Care & Counsel Committee description

12 Members, Term: 4 years. Reports monthly. Hosts in September and Homecoming.

Generally meets monthly.  For reasons of confidentiality, service on this committee is limited to members of Newtown Meeting.  The following persons are also members of Care and Counsel, ex-officio: Clerk, Assistant Clerk of Meeting, and a representative of the Financial Oversight Committee. 

Purpose
Newtown Care & Counsel committee attends to the wellbeing of the meeting community and provides pastoral care for members and regular attenders who have physical, emotional, financial and/or spiritual needs by listening, providing emotional support and the care listed below. In addition, the committee is responsible for clearness for membership and marriage and outreach to inactive members.

Pastoral care includes:

A.  Care of members in need, including referrals to community resources;

  • Visits home-bound members, as well as the ill or bereaved;
  • Keeps in touch with inactive distant and local adult members;
  • Sends cards or notes to members at times of significant lifetime events, including births, illness, loss, graduations and other personal challenges;
  • Coordinates meals and other support in times of need;
  • Maintains and delivers the Healing Quilts to those in need of comfort;
  • Coordinates with Inreach/Outreach Committee regarding care of attenders;
  • Provides Clearness Committees and active consideration before presentation to Monthly Meeting of all applications for membership, releases and transfers;
  • Welcomes and introduces new members;
  • Does outreach to Associate members who have turned 21.
  • Maintains contact with young adult members;
  • Reviews Recorder’s report for accuracy;       
  • Emergency preparedness:  Care and Counsel will maintain a list of vulnerable members, those who might need additional assistance before or after a weather emergency.  Care and Counsel (with the Recorder) will maintain a map of member residences so that people who might be affected by a localized emergency (such as a power outage) can be contacted;
  • Appoints Committees of Clearness for all marriages under the care of the Meeting; assists and advises in appointing a marriage committee, accomplishing the marriage, if requested, and maintains marriage reference materials. See A Quaker Marriage.
  • Appoints Clearness Committees as requested/needed to assist Friends with issues that arise in their lives or within the meeting.

B. The committee is responsible for the oversight of the following activities:

a.  Assists Recorder with Membership Directory, as needed.

b. Organizes September opening brunch and Homecoming refreshments.

    c.   Maintains supply of Meeting plates and Hicks prints. (Library supplies Faith & Practice, letterhead is printed on demand.)

    d.   Arranges transportation to Meeting for Worship, when requested.

    e.   Organizes annual Homecoming event and presentation of a replica of Hicks’ Peaceable Kingdom to those who have turned 21 during the calendar year, refreshments.

f. Collect a list of babies born in the past year and home-based members at Easter- given flowers.

C.  C&C will assist members in applying for financial assistance from Quaker sources or through the NMM Friends in Need fund.

The Friends In Need Fund “provides help to members* of the meeting in need of financial aid as funds available to the Committee permit. C&C also encourages Friends to contribute to the “Newtown Friends in Need Trust” (a separate endowed fund of the Meeting).” *and long term active attenders in special circumstances. Examples might be rent assistance while displaced by a fire or assistance with medical bills.
Click here for C&C Procedures

Rev 6.23.

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