written job descriptions, reporting structure, or time allocations for its office staff.

NYYM dedicates staff time and ‘Bookkeeping Service’ expense to administer and distribute ‘Sharing Fund’ disbursements for Witness projects around the world.

There is an amount that might be determined as ‘overhead’ which could be charged back to the total Fund for our employee time and outside bookkeeping expense./

To "break out" these data…makes the process seem a bit easier than it is. To "break them out" , they would have to already be there in some form that differentiates these activities and transactions from similar ones done for other reasons./

A distribution of $11,801. for ‘Overhead’ was made in 1991 for the Sharing Fund out of a total distribution of $70,280.

A NYYM Sharing Fund distribution total of $46,312. was made in 2004. The 2004 overhead line is $0.

In the 1970s, the NYYM Sharing Fund distribution, an amount that goes to our Witness activities abroad, was approximately equal to the NYYM Operating Budget. (~$100,000).

The NYYM Operating Budget is approximately $550,000 in 2005./

Where are our priorities?/

The 2005 Sharing Fund Goal is $70,000.

The Financial Management Guidelines is not a public document.

Page 20 of the 2004 NYYM Yearbook reads …”we also approved a set of Financial Management Guidelines for use by the Yearly Meeting office and the Treasurer, these guidelines will also assist us in our work with our auditor and bookkeeping service.”/

“This document pertains to the management of YM funds and the various responsibilities - especially between the treasurer and the YM Office. It simply puts into writing the procedures we have been following for the benefit of any new personnel. “/

Lack of transparency in office processes does not mean that anything is awry, however, Quakers are (historically?) known for their openness and transparency.

In Summary:

In the wider New York Yearly Meeting, Friends have tacitly or unconsciously given way to a few, taking over for what many Friends should be doing. Is it possible that this small group of Friends comprise the only ones left to do the hard work? Up to 1/5 of us might simply relate to the Yearly Meeting by spending a week at Silver Bay at Lake George, in the Adirondaks, for a week in July. What about the rest of us?

What is needed now Friends, is mindfulness, communication and feedback up and down in our statewide-regional organization of 60 Monthly Meetings and 9 regions. What are Philadelphia, and more specifically New England and Baltimore doing that New York is not? What is New York doing that New England and Baltimore are not? Are there issues or circumstances that prevent New York from growing, or at least stopping the decline in membership? Are we ready to confront these circumstances and issues?

Do we understand as our membership declines, that we must face finite realities in Yearly Meeting committee participation? We will have to face the realities of work that must be done and money that must be spent on our local concerns, in the context of our wider expression of fellowship of the Yearly Meeting.

Are we led to grow in number at our Monthly Meeting levels, or will we have to make difficult decisions in reducing our expenditures and number of committees on which Friends serve?

Are we ready to re-connect our faith and our material lives? Can we re-connect our Monthly Meetings with the Yearly Meeting?

Yours in faith,

Glenn L. R.

Member of Manhattan Monthly Meeting

New York Quarterly Meeting

New York, NY 10011