Brown background with text reading "Quakers in Canada: News from around Canadian Yearly Meeting." Most of the text is yellow, but the Q is pale green.

Dear Friends,

It's almost February and the Rideau Canal is not yet open; all of Ottawa-Gatineau has been plunged into despair as a result. This is absolutely not a subjective take, whatever any of your other Ottawa-Gatineau contacts may say about "enjoying not having frostbite" or "thinking it's more pleasant to wait for the bus when it's not so cold."

Thank you for reading Canadian Yearly Meeting's monthly electronic newsletter—we're glad to have you! If you know others who might like to receive this, please feel free to forward this message so that other friends can subscribe at the link below. Your help in connecting Friends across the country is deeply appreciated!

If you'd like to contribute to the newsletter, email newsletter@quaker.ca by the 15th of the month. We may not be able to fit all contributions in, but we'll try!

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Thank you for supporting CYM!

Your donations help to support CYM programs such as the initiative to help youth and young adult Friends gather in 2023. Thank you!
CYM would also like to thank:
- All the Monthly Meetings for their generous support, despite difficult times
- The Samuel Rogers Memorial Trust for their significant support
- Ottawa Monthly Meeting for hosting the CYM office in their space and Pickering College for hosting the Canadian Quaker Library and Archives.

To all of you, thank you. Your gifts and support help with tending to the beloved community.

Donate
A person holds their palms together with three lit tealights in them. Reflections bounce around. You can only see the person's palms, not the rest of them.

Children and Youth Programming at the CYM in Session Annual Gathering, July 8-13th, 2023

Program Committee is so pleased that Nathalie Brunet has stepped forward to take the Children and Youth Coordinator role for CYM 2023, as well as offering to lead the Young Friends (teens-age) group.

We are deep into the planning for a blended Annual Gathering this year, based in Winnipeg at the Canadian Mennonite University. The schedule will include in-person events, online events, and events that will bring both in-person and online communities together in some shared sessions.

As part of that planning we are delighted to have the opportunity to work with Nathalie as she reaches out to parents and others to begin to design the Annual Gathering’s programming for children and youth.

Many in CYM know Nathalie for her generous service to the Meeting and many know her for her joyous commitment to teaching and supporting young folk.

Nathalie is a member of Annapolis Valley MM and lives in St.John's NL where she attends the St.John's Worship Group. She has served from 2012 to 2018 as a member and then clerk of Program Committee. She is a recently-retired junior high science teacher who is looking forward to bringing her years of experience and enthusiasm for youth to the Quaker community.

Nathalie will be in contact through Monthly Meetings in the coming weeks, to begin a conversation about how we can gather as a community that best serves the needs of families and young Friends.

Special Interest Groups (SIGs) Call for Submissions

This is your continuing invitation to develop your Special Interest Group (SIG) concepts. The SIG time slots will be 90 minutes.

Please forward your request for a SIG slot together with a minute of support from your Monthly Meeting, or organization (or explanation of isolated Friend status). Please indicate SIG is for in-person or online delivery.

Please ensure that the CYM Program Committee receives proposals by late May via this form.

The CYM Yearly Meeting in Session 2023 is under construction right now and will be updated regularly soon.

For emerging information
A white sign is placed on a rural road, with evergreen trees around. The sign has a logo of a dove inside a stylized Q, and reads "Quaker Meeting, Religious Society of Friends, All Welcome."

2023 CYM dates to remember:

  • Saturday 4 March: CYM Meeting for Worship for Business (all welcome!!!!)
  • Saturday 27 May: CYM Representative Meeting
  • Saturday to Thursday 8–13 July: CYM Hybrid 2023 CYM Gathering
  • Saturday 30 September: CYM Meeting for Worship for Business
  • Saturday 18 November: CYM Representative Meeting · Saturday 2 December: CYM Representative Meeting

View calendar
A laptop with the screen reading "Welcome to CYM 2020, Online at Quaker.ca/yearlymeetinginsession" in gray and black and blue lettering.

February 9th: CYM Oral History Workship

Oral history is a great way of getting to know elders in your Meeting and preserving their stories for future generations. Archives Committee invites Friends to be part of a zoom oral history workshop to be held Thursday, February 9th at 4 p.m. Pacific (5 p.m. Mountain, 6 p.m. Central, 7 p.m. Eastern, 8 p.m. Atlantic, 8:30 p.m. Newfoundland). Register with Michelle Tolley at cym-archivist@quaker.ca

Email Michelle
A black and white picture shows Rogers' House, where the Quaker archives are, which is a brick building with many different windows lining the front and four pillars at the porch.

February 24th: CYM's "Sharing Our News"

Attend CYM's Sharing Our News event—Friday, February 24th, 4:30 p.m. Pacific (5:30 p.m. Mountain, 6:30 p.m. Central, 7:30 p.m. Eastern, 8:30 p.m. Atlantic, 9:00 p.m. Newfoundland).

The CYM Clerks invite all CYM Friends to hear about activities in Monthly Meetings and Worship Groups across Canada. In past years, sharing of news was an important part of in-person Representative Meetings, held on the Friday evening before the Saturday business session. Now that we hold Representative Meeting online on Saturday afternoons, there is not enough time.

Instead, the CYM Clerks are holding a special Sharing Our News session on Friday, February 24th (see times above). Representatives to Representative Meeting (or another designated Friend in the meeting) are asked to present a 2 or 3 minute sharing of meeting activities. All Friends and attenders in all Meetings are encouraged to attend.

Here is the Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/9061076645?pwd=MlVraDRTaWgwOXhvSXVEMk5RbS9Ydz09

Meeting ID: 906 107 6645 Passcode: CYM1955

Dial by your location: +1 587 328 1099 Canada; +1 647 374 4685 Canada; +1 647 558 0588 Canada; +1 778 907 2071 Canada; +1 780 666 0144 Canada; +1 204 272 7920 Canada; +1 438 809 7799 Canada.

Join Zoom meeting
A Zoom screen showing, in gallery mode, a wide variety of Quakers, some with their hands raised. The grid is too small to see any details of their faces.

FWCC (Section of the Americas) blended biannial meeting March 23-26, 2023, Greensboro, NC

Answering God's call to universal love, Friends World Committee for Consultation (Section of the Americas) brings Friends of varying traditions and cultural experiences together in worship, communications and consultation, to express our common heritage and our Quaker message to the world. They have various initiatives that help Quakers to live out our vision. CYM is a member of FWCC and CYM’s Representative will be there in-person.

The theme of this blended meeting is Becoming the Quakers the World Needs and is an opportunity to attend some of the programs virtually.

Click below to view their schedule or register:

Read more
Logo for Friends World Committee for Consultation, Section of the Americas: the letters of the acronym in English and Spanish are arranged in a colourful grid (dark purple, red, orange, lime green, and light blue), with "Friends World Committee for Consultation: Section of the Americas" in English and Spanish next to it.

Nomination season is coming!

CYM's nominations package will be available shortly. If you know of anyone who would be great in a given role, are looking for your next volunteer gig, or even just want to take a look under the hood at the variety of positions that keep CYM going, have a browse. Nominations are discerned by your Monthly Meeting or the relevant CYM Committee, so bring nominations to your Monthly Meeting, or contact nominating-clerk@quaker.ca if you aren't connected to a local Meeting.

Read more
A white mug full of coffee sits on a dark wood table. The mug has a small star on it and the words "what good shall I do this day?"

"Life and Power": Quaker discernment on abuse

Canadian Friends are invited to engage with a project led by Windy Cooler, a Quaker theology grad student, that focuses on Quaker discernment on abuse. "Life and Power" is a listening project that takes its name from George Fox's query on living in ways that move the occasion of war. The project is exploring how living in "life and power" includes removing the occasion of abuse.

Learn more
A logo in a cheerful cartoon style: a yellow and orange sun, with two-toned plants on the side and top, and three doves (one teal, one pale aqua, and one almost white) completing the semi-circle between the two sprigs of greenery above the sun. The logo says, in cursive font, "Life + Power, Quaker discernment on abuse."

Quaker books: "Tending Sacred Ground: Respectful Parenting"

Potentially of interest to Friends, "Tending Sacred Ground: Respectful Parenting" will be published February 24th, 2023.

"Navigate through the sacred, the impossible, and the unexpected in these hard-won reflections on parenting with humility, connection, resilience and joy. Tending Sacred Ground: Respectful Parenting is a series of essays, each of which alights on the experience of parenting and is inspired by a Quaker perspective. Pamela Haines shows how to cultivate respect, resilience, humility, connection, discernment, and joy while encouraging and inspiring a wider view toward inclusion."

Book link
Image of a small plant growing out of dirt cupped in someone's hands. Beside and below it is the text: "Quaker quicks: Tending Sacred Ground; Respectful Parenting; Pamela Haines."

Reminder: Camp NeeKauNis Camp House Rentals

Camp NeeKauNis is a Quaker camp located on traditional Wendat (Huron) and Anishinaabe land, near Waubaushene, Ontario (about 90 min north of Toronto).

Cozy up this winter at the Camp House - now available for rentals! 

The Camp House can accomodate 4-6 people with 2 bedrooms, each with a double bed, and a pull out couch by the wood stove. Fire wood is provided and the kitchen is fully equipped. The main property is available for your use - whether that be getting out for a fall walk or enjoying stargazing at night. No matter the weather you will have a warm place to snuggle up and dry off if needed. The Camp house has great spaces for relaxing, reading, doing puzzles or arts & crafts and for playing games as a group!

If you are interested in booking the Camp House for day, weekend, or weekly use please contact Milena at camp.neekaunis@gmail.com to book. She will be able to tell you what to expect, and what to bring.

Please note that our frugal prices are based on cost-recovery and we don't have cleaners so we expect our guests to clean the house before departing.

Day use with house access: $50; Overnight: $125; Weekly (7 nights): $750.

We hope you'll consider the NeeKauNis Camp House for your next getaway!

Email Milena
The beginning of the trail down to the waterfront at Camp NeeKauNis - a rough looking wood railing in a forest.