Peace & Social Concerns Committee

Committee Membership

The committee is open to all interested community members. Our Meeting representatives to AFSC, FCLCA, FCNL, SCQM, and PYM are also, by virtue of fulfilling these roles, members of the committee.

Committee members serve for one year (Sept. – Aug) and may be re-nominated to serve additional years.

Spiritual Grounding of the Committee

"Based upon love and concern for the well being of all, Friends work for reconciliation and active nonviolent resolutions of conflict." (PYM Faith and Practice, 2001, p.43)

Committee members are urged to reflect on the essential answers to these queries as they embrace their work.

1.     How can we on Peace and Social Action encourage our distinctive Quaker spiritual discernment of social issues, carrying our faith into action by maintaining our communal, inner spiritual commitment to social action as a form of love?

2.     How can we on the committee season our commitments so that we might bring the broader Meeting community into a deep, spiritually informed unity as we demonstrate the power of the Spirit working through and with our public testimonies?

Guiding Principles of the Committee

·       To support and encourage the leadings of Meeting Community members in matters of peace, justice, and the environment.

·       To know, through our reps to AFSC, FCNL, FCLCA, both the issues (international, national, state, and local), on which these organizations are focusing and the actions Monthly Meetings are encouraged to take around these issues.

·       To discern which of these issues (international, national, state, local) resonates sufficiently with both the Committee and our Community.

·       To educate our Community and lead it to action on these focus issues.

·       To forge relationships, wherever possible, with individuals and groups, religious and secular, who are working on issues important to our Committee and Community.

Committee Budget

The committee formulates a budget for the Sept- August year and submits it to the Finance committee prior to December. (The amount of the previous year’s budget can be ascertained from Finance.

The committee yearly decides whether to recommend to Business Meeting that donations/membership dues be paid to outside organizations. Past recipients of funds include ICUJP (Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace), IRC (Interreligious Council of So. California), and SCEC (Southern California Ecumenical Council).