“Passionate and growing, as witnessed through lives transformed by Christ”—FUM’s vision statement adopted at the June 2006 General Board member and staff retreat.

The General Board of Friends United Meeting met three times during the past twelve months—in October 2005 and in February and June 2006. The June General Board meeting was preceded by a two-day retreat for visioning and community-building.

During the year, FUM has continued to undergo changes in its organization, staffing, programs and financial base. Addressing these changes will require wisdom on the part of the General Board if FUM is to remain intact, continue its important field work and ministries, and reflect the values and interests of its North American membership.

The next several years are likely to witness the emergence of a very different kind of entity. Baltimore Yearly Meeting’s representatives continue a tradition of involved Board members—Walt Fry is a member of the Executive Committee (which acts for the Board when it is not in session), and Rachel Stacy and Rich Liversidge are two of FUM’s seven Trustees.

Organization, Staffing and Finances:

In earlier presentations, we reported that FUM reorganized its senior staff structure in 2004 and created an executive staff of four persons. By late Spring, three of those positions were vacant. Ben Richmond retired in October 2005; he had been handling the Communications activities along with his North American Ministries portfolio. In December 2005, Colin South resigned as Director of Global Ministries. Then Retha McCutchen retired in March 2006 as FUM’s General Secretary. Of the four senior staff at FUM, only Paul Smith (Finance) remains in place.

In March 2006, Sylvia Graves (Western YM) agreed to become FUM’s Interim General Secretary during this transition. She has returned a sense of calm and order to FUM.

There has been an increasing recognition of FUM’s need to operate within its financial means. FUM’s finances have become more transparent in recent years (in large part from the efforts of Howard Fullerton). This has clarified the extent of the organization’s operating deficits as costs have increased and financial support has fallen off.

In October 2005, the General Board (guided by the Executive Committee) acted to bring expenses in line with revenues. As a result, a Board committee and the FUM staff are scrutinizing FUM’s programs and reviewing activities, certain staff in Richmond have been laid off, and most Richmond staff had their hours reduced by 20% to cut operating costs. This has meant financial sacrifice on the part of most of FUM’s staff.

Search for a General Secretary:

The Executive Committee is operating as the Search Committee for a permanent General Secretary. Hiring other senior staff will come after that. The Executive Committee has developed a position description and is being deliberate in the search. The other members of the General Board are anticipating a report of its progress at the October 2006 General Board meeting.

Programs:

In 2005, the General Board’s program committee began an extensive evaluation of FUM’s various activities and programs, to determine the consistency of each with FUM’s four objectives – evangelism, leadership training, global partnership and communication. This is proving to be a very large task because of the complexity of FUM’s operations.

The FUM belt-tightening also has affected FUM’s overseas activities. Attention is being paid, again, to the extent to which contributions for ministries and programs are matched to expenditures. Funding cuts for the African Ministries office threatens the scope and effectiveness of FUM’s East African activities. And the need for additional fund-raising is requiring FUM’s field staff to schedule more time for deputation activities.

FUM has agreed to take over operation of Kaimosi Hospital for two years and appoint a temporary Board of Governors while the possible transfer of ownership back to FUM is explored and finalized. The facility has become very run down and needs rehabilitation investment, new equipment and funds for a doctor. Funds for a new roof were raised at the June 2006 Board meeting and preparations made for a work camp of young friends.

After 40 years of lending, Friends Extension Corporation has begun phasing out its lending activities, which have financed the development of meetinghouses and churches. Alternative sources of financing from banks and other lenders are available at lower cost. No additional funds from individuals will be sought, but meetings and churches are asked to continue their investments in FEC to allow an orderly winding down of activities.

Financial Base:

FUM acted in 2005-06 to stabilize its operations. After experiencing an operating deficit of about $65,000 during the first 9 months of fiscal 2006, the fourth quarter (April-June) appears to be breakeven, due to FUM’s staff and expense cut-backs. For the full year, the deficit indicated in June was about $61,000. The budget for fiscal 2007 anticipates declines in contributions from its three major sources – individuals, monthly meetings and yearly meetings. For fiscal 2007, the General Board approved an asking budget of about $685,000 which is $65,000 (10%) lower than the fiscal year just ended. It matches anticipated revenues and expenses and is essentially balanced.

FUM initiated a capital campaign in 2005-06 with a goal of $305,000. During the campaign’s first 10 months, FUM had raised $61,400 (43% of its first-year goal). About half of this will go to projects in East Africa, Palestine and the Caribbean. The balance will go toward the expenses of FUM’s overseas field staff and to the FUM General Fund.

Issues:

Two kinds of tension are evident on the FUM General Board. The first is the continuing disunity regarding FUM’s personnel policies and yearly meetings’ different Biblical/ experiential discernment regarding their correctness. Friends on the Board have strong convictions in various directions on this matter. Business continues to be done by the Board, but there are times when this tension interferes with the smooth action of the Board as a whole.

Recently, a second tension has begun to emerge at the General Board level - a tension between some representatives of yearly meetings with a single affiliation (FUM) and representatives from yearly meetings with dual affiliation (FUM and FGC). The view of some single-affiliation representatives is that this makes FUM “their” entity, because those from dual-affiliated yearly meetings have the ability to look to FGC for their spiritual nurture. This does not fully reflect the extent to which explicitly Christian Quakers from dual-affiliated yearly meetings feel nurtured by their involvement in FUM. During the June 2006 retreat, this emerging view included proposals (not acted on) to describe FUM’s roots as firmly planted in FUM’s “Orthodox” or “Gurneyite” history.

FUM still includes a wide range of Friends, and I expect it will remain in ferment.

My Final Report as a BYM Representative:

This is my final report to BYM as one of your representatives. I thank both the Nominating Committee and the BYM membership for allowing me to serve the Yearly Meeting in this way. For me, being a representative on FUM’s General Board has been a challenging and rewarding leading.

Rich Liversidge

Dear Friends...

We are all stunned in the wake of Tuesday's terror. Scenes of fire, buildings falling, people jumping scorched our minds. Then came the stories -- real life experiences of people escaping or not escaping, body bags all too familiar, and lists of 'known dead.' We cry out to God for grace to cope with such trauma.

Friends United Meeting presiding clerk, Stanley Bauer, has made time on the General Board agenda in October to consider a formal FUM response. Immediately, as general secretary, I have joined with other Friends organizations in a call to prayer to pray for wisdom and peace. I have also signed the attached letter from religious leaders across America expressing our despair and encouraging a reasonable response. We encourage our nation to take a reasoned and considered response to these horrendous acts. The continued killing of innocent people violates our belief in the sacredness of life.

Let us pray together and respond in peace. Please feel free to forward the attachment.

May God's grace be with you,

Retha McCutchen
General Secretary
Friends United Meeting
Richmond, IN 47374 USA

September 12, 2001

DENY THEM THEIR VICTORY:
A RELIGIOUS RESPONSE TO TERRORISM

We, American religious leaders, share the broken hearts of our fellow citizens.  The worst terrorist attack in history that assaulted New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, has been felt in every American community.  Each life lost was of unique and sacred value in the eyes of God, and the connections Americans feel to those lives run very deep.  In the face of such a cruel catastrophe, it is a time to look to God and to each other for the strength we need and the response we will make. We must dig deep to the roots of our faith for sustenance, solace, and wisdom.

First, we must find a word of consolation for the untold pain and suffering of our people. Our congregations will offer their practical and pastoral resources to bind up the wounds of the nation. We can become safe places to weep and secure places to begin rebuilding our shattered lives and communities. Our houses of worship should become public arenas for common prayer, community discussion, eventual healing, and forgiveness.

Second, we offer a word of sober restraint as our nation discerns what its response will be. We share the deep anger toward those who so callously and massively destroy innocent lives, no matter what the grievances or injustices invoked. In the name of God, we too demand that those responsible for these utterly evil acts be found and brought to justice.  Those culpable must not escape accountability.  But we must not, out of anger and vengeance, indiscriminately retaliate in ways that bring on even more loss of innocent life. We pray that President Bush and members of Congress will seek the wisdom of God as they decide upon the appropriate response.

Third, we face deep and profound questions of what this attack on America will do to us as a nation. The terrorists have offered us a stark view of the world they would create, where the remedy to every human grievance and injustice is a resort to the random and cowardly violence of revenge – even against the most innocent. Having taken thousands of our lives, attacked our national symbols, forced our political leaders to flee their chambers of governance, disrupted our work and families, and struck fear into the hearts of our children, the terrorists must feel victorious.

But we can deny them their victory by refusing to submit to a world created in their image. Terrorism inflicts not only death and destruction but also emotional oppression to further its aims.  We must not allow this terror to drive us away from being the people God has called us to be.  We assert the vision of community, tolerance, compassion, justice, and the sacredness of human life, which lies at the heart of all our religious traditions. America must be a safe place for all our citizens in all their diversity. It is especially important that our citizens who share national origins, ethnicity, or religion with whoever attacked us are, themselves, protected among us.

Our American illusion of invulnerability has been shattered.  From now on, we will look at the world in a different way, and this attack on our life as a nation will become a test of our national character. Let us make the right choices in this crisis - to pray, act, and unite against the bitter fruits of division, hatred, and violence. Let us rededicate ourselves to global peace, human dignity, and the eradication of injustice that breeds rage and vengeance.

As we gather in our houses of worship, let us begin a process of seeking the healing and grace of God.

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