Manual of Procedure
VIII. Corporations Affiliated with Baltimore Yearly Meeting
Friends House Retirement Community
Friends House, Inc. and Friends Nursing Home, Inc. were merged into Friends House Retirement Community (“Friends House”) in July 2017. Friends House provides housing, health care services, and other services to persons 62 years of age or older. Friends House is governed by a self-appointed 14 to 19 member Board of Directors. At least 60 percent of the Directors must be members of the Religious Society of Friends.
Baltimore Yearly Meeting (BYM) is invited to nominate three persons to be approved by the Friends House Board of Directors. Beginning in 2017, BYM may nominate one person each year for a three-year, once renewable term. A renewed term counts as that year’s nomination. No more than three directors will be BYM nominees at any one time. BYM nominees will be named at the Spring Interim Meeting. If approved by the Friends House Board, the approved Director would begin their term the following September.
BYM will not consider current Friends House Board Directors for nomination in 2017, 2018, and 2019.
Directors attend regular meetings of the Board, participate in Board committees, and help keep the Yearly Meeting informed of the work of the Board in operating a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) in Sandy Spring, Maryland.
Friends House, Inc. and Friends House Nursing Home, Inc. were originally established in 1966 and 1968, respectively.
Friends Meeting School, Inc.
Friends Meeting School, Inc., established in 1997, is governed by a Board of Trustees consisting of between 4 and 21 persons: two named by the Yearly Meeting for approval by the Friends Meeting School Board of Trustees, the remainder by the Board itself. The School is located in Ijamsville (Frederick County), Maryland. Trustees must be at least 21 years of age. Terms normally begin on July 1 and run for three years. No Trustee may serve more than three consecutive terms.
The Board of Trustees meets once a month, normally on Sunday afternoon. Each member of the Board is expected to participate on a Board committee. Representatives of Baltimore Yearly Meeting serving on the Board are expected to keep Baltimore Yearly Meeting informed about the programs and spiritual condition of the school, including submitting an annual written report.
Friends Meeting School was formerly under the spiritual care of Seneca Valley Preparative Meeting and in 2009 also came under the spiritual care of Baltimore Yearly Meeting. Seneca Valley Preparative Meeting was laid down in 2013. The “spiritual care of Friends Meeting School” involves everyone associated with the school—including all of Baltimore Yearly Meeting, the teachers, staff, parents, alumni, and even the students themselves—caring for the school in the same manner as Isaac Pennington defined a Friends community nearly 350 years ago: “our life is love, and peace, and tenderness; and bearing one with another, and forgiving one another, and not laying accusations one against another; but praying one for another, and helping one another up with a tender hand” (1667).
Miles White Beneficial Society of Baltimore City
The Miles White Beneficial Society (MWBS) of Baltimore City was founded and incorporated in 1874 to administer a testamentary trust under the will of Miles White, a member of the meeting in Baltimore Yearly Meeting of Friends (Orthodox) currently named Baltimore Monthly Meeting, Homewood. The MWBS awards scholarships to college students, grants to Quaker schools and other organizations with connections to the Quaker community, and grants to charitable organizations in the greater Baltimore area. Upon the consolidation of the two Baltimore Yearly Meetings in 1968, oversight of the MWBS passed to the Yearly Meeting. In 2011, the Yearly Meeting agreed that the MWBS should become a “supporting organization” for the Yearly Meeting, and the Yearly Meeting has since then appointed or reappointed the trustees of the MWBS.
The trust is administered by the trustees of the Society, and the organization annually makes a written report to the Baltimore Yearly Meeting. There are seven to ten trustees, nominated by the Nominating Committee and appointed by the Yearly Meeting, during its Annual Session, to serve a three-year term which commences after the Miles White Beneficial Society’s annual meeting in October. Appointees may serve three consecutive three-year terms. Trustees typically meet monthly.
Sandy Spring Friends School, Inc.
Sandy Spring Friends School, Inc., established in 1959, is governed by a Board of Trustees consisting of between 20 and 30 persons, normally 24: four appointed by the Yearly Meeting, eight by Sandy Spring Monthly Meeting, and the remainder by the Board itself. Ordinarily each year the Yearly Meeting appoints one trustee to serve a four-year term commencing with the September meeting of the Board following appointment. Appointees serve no more than two consecutive terms.
The appointees attend meetings of the Board of Trustees, participate in the directions of the programs of the corporation, and keep the Yearly Meeting informed of such programs. Sandy Spring Friends School reports annually to the Yearly Meeting.
