Fox Valley Friends Monthly Meeting

State of Society Report for 2017

Adult Participants: 17 (being verified by Treasurer)

Children: 3 (being verified by Treasurer)

Shared Message:

Fox Valley has, since its inception in the early 1970's, been a small meeting.　 As a result, gatherings can sometimes be sparse.　 This has been exacerbated by a recent upsurge in family responsibilities for some of our members and injuries and related recovery times for others.　 We ask that our meeting be held in the Light with attention to healing and a return to abundant participation in our Meetings for Worship.

FGC 2016:　 Five members of our Meeting were able to attend all or part of the FGC Gathering in 2016, and two were involved in planning the Gathering.　 Everyone came away with a different experience, and much food for thought that was shared with our Monthly Meeting.

Prison Ministry: Three of us have visited Shane, a prisoner at the Green Bay Correctional Institute.　 Fellowship there has ended, and he believes that his religious rights are being denied. 　He would like us to start a Quaker meeting and knows of other prisoners who might attend.　 He also had a friend who was hoping for visitors, but was transferred.　 Shane has stated that his purpose is to work for better treatment of prisoners.　 He has done some research and is looking for help with stats from the internet to back this up. 　

WISDOM/JOSHUA/RUTH: Our Meeting is part of two interfaith organizations:　 JOSHUA in Green Bay and RUTH in Manitowoc.　 Through these organizations, our members are involved in task forces on mental health and prison reform.　

Adult Education/Potluck Discussions: During our monthly potluck discussion groups this year we studied the Spirituality of Aging.

Communication/Outreach: Our Meeting keeps in touch with former members and those who can't get to Meeting very often by sending Christmas cards.　 This year, due to bad weather we didn't get to send Christmas cards, so we sent Valentine's cards instead.　 We also printed some ‘business cards’ for our Meeting which can spread our presence and contact information.

We began participation in our community’s ecumenical group of spiritual leaders, GIFT (Gathered in Faith Together). We were invited to speak our Quaker faith at their Vigil for Humanity, and we participated in a panel discussion with a Hindu and a Muslim at the E Pluribus Unum series on the spiritual discipline of welcoming the stranger. Both of these events were held in support of the immigrant population in our community.