Young Adult Friends Fall 2024 Retreat: "Living Your Life as a Friend"

Young Adult F/friends and Seekers, ages 18 through 35, register today for the Fall 2024 Retreat at West Chester Friends Meeting! The theme for this retreat is "Living Your Life as a Friend," and we will do activities that allow us to deepen our relationship to our faith, Quaker testimonies, and navigating the challenges of being a F/friend and Seeker in the world today.

The Fall Retreat will be from Friday, October 18 through Sunday, October 20, at West Chester Friends Meeting. Young Adult Friends will participate in activities, conduct our Business Meeting, and connect with each other through fellowship and worship sharing.

This is an overnight event. We will be staying at West Chester Friends Meeting on Friday and Saturday night, so don’t forget to pack your sleeping bags, pillows, clothes, necessary bathroom items, medications, and anything else you might need.

Register today! Registration closes on Thursday, October 17, 2024. The cost to participate is available at a sliding scale of $0-60, with the suggested price of $40. Please pay as you are led.

This will be a mask optional event. We will prepare all our meals together. We will be sleeping on the floor of the Meeting House. Please email ishiraz@pym.org if you have any accommodation needs.

Schedule

FRIDAY

5:00 p.m. Check In

6:00 p.m. Dinner

7:00-8:00 p.m. Workshop with AFSC Ainsley Bruton (they/them), AFSC’s Quaker Engagement Coordinator

SATURDAY

8:00 a.m. Breakfast

10:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Clerking Workshop with Zachary Dutton

12:30 p.m.-1:30 p.m. Lunch (Sandwhich/Wraps)

1:30-3:30 p.m. Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business

3:30-5:30 p.m. Free Time (Rest, Visiting the Town)

5:30 p.m. Dinner Prep

6:30 p.m. Dinner

8:00 p.m. Optional Worship Sharing/Game time

SUNDAY

8:00-9:00 a.m. Breakfast

9:00-10:00 a.m. Packup

10:30 a.m. Worship with West Chester Friends Meeting

12:00 p.m. Departure

Workshop Overviews

Friday Night Workshop with Ainsley Bruton

• Join Ainsley Bruton (they/them), AFSC’s Quaker Engagement Coordinator, for a presentation on AFSC’s work to build peace and justice around the globe. Ainsley will provide an overview AFSC’s national campaigns and highlight AFSC’s program work in the Northeast Region. This interactive presentation will provide opportunities for Friends to engage with AFSC’s programs and share about work for change happening in their communities.

• As the Quaker Engagement Coordinator, Ainsley works to build nurturing, trusting, and engaged relationships with Quaker faith communities, schools, and organizations in the U.S. and around the world.

Saturday Morning Clerking Workshop with Zachary Dutton

• Zachary currently works as a nonprofit consultant and fitness trainer. He serves on the core team of a consulting firm called Co-Creating Effective and Inclusive Organizations (CEIO). He is a graduate of Haverford College, where he currently serves on the board and as clerk of its corporation. His fitness training focuses on holistic, body-positive, functional fitness. He is a white, queer, cis man. Check out his website for more information on my consulting and his Instragram @healandtell for more on his fitness training journey. 

• We'll spend the first part exploring "sense of the meeting", a key element of Quaker Decision Making Process. What are the essential elements of it, and how can the idea of "unity" sometimes be problematic? Then we'll conclude with an exploration of a polarity that emerges, in my view, out of two of the characteristics of QDMP that gets critiqued most often -- its slowness and tendency to protect the status quo. Based on the concept of "polarities" developed by a guy named Barry Johnson, we'll take a look at this one: using a good process and making a good decision. Barry has written lots of books about this. If you're interested, check out this one: And: Making a Difference by Leveraging Polarity, Paradox or Dilemma, Volume Two: Applications

• Reflection from Zachary: I love Quaker Decision Making Process (QDMP) and have in the past identified as a Quaker process junkie. My spiritual and emotional life is deeply influenced by it. For over twenty years, I have continuously been part of a group or organization that uses some version of QDMP. At one time or another I have occupied nearly every role there is to occupy in the context of Quaker Decision Making Process, and I have accumulated about ten years leading the process, which overlaps with about eight years of serving as a leader in organizations that use the process. In this time, I have witnessed many marvels and many areas that could use improvement, and my experience deepens with each passing day.

Community Expectations

Young Adult Friends (YAF) is open to 18-35-year-olds interested in or already part of a Quaker community/Meeting. YAFs come from a wide range of backgrounds, identities, and experiences. We are respectful and welcoming to all, attuned to how power and privilege may consciously or unconsciously impact our care for one another.

The voices of those new to YAF and those already familiar with YAF are equally valued. Alcohol and illicit substances are NOT permitted during overnight YAF retreats.

We expect that all participants will accept collective responsibility for the community's well being and living space during this retreat. By “living space,” we mean both the physical building and the fellowship we create within it. We are guests here. 

Responsibilities with the logistics, cleaning, and taking care of public spaces is shared among all F/friends. Each F/friend is expected to contribute to help with the tasks that come up throughout the retreat.

We recognize that people have a wide range of boundaries. We prioritize consent and respect boundaries. In caring for the community, it is important to get enthusiastic consent when engaging in physical contact or conversations. We know that someone is giving enthusiastic consent when they agree to the interaction both verbally and with their body language. 

We are prepared for problems that may come up at this event, such as conflict, injury, and spiritual or mental distress. The YAF Program, as part of PYM, has procedures in place for how to handle problems and conflicts that may arise. As a last resort, these procedures may include asking individuals to leave the event. If you have any questions about how to handle a particular situation, please speak with the YAF clerking team.