Twinkle, Twinkle Little Bat; How I Wonder What You’re At
May 13th, 2007 by AjI heart the Mad Hatter (who spoke the above title for you poor unfortunate souls who did not listen to Alice in Wonderland on audiotape over . . . and over . . . and over as a child); I just wish he hadn’t passed his hat off to me.
This past Thursday I had a hard time getting ready to go to Bible Study. I’ve been facilitating a class on “How to Study the Bible/How to Read the Bible/Why Bother with this Crazy Convoluted Book Anyway?” which has been *great* - so life giving, both in the material and in the class interaction. But I’m getting tired: I taught last semester as well, and the steam is running out.
I prepared the night before to share the last lesson, even though three weeks remained. What was I going to do for the last two weeks? I dunno: pull something out of my “I’ve been raised up in an experiential youth ministry” bag (it’s a fun bag: things in there actually work well with toddlers as well).
But on Thursday morning I woke up unsettled: I didn’t feel peace about summing up the New Testament. I scrapped the lesson, and in typical Aj fashion, ran around last minute pulling together materials to do a lectio divina: instead of me talking, I was going to let God have His way with us for an hour. My husband was very kind, recognizing that I was not talking but rather pulling Small Group books and materials off of my book shelf and muttering at 7am; he got Judah up, dressed, and fed while I got my Mad Hatter Facilitator thing going (”No wonder you’re late; Why, this watch is exactly two days slow”).
So Judah and I got to church early enough for me to make copies of how to engage in a lectio, and in the midst of me trying to make two-sided non-upside-down copies and take my toddler to the “bafwoom peese,” we ran into our friend who oversees women’s ministries at the church. She greeted me, mentioned how tired she was, and jokingly asked if I wanted to teach the following two weeks because the other Bible Study class facilitator had run out of material as of that day. “Well, uh, sure! I can finish up my stuff today. I’m totally out of material, too, but I’ve been pulling stuff out of my Bag of Tricks to lengthen the weeks. I’m breezy if we want to combine the classes and do something all together.”
But somehow later I found myself agreeing to teach for the next two weeks (such a sucker for times to get to pull things out of my Bag of Tricks!). “As long as I don’t go into labor” I joked to them. My husband did not find it so funny, but I think it’ll be okay. “Please. I promise I won’t do too much, and you know me: I don’t teach - I *facilitate*.” He sighed.
After that conversation, I sat down with a cup of decaf and a hazy look on my face. A friend approached me with a question. She’s on the Nominating Committee from our faith community, and they’re having a hard time finding a Recording Clerk for the business meetings. Who was the previous clerk? Oh, that was me, but I had to step down due to not being able to ensure having two free hands with which to take minutes or the ability to stay awake during meetings due to ensuing sleep deprivation. She asked for a few more details about what I did: totally easy - write down what people say. Free form. If you miss something, ask them to repeat it. Or ask the awesome tech guy for an audio file (he’s so good about that stuff). She said she had asked about eight people - talked directly with five. Their answer: “No.” Not even small talk or “let me think about it.” Just: No.
It makes me wonder: why?
Are people too busy? Are we too guarded/selfish with our time? Have we overscheduled ourselves so we can’t handle just one more thing?
Or is it that this type of position isn’t needed (a.k.a. a complete overhaul and reevaluation of how we do business)?
Graham Cooke says God calls us to ministry for a season, but individuals/corporate gatherings latch it on for life. . . . Graham also says that the folks who show up for times of prayer and business - that’s the core of the church: the members of the body. Teaching is important; business is important. But how we’re called to go about it could be up for debate, yes?
So, currently, the about-to-burst-with-child lady is leading Bible study, and nothing of our business will be recorded except on Itunes. Makes a person wonder . . .
Posted in Listening Life, NFC |
May 15th, 2007 at 8:36 am
Thanks for the wonderful, open, honest writing… It is so refreshing to read this! I am so glad you are a part of the community at NFC. Feel free to continue to say “no” unless there is clarity to say “yes”. God will provide and call people. On the other hand, that is a good question… what does this indicate when so many say “no”?? Might be good for us to pay attention to these things. You brought a smile to my face today!
May 15th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
It seems to me that no matter how you do business, someone ought to write down what you decide to do, and make that available to everyone.
Unless of course you go to a guru model where whatever the guru says goes, doesn’t matter what you think or what he said yesterday. Do let me know if NFC decides to try this.
But sometimes, in any organization, we start to hang too many hats on the same head, or rather too many bullet points in the same job description. My Meeting is going through some of that now - trying to separate which are the tasks that have to go together, and which are the hats that were hung together just because they both fit the last head to hold the position?
But recording clerk? Maybe it’s because that’s a very narrowly defined job here, but we don’t seem to have trouble filling it. And don’t you only hold business meetings quarterly? I am the last person to say that a very pregnant person should take on any job besides gestating, so don’t take this personally, but surely this can’t be so hard to do.
Does the nominating committee need to think more broadly about who could do this work?
Are there other issues, like a difficult presiding clerk, or an unfortunate time/place for business meetings? Would it help to offer cool pens to write with? Not that I’m suggesting bribery or anything, simply better working conditions and adequate supplies.
Is it time to talk about how Friends do business and why? I’m just reading a book called Why Friends Are Friends by Jack Willcuts, you may have heard of it, but Chapter 5 is all about how and why Friends do business like Christians. I commend it to your whole Meeting.
And I pray for you and your growing family. I would love to take your Bible Study class!
May 16th, 2007 at 8:47 am
I can definitely understand how people would balk at the job of Recording Clerk specifically. I have been tapped for that job a few times myself, and I’m bad at it. I can listen and I can write, but I can’t do both at the same time. I never could take notes in lectures, either; I paid better attention and learned more if I put my notepad away.
Friends often seem surprised to learn that I find that job particularly difficult. I edit the newsletter, and so they think I’d be a great Recording Clerk.
May 17th, 2007 at 6:14 am
I’ve been a recording clerk for my monthly meeting, for my yearly meeting and for various committees. So I know it can be hard, and I know it doesn’t have to be.
Your advice to “write down what people say” might seem simple to some, but it would terrify me if it were given to me. The basic job is to write down what the meeting decides, and doing this well may require writing down some of what people say, but definitely not everything. One trouble I had when first trying to do this job was that the meeting kept moving along while I was still trying to write down the basic information. For example, while I was writing “Joe Goodguy, clerk of the Such-and-Such committee reports that the comittee recommends Friends do so and so”, the meeting had already been deliberating and had nearly decided that instead of doing so and so they would do something else that appeared for subtle reasons to be a little bit better than so and so. Since I was still writing the basic introductory info I was missing the sense of the deliberations.
The solution to this is come to the meeting with draft minutes that include the basic information and leave blank lines for the stuff that comes up during actual deliberations. That way my draft minute might well read:
“Joe Goodguy, clerk of the Such-and-Such committee reports that the comittee recommends Friends do so and so”. If the meeting approves Joe’s committee’s recommendation I may have to add no more than “Friends approve” during the meeting itself. If the meeting takes a slightly different tack I may add “after some deliberation Friends decide to do blah blah blah”. It may or may not be helpful to include some summary of the deliberations themselves, especially on very weighty decisions. In general, though, my sense is that less is more when it comes to writing minutes.
The presiding clerk, whose direct job it is to discern the sense of the meeting, can help by suggesting actual wordings when the recording clerk gets swamped. The presiding clerk can also help greatly by asking the meeting to wait in prayerful silence while a minute is prepared by the recording clerk. In my monthly meeting each minute is read back to the meeting and approved by the meeting before the next business item is addressed. This saves time and energy after the meeting and tends to reduce the number of misunderstandings about what was said. In my yearly meeting, minutes are read back at the end of each sitting. (For example, if the meeting convenes at 10 and adjourns at noon, then the minutes are read back at about 5 minutes before noon.)
One last piece of folk wisdom, gleaned from a weighty Friend who once advised me about how to record. “Try to write what Friends meant to say, not what they actually said.” I was so taken by this that I asked, “Could I go farther and write what they should have meant to say rather than what they actually meant to say?” My wise Friend gently said “No, that’s always tempting, but it’s not really your job.”
- - Rich Accetta-Evans
May 17th, 2007 at 6:18 am
One further comment: The job of recording clerk may never be glamorous, but it is very important and can - if approached in the right spirit - be a source of great joy!
May 17th, 2007 at 8:10 am
Why is such a big open-ended question. I love the answers that this small but powerful word can produce.
Are we too busy? Many of us are. We cram too much [unnecessary] stuff into each day. Though I’m not sure that this would be the primary reason why one would not answer the call for recording clerk.
When I think about a meeting, or a worship service, I ponder what people attend and what they are doing there. This is not a complete list, but it helps to illustrate:
- Some are members of committees who are there to talk and discuss.
- There is the presiding clerk who is there to at least start off with the agenda and thoughtfully guide as the Spirit leads.
- There are members of the congregation who are there to attend the meeting or to lend their voice to discussion and decision
- With our meetings there is (usually) an audio tech
- The recording clerk
What strikes me about this list is that the majority of people are there to listen, connect, discuss, learn, and approve (or not). But the recording clerk is, that I can see, the only person with an active job and duty to perform which extends throughout the meeting. Each other person there, even committee members, are fairly free to listen and to speak.
Depending on how detailed the minutes being taken are, the recording clerk may be unable to participate much in the meeting unless strongly led to do so. (Stepping out on a limb here…) For my melancholy-ish Friend Aj, who obviously has a lot to share, say, and ponder on this blog, this may be a disappointment that she feels she needs to write rather than to speak. (Stepping back closer to the trunk…)
I like Rich’s idea of bringing along a pre-filled notes page with items from the agenda. That sounds like a great time-saver and really could reduce the amount being written. I enjoy the brevity of meeting minutes and I think they are important to keep recording. In the case of our meetings, we make an audio recording as well. Right now, these sit at my house, on CD and in iTunes. No decision has come forward about publishing those on CD in the church library or website, but that could still happen some day. And that could reduce the need to write by just a little bit more.