Westport Friends Meeting

May Business Highlights

Editor's Note: The following are "Monthly Meeting Highlights" as they appear in our printed Newsletter, not the actual minutes themselves.

Ministry and Counsel: Steven Correia, Clerk, reported that a set of “soft manipulative play-rings” for young children have been purchased four use during meeting for worship. (They’re for the very young…not very un-centered adults!  )

The memorial minute for Eva Kelly has been completed by Ministry and Counsel and will be presented for approval at the May monthly meeting for business.

Sunday, July 8th at 2:00 PM has been reserved for a memorial service for Frankie Kirkaldy. Please save this date and join us as we celebrate the life and cherished memories of our dear Friend, Frankie.

This spring Ministry and Counsel decided to reach out to our meeting’s young adults who are either attending colleges or working near and far with a note and gift certificate redeemable at Amazon.com. Though most of these young meeting members and attenders cannot be with us very often, we hold each of them in our thoughts and prayers as they make their way in the world.

Finance Committee: Greg Marsello, Clerk, reported that the Committee is in the process of transitioning and consolidating various funds and accounts as approved by Monthly Meeting last month. Finance Committee members and Deana Chase, Treasurer, are also in the process of switching the Meeting’s books over to QuickBooks, a financial management software program designed for small businesses.

Property Committee reported by David Sutton: The Committee is consulting with local contractor Tim Gillespie and is considering replacing the shingles on the Residence and the Macomber Community House in stages, depending on available funds.

Our annual spring clean-up day will be held on Saturday, May 12th, from 9:00 AM until early afternoon. The usual pizza lunch will be provided by the Meeting. Please make every effort to come and help out. For those who cannot make it that day, a list of chores still needing to be done beyond the 12th will be posted in the Community House and Friends can come in and tackle what they can as their schedule allows.

A final decision on the purchase of a lawn equipment shed will be made soon. Additional storage is needed so that the shed adjacent to the Book Sorting building can be used to store…what else? More books!

Leaking in the basement of the Residence continues to be a serious problem. The Committee is considering contracting with a professional water-proofing company. One approach is to install an external drain around the outside of the foundation and the other is to seal the foundation wall from the inside.

A streamlined version of the Property Use Guidelines was presented and approved by Friends. The revised version is also posted on our Web site for easy viewing.

Book Fair Committee: Friends are reminded that book sorting is an on-going, year round process and that help is always appreciated. Please speak with Deana Chase, Barbara Wicks, Mark Bauer or Emily Sutton on how you can help. See May Calendar for organized sorting times.

Members of the Web Site Committee met recently to review how well this online medium is serving the needs of our Meeting. Over the past two years some visitors have indicated that they used the Web site to find our Meeting and to learn about our community. Dave and Emily, our Friends In Residence also report that a number of people have visited the site to find out about reserving a date for functions and events.

Greg Stone will continue overseeing the site into the future. We also acknowledge that we need to be more vigilant about posting items on a regular bases and to keep things updated. Several Friends within the Meeting are trained to do this and have access via passcode to post directly to the site.

Friends might like to know that the following information is available at www.WestportQuakers.org: Property Use Guidelines, Property Committee Minutes, Maps and directions, Memorial Minutes, Monthly Meeting Highlights, State of Society Reports, Book Sale information and Meeting Officers and Committees.

In the weeks ahead the Home Page will be reorganized to make some features more visible and useful overall. Previously we have uploaded the Meeting Newsletter in its entirety so that it looks nearly identical to the printed version. However, this approach is laborious and also prevents us from being able to search the contents of posted Newsletters. In the future we plan to feature the Meeting Calendar as an ongoing feature so that items can be added as they arrive, which will allow anyone to view upcoming events, committee meetings and announcements anytime during the month. We also plan to expand the Book Sale information so that visitors will know what kinds of books we accept and information for book sorters, etc.