Speakers at our 2007 Annual Sessions

Tuesday Evening Speaker: Niyonu Spann

Niyonu D. Spann is the dean of Pendle Hill and a member of Durham Monthly Meeting and New England Yearly Meeting. In the mid to late 90s, after years of teaching in Friends schools and developing skills in facilitation and conducting diversity workshops, Niyonu began to allow a vision to come through—a vision of the interconnection of all living beings. She says that "this vision shook the foundation of all of my ways of being in the world." It also transformed her lifework.

In the spring of 2000, Niyonu created and led the first Beyond Diversity 101, a five-day intensive transformational workshop. This new workshop design sought to elevate interconnectedness within and without and to tell the truth about power in our society. Out of this same powerful vision, Niyonu formed the music group Tribe 1, which has performed throughout the U.S. at peace & justice rallies, churches, and schools and in Nicaragua. Niyonu loves "helping folks sing from their souls in ways they might have only thought possible in their dreams."

Carey Memorial Lecture: Joe Volk

Joe Volk became executive secretary in 1990 of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker lobby in the public interest and the first registered national religious lobby in the U.S. In the last 17 years, Joe has lobbied Congress to support peaceful prevention of deadly conflict, nuclear disarmament, peace in Iraq, and many other issues.

Prior to joining FCNL, Joe worked for 18 years for the American Friends Service Committee and served as its National Secretary for Peace Education from 1982 to 1990. He is a past chair and current member of the Steering Committee of the US Campaign to Ban Landmines and a board member of Africa Action and The Justice Project (a veterans’ organization). Joe also serves on the Corporation Committee of Haverford College and is on the advisory council of Foreign Policy in Focus, a think-tank without walls.

Joe’s career in the peace movement began in 1967 when he refused a deferment from the draft and went into the Army to try to organize troops to refuse deployment to Vietnam. In 1968, he refused to go with his mechanized cavalry unit to Vietnam. Although convicted in a court martial on AWOL charges, he received an honorable discharge, after doing a short time in an Army stockade.

Friday Evening Speakers: