Like many of us, your new clerks, Richard Fuller and Anne Supplee , see the “spiritual world” as an important part of life, even though it’s invisible and even though everyone perceives it in their own way. We also feel that TCFM is a vibrant spiritual community with many synchronicities and influences (that some would call “divine”) occurring every week.

Anne and I are interested in holding up a mirror to the face of meeting and saying, “look, isn’t this a wonderful community?!” We want to give ourselves—collectively– a fresh look at ourselves.
As our first act in this process, we plan to spend the first 30 to 45 minutes of the May 9th MWB in a “Meet The Parts” Party. There will be refreshments, and also the following “Links of Meeting” game.

Orientation to the Game:
Most of us have several links to the whole community of TCFM. We may attend Wednesday-evening Worship and/ or teach First Day School. The goal of this Links of Meeting exercise is to create a paper chain with a link for each activity that connects you and your Ffriends to the TCFM community.

Instructions for Participants:
1 Collecting your links
We have grouped the hundreds of ways people are connected to TCFM into 10 categories, like “8:30 Worship” and “Informal Ministry & Support.” Each category will have its own location on one of the tables in the Meeting Room, with a description of common activities in that category (below), and a pile of colored paper strips. Each participant should check out all the categories, asking “In the last year, have I connected to others in the TCFM community through an activity in this category?” When the answer is “yes,” take one of the strips of that color and write your name on one side of it.
If you find you have done several different activities that fall in the same category, we would encourage you to put your name on a separate slip for each of them, or at least several of them. The longer the chain, the better the representation of our connections to Meeting!

If you take part in a TCFM-community experience which is not mentioned in any category, you are encouraged to write it in as a sub-category on one of the ten category sheets.
Or, if it doesn’t fit under an existing category, write it on the MISCELLANEOUS sheet, or if it deserves a category of its own, use one of the unassigned categories.

2 Attaching the Links
On the east wall of the Meeting Room you will find a cord strung like a clothesline with links of each color hanging from it. With a piece of tape, form your paper strip into a link and attach each of your colored links to a link of that color that is already hanging from the line.
If you feel comfortable, tell someone else what the link stands for as you attach it.

3 Receive the Links of Others
When you have attached all your links, have another cookie and share with someone your reactions to the exercise. OR, stick around the growing paper chain and help others attach their links, and hear what they have to say about them.

Our Categories of TCFM Community Activities:
8:30 WORSHIP

11:00 WORSHIP

WEDNESDAY EVENING WORSHIP

FORMAL MEETING WORK
Service on the regular Standing Committees of the Meeting, or an ad hoc committee, or other administrative work
Attending Meeting for Worship with attention to Business (MWB).
Caring for the building or grounds, perhaps on work days, even though it’s not your committee assignment
Setting up chairs or tables and food for Meeting events like weddings or memorial services
Helping clean up after Meeting events, like Potluck
Other standard, recognized activities that directly support TCFM

FAMILY ACTIVITIES
First Day School
Family Meeting
Away-from-Meeting shared playgroups and childcare.
Friends School
Other family-related activities

CLEARNESS, SUPPORT & ELDERING COMMITTEES

INFORMAL MINISTRY & SUPPORT
For community members in difficulty: home visits, taking food and offering other forms of help
Listening to community members who need to share, face to face or on the phone.
(Might happen at potlucks or Needle-Workers-Anonymous)
Lending or giving money
Other similar activities of informal ministry and support

GROUPS FOR QUAKER-RELATED INTERESTS, EDUCATION AND EXPLORATION
Adult Education Hours
“Old Friends” and “Crones”
Adult Young Friends
Quakerism 101
Other Meeting-sponsored workshops and seminars
Spiritual Nurture Groups
Circle 8 Potlucks
Eco-Quakers, Quaker Community Forest
Book groups with a recognized Quaker context
Metro Friends, NYM & FGC Gatherings
Pendle Hill & similar workshops and settings (you may have attended a workshop alone but we assume it builds the whole TCFM community that you have done so.)
Other Quaker-related educational activities you have done with or without other members of this community

“IN-THE-WORLD” COMMUNITY SERVICE AND POLITICAL ACTIVISM where I feel “kin” with other Quakers who I know are involved, or care about the issue, even though we may not bump into each other often.
Loaves and Fishes
Project Home
Anti-war rallies
GLBTQ activities
Other activities in the larger world that you feel you attend “as a Quaker, a member of the TCFM community” even if you may not be recognized as officially representing the meeting

MISCELLANEOUS ENCOUNTERS WITH COMMUNITY MEMBERS, such as
Working for pay
Going to movies together
Doing laundry or housecleaning
Other activities you share with TCFM community members that may not be recognized as “spiritual” or “community-related”

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