Overseers continues to hold Care Circles, send holiday cards, birthday cards, and letters, do phone calls and home visits, and make connections in person on First Days and at Sewing Group with the members and attenders of Downingtown Meeting. Overseers help members and attenders deal with mental and physical illnesses, disease, surgery and broken bones, housing needs, loneliness, personal/political disagreements, ailing parents, marital problems, funeral arrangements and clearness committees. We also hold dinners to get to know those in our care at some of our homes and organize small groups to worship with elderly Friends who are homebound. Some of us cook, some of us bake, some of us share music, some of us loan books—our dedication and sharing of our talents takes a variety of forms.

More changes continue to occur for our committee. The recently-expanded 16 person committee has been reduced by two because the extra positions are difficult to fill since people are already serving in too many other capacities for meeting.  The Committee of Oversight now consists of 14 hardworking members. One goal incomplete from last year is to include a Young Friend or Young Adult Friend to provide more youthful representation on our committee. This goal will be forwarded into the upcoming year.

As a result of last year’s discussions regarding noisy transitioning from Opening Exercises to Meeting for Worship, we commissioned Barking Dog Signs to create some signage. They installed two beautiful and simple wooden signs on the Schoolhouse; one saying “WELCOME” on the front side and “Program has Begun. Please use Route 30 Entrance” on the reverse side, posted on the wall of the Schoolhouse outside the porch entrance. Another sign saying “Meeting for Worship Starts Here. Please Proceed Quietly” hangs just inside the door of the Schoolhouse where we hold our Opening Exercises each Sunday morning. These signs will serve as quiet reminders for members and attenders, both young and old, to make their transitions from one place to the other in a manner that respects the worshipful silence.

The Committee of Oversight sent a letter of spiritual support to a Young Adult Friend who’s serving in the Armed Forces in the war zone in Iraq. We hold him in the Light and pray for his safety and that of his comrades.

We also gave one-year Friends Journal subscriptions to four graduating high school seniors from our Meeting. The Committee again made an information sheet about each seniors available to give those from our Meeting extra time and encouragement to write in the journal books provided by our Religious Education Committee. We added a new activity to our social calendar this year—HOMECOMING for recently graduated Young Friends who have officially become Young Adult Friends. A small, but tight knit group of young people from our Meeting met at our Schoolhouse on the Friday night after Thanksgiving for an intimate night of camaraderie and catching up.

Once again, our Meeting has mourned many deaths this year, including those of members and loved ones of members. Overseers helped with funeral arrangements and memorial services and/or performed many acts of kindness to help the grieving family members. We noted that there are many more aging members and members whose parents are aging and ill and Meeting is reminded to hold them in the Light during this tender time.

Our Meeting Trustees distributed copies of our Meeting’s Graveyard Policy to all members of the Committee on Oversight. The revised policy will prove to be a helpful document as we assist with funeral arrangements and memorial services, clarifying details and responsibilities that can be shared with families when needed.

As times change and our Meeting members look for new ways to extend our community and share our form of worship with more people, an Outreach Committee has developed. The Committee of Oversight has been working in tandem with this newly formed committee to come to clearness on how best to go about reaching out to the larger community and world. This beautiful and thorough new meeting Web site, which has received rave reviews from both within Meeting and the greater Quaker community, is a fine example of our new Outreach initiative.

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