On 01/14/2009 [email protected] wrote: > The organization arrangement seems accurate to me, assuming things haven't > changed appreciably. > > However, the Monthly Meeting and Meeting for Worship were pretty much the > same people and anyone could attend, not just delegates. Sometimes there were > provisional Meetings or Worship Groups (usually small communities at some > distance from an established MM) who might send representatives to the Monthly > Meetings' business sessions. This is where membership was important - - those > who were not actual members did not have a voice in the decisions and > > actions taken by the Monthly Meeting (although I think they would be able to > observe if they wished.) > > Quarterly Meetings consisted of several MMs and again, anyone could attend. > In fact, Quarterly Meetings were quite social affairs. It was an > opportunity to get together with Friends who lived farther away than one would usually > go to visit. The same applied to Yearly Meetings, which were made up of the > Meetings in a larger area. Anyone could go, not just delegates, although > some might be delegated to certain functions. > > Dolly I'm learning a lot. [ Along with several others I suppose ] Monthly meetings were the "business" meetings right. It also seems that I read something about the possibility that they could have more than one "meeting for worship", child meetings (?) [ Indulged meeting (?) - not meetings for children but a "child" of the meeting ] for a MM. At least until they were of a stage they could have their own MM. It was also my understanding that, while anyone could attend, MM's, QM's, and YM's were often some distance away. In that case certain people would be appointed to make the journey and represent the meeting in general. I called them "delegates" but they might have had a different name. People did have families and business's to keep up with so going could be hard for some. Travel was difficult in the earliest days. A trip of a couple hundred miles could take a while to make and depending on where you were traveling could be very dangerous [ From todays world our ancestors were incredibly hardy people. A trip that takes a couple hours in an air conditioned automobile was days of dirt, heat/cold on a horse or wagon. ] -- Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans.

Until the late nineteenth century, theoretically, business meetings were supposed to be "select," meaning that only members could attend or participate. One occasionally finds reference to requests for persons not in membership to withdraw. At every level, meetings appointed representatives to attend the superior meeting. Thus monthly meetings had representatives to quarterly meetings, and quarterly meetings representatives to yearly meeting. The representatives did not have special authority. Rather the idea was to be sure that every monthly meeting or quarterly meeting had someone present. Tom Hamm On 01/14/2009 [email protected] wrote: >> The organization arrangement seems accurate to me, assuming things > haven't >> changed appreciably. >> >> However, the Monthly Meeting and Meeting for Worship were pretty much > the >> same people and anyone could attend, not just delegates. Sometimes > there were >> provisional Meetings or Worship Groups (usually small communities at > some >> distance from an established MM) who might send representatives to the > Monthly >> Meetings' business sessions. This is where membership was important - > - those >> who were not actual members did not have a voice in the decisions and >> >> actions taken by the Monthly Meeting (although I think they would be > able to >> observe if they wished.) >> >> Quarterly Meetings consisted of several MMs and again, anyone could > attend. >> In fact, Quarterly Meetings were quite social affairs. It was an >> opportunity to get together with Friends who lived farther away than > one would usually >> go to visit. The same applied to Yearly Meetings, which were made up > of the >> Meetings in a larger area. Anyone could go, not just delegates, > although >> some might be delegated to certain functions. >> >> Dolly > > I'm learning a lot. [ Along with several others I suppose ] > > Monthly meetings were the "business" meetings right. It also seems that > I read something about the possibility that they could have more than > one "meeting for worship", child meetings (?) [ Indulged meeting (?) - > not meetings for children but a "child" of the meeting ] for a MM. At > least until they were of a stage they could have their own MM. > > It was also my understanding that, while anyone could attend, MM's, > QM's, and YM's were often some distance away. In that case certain > people would be appointed to make the journey and represent the meeting > in general. I called them "delegates" but they might have had a > different name. People did have families and business's to keep up with > so going could be hard for some. Travel was difficult in the earliest > days. A trip of a couple hundred miles could take a while to make and > depending on where you were traveling could be very dangerous [ From > todays world our ancestors were incredibly hardy people. A trip that > takes a couple hours in an air conditioned automobile was days of dirt, > heat/cold on a horse or wagon. ] > > -- > Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans. > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >