FMW Newsletter - December 2021

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Published monthly – Issue #91–12

TABLE OF CONTENTS

MEETINGS FOR WORSHIP
12th Query: The Environment
News
-In Memoriam: Rebecca del Carmen-Wiggins
-FMW’s November 7 Community Celebration & Open House
-How to View & Order Photos from Nov 7 Open House
-Climate Report out from COP26
-New Book: How Agent Provocateurs Harm Our Movements
-WIN doubles down on Affordable, Green Housing
-In Memoriam: Ricky Didisheim
-Scattergood Quaker Motto Calendars
Events
Thinking about Race
FMW’s Community Directory
Minutes, FMW November 2021 Meeting for Business
Clerk’s Report, November 2021
Major Business
-Nominating Committee
-Hunger & Homelessness Taskforce
-Capital budget item
-Proposal to Reassign Child Safety functions
Other Business
-Native Land acknowledgement proposal
ADDENDA
-FMW Rental Report
-Hunger and Homelessness Taskforce Report (FY22 to date)

DECEMBER 2021
MEETINGS FOR WORSHIP ~ ALL ARE WELCOME

- Sundays:  9:00 - 10:00 am;  10:30-11:30 am;  6:00-7:00 pm
- Tuesdays:  6:00 - 7:00 pm
- Monthly Meeting for Business:  12:15 pm December 12 (2nd Sunday)
- Special Christmas Eve worship & caroling:  3:00 pm December 24

Sunday 10:30 Meeting for Worship has resumed in-person, now indoors.  
Please register here.  Masks required and vaccination lovingly expected.
Meetings for worship are being held via Zoom.  Join here.For more information, email admin@QuakersDC.org.

12th Query:  The Environment 

Are you concerned for responsible use of natural resources and their nurture for future generations? Do you try to avoid wasteful consumption and pollution? Do you seek to preserve the beauty and balance of God's world?  (See: Humankind and the Environment; Civic Responsibility)  Source:  BYM Faith & Practice, Part II The Queries

News

In Memoriam:  Rebecca del Carmen-Wiggins

FMW’s beloved member, Rebecca Wiggins, died suddenly on the evening of Thursday, December 2. All are invited to her memorial service this Saturday, December 11, at 4:00 pm at the Meeting House or via zoom.  The internment will take place earlier that day at Parklawn Memorial Park in Rockville. Cars must be lined up there by 1:00 pm. Join on Zoom. By phone dial: (301) 715-8592.  Enter Meeting ID 8389 8800 356#.  (Passcode: 060853) 
For more info contact Dan Dozier: Dozier.Dan@gmail.com, cell: (301) 922-2704
Rebecca's Wix Site-for sharing memories & photos

FMW’s Community Celebration & Open House - November 7

Jenifer Morris took beautiful family portraits and Basil Kwan took great event photos.  Thanks so much to both of you!  Friends can download photos free or order prints at a discount from Jenifer’s site here.  (Password: 2111)  Friends: Please update FMW’s photo wall!

A few highlights:

Our Hospitality Committee and collaborators put out an amazing spread with enough delicious sweets to sink a ship (and some healthy stuff too).

Ministry & Worship members were on hand to answer questions about Quaker Spirituality....and FMW’s Property Property Committee, historian and rentals manager offered tours of FMW’s campus indoors and out--for guests interested in learning more about our Meeting’s history, the renovation and/or renting space for an event.

FMW’s Library Committee and associated book lovers collected and sold an amazing number of books.  Some folks culled their personal libraries.  Others got their holiday shopping done.  And the Library Committee cleared over $500 to improve FMW’s collection.

The kids enjoyed Giant Jenga, Giant Cornhole Beanbag Toss (the littlest preferred putting themselves in the hole) and especially the extra-Giant Soccer Dart games in the upper courtyard--plus Playdough and their own snacks.

The afternoon was also a great chance to show off our work, talk about it and invite others to join in various FMW efforts including Hunger & Homelessness Taskforce’s Shoebox Project (Dec 4-5), Alternatives to Violence Project (AFP), Peace & Social Concerns climate work and Polar Plunge fundraiser (Feb 12), FMW’s partnership with Washington Interfaith Network (WIN)

Climate Report out from COP26: Closer to avoiding Climate Disaster, Still a long way to go

On Sunday, November 21, FMW member and climate scientist Allen Fawcett gave an update on the just concluded Conference of Parties (COP26) negotiations and the status of international efforts to avert catastrophic climate disruption.  In a nutshell:  Climate change-related heat, drought, sea-level rise and weather events are already devastating ecosystems, wiping out animal species and putting human communities in peril.  Climate disruption will become more extreme for at least the next 20 years.  But emissions reductions the world has made since the Paris agreement in 2016 have moved the needle!  Before, the world was headed for a mean temperature rise of over 4 degrees Celsius.  We are now on track for average warming of just over 2 degrees C --not yet the goal of keeping temperatures to below 2 degrees or (much safer) closer to 1.5 degrees C.  But international emissions reduction efforts have made a difference, and every fraction of a degree counts!  Every tiny bit of emissions reduction and warming averted means ecosystems that may survive, land mass not flooded, and species saved from extinction.   The November 21 update was organized by FMW’s Committee on Peace & Social Concerns.

Allen is Chief of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Economics Branch, which is responsible for developing and applying EPA’s economic models for domestic and international climate change policy analyses.  Allen has done extensive work on international climate negotiations, including collaborations with the U.S. State Department and White House ahead of the Paris negotiations leading to the influential paper, “Can Paris pledges avert severe climate change?”, serving on the U.S. delegation to the 48th Session of the IPCC for the approval of the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5oC, and publishing a follow up to his 2015 Science paper ahead of COP-26 in Glasgow “Can updated climate pledges limit warming well below 2°C?”.

New Book:  How Agent Provocateurs Harm Our Movements

From Abolition to the Civil Rights movement, anti-Vietnam (and every other war), women’s rights, gay rights, immigrant rights, Black Lives Matter, campaigns for corporate accountability and to protect the planet, Quakers have contributed many practitioners and scholars to nonviolent social movements for justice.  Now, FMW member Steve Chase has made a new contribution.  How Agent Provocateurs Harm Our Movements summarizes important studies showing that movements are more likely to suc­ceed when they maintain non­violent discipline, and that movement opponents use agent provocateurs—fake activists work­ing undercover—to behave in counterproductive ways that undermine the unity, strategic planning, discipline and broad participation that are key to movement success.  Chase draws lessons from the U.S. Black liberation movement and international case examples to explore concretely how agent provocateurs (and sometimes agent provoca­teur-like behavior) make movements smaller, weaker, and easier to de­feat. The book also offers some ideas for how activists can inoculate their movements against these harms and increase their chances of success.  How Agent Provocateurs Harm Our Movements (45 pages) is published by ICNC press. It is available for free download.  Paper copies and e-book format can be ordered here.