Discernment Discovery Day is a day-long gathering of Friends from throughout New England. The event is a chance for Friends of all ages to explore what is at the heart of the Quaker practice of discernment through dialogue, workshops, worship sharing, and connection-making.
New England Yearly Meeting of Friends exists to support and nurture New England Quakers, and we hope we hope our gatherings will equip individual Friends and local meetings with resources, tools, and connections to more fully live our faith.
If you are bringing youth/children, please register by March 8 so we can be sure to have sufficient staff. Registrations after that date are possible assuming we have the staff to safely host additional children. Thank you for your help!
You will be asked a series of questions to help us register each Friend. The questions will repeat for each person and will change based on your selections. After you complete the form for the first Friend, you can add additional people or complete the registration.
If you register multiple people, everyone who has an email listed will get a confirmation of their own registration details. This is the email we will use to send them information about their day. The billing contact will receive a summary of everyone's registration information as well as any payment details.
Required fields will be marked with an asterisk "*". If you run into any difficulty please contact the Events Coordinator at [email protected].
A special note to parents:
Childcare and children's programming will be held on site. For questions about youth opportunities for ages 0-12 years please contact Kara Price at [email protected]. For questions about the teen retreat (ages 13-18) please contact Collee Williams at [email protected] or Kenzie Burpee at [email protected].Please note there is a separate registration for teens attending the retreat.
Opportunities for welcoming, getting oriented to the day, snacks, coffee, and tea.
Begin morning program/worship – intentionally intergenerational, various forms, a special and connecting time
Workshops or unprogrammed time
Closing worship and any other closing activity together
You will be asked these questions about each Friend you register.
Yes, it's okay to send me text messages including confirmations, changes, updates, and/or promotions. Message frequency varies. Message and data rates may apply. View our terms of service & privacy policy.
Please note: information on health and food allergies will only be shared with those who need it to keep Friends safe at the gathering. If you have questions about how your data is used, please consult the NEYM Data Privacy Policy or contact the YM office.
Please help us reduce the risk of spreading illness at this event. Masks are welcomed and not required unless you have developed a cough in the past 5 days. If you are suffering from symptoms of any of the potentially serious respiratory illnesses affecting us this year (flu/Covid/RSV) or symptoms of gastro-intestinal illness, please stay home. A full refund will be offered if illness prevents a Friend coming to Discernment Discovery Day. More detailed guidance can be found here: https://neym.org/illness-and-covid-policy-our-person-events
We will provide a locally-catered lunch including vegetarian/vegan fare. If you have special dietary health needs, please let us know below so we can plan accordingly. The menu will be sent out ahead of the gathering. Any Friend who is more comfortable bringing their own food is welcome to do that.
Moses Brown has an accessible entrance, elevator, all gender bathrooms, and amplification during the large group portions of the day.
Introduction to Faithfulness Groups
A faithfulness group is a small group focused on helping one another discern and respond to how the Spirit is leading/calling each of us in our lives. Building on the work of Quaker author and teacher Marcelle Martin, participants in this workshop will have the opportunity to practice skills such as deep listening and asking evoking questions which can be used in faithfulness groups, clearness committees, and spiritual friendships. This is an opportunity to celebrate the activity of the Spirit in one another's lives. This workshop is facilitated by Tammy Forner who worships with Friends in Middletown, CT and has been active in faithfulness groups for six years.
Elder Elise Boulding's Imaging as Discernment
Discernment requires an emotionally safe environment to build trust, informed by deep listening. Once safe, we can take on the important discernment questions by using Virginia Swain’s mentor, Friend/elder Elise Boulding‘s imaging process, a way to use our imagination for discerning the answers to our life’s questions. Imaging plays a key role in our lives because we cannot reconcile a challenge at the level it was created. Participants are asked to bring a discernment question with them, and, if they’d like their favorite art supplies to supplement those provided. Facilitate by Virginia Swain (Friends Meeting at Cambridge)
Playful Noticing
In this workshop, as we practice noticing, we seek to engage, surprise, and share vulnerabilities with one another, while being playful. We are inviting mistakes and being gentle with ourselves and each other as we explore how unexamined assumptions impact our discernments. In order to grow in our flexibility and resilience for noticing patterns, we want to support Friends’ efforts to release the need to be right or wrong, to open up to one another, and to live into beloved community. Come join us. Facilitated by Pamela Terrien (Westport, MA), Becky Jones (Northampton, MA).
Vocational Discernment
Across life stages, many of us are yearning for work and service more fulfilling and meaningful than just a career. We’re asking deep questions about who we are; about what our values are, and how we might live in alignment with them; about where our gifts and skills meet real needs in the world. Quaker faith and practice offer tools to not only discern our call now, but to continue that discernment journey throughout our life, work, and ministry. Come “try on” these practices and reflect on your own journey. Facilitated by Jen Newman.
Challenging Scenarios: How do we respond when corporate discernment feels stuck?
What do we do when what we know about “Quaker process” doesn’t seem to respond to the challenges before our Friends communities? This workshop is an opportunity for anyone called to active participation in their Friend’s community’s discernment (including those serving as clerks, recording clerks, or committee clerks) to discuss challenging scenarios and explore possible faithful ways forward.
Corporate eldership in today’s times of chaos and transformation
Prophetic eldership is creating the space for allowing that which is new to arise. One variant today is the need for us to have new images to guide our shift in consciousness. During our time together, we will practice deep listening as we will reflect on our experience together in the morning worship sharing. What might bands of mystics and elders bring to our corporate discernment within NEYM and beyond? Facilitated by Janet Hough (Cobscook, ME)
Sessions Visioning Listening Opportunity
In recent years, internal and external changes have affected the context of New EnglandYearly Meeting (NEYM) Annual Sessions—rising costs, changes in attendance patterns,reduced volunteer availability, and growing demands on our limited resources. Theseshifts have prompted us to rethink how we plan, fund, and offer Annual Sessions. This winter, many meetings and quarters have offered facilitated conversations to gather insights as part of our discernment process. If you were not able to participate in a Sessions Visioning listening opportunity but would like to, join us. This will be offered only if there is sufficient interest.
No workshop/free time
A few Friends with a heart for welcoming to arrive by 8:30, be oriented by staff/work group about welcoming, facilities, schedule of the day, etc., and be at entrance(s) and near registration to help welcome event participants.
2-3 people help make coffee and restock the coffee service during the day
Friends who can spend a few minutes after lunch wiping down tables and setting the room back to how we found it.
people to help committee members put up workshop signs, maps, etc. One to take photos of each room being used for workshops
Take down signs at end of the day and use photos to make sure workshop rooms returned to original condition
People to help return location to as it was before we came.
Person/people to bring compost home in contractor bags from the event if needed.
If Friends are led to bring sharable treats for Friends to enjoy with coffee and tea, please click this.
Other opportunities may rise during and just before the gathering. Could we contact you about those opportunities?
We may sing as we open and close the day. Check this box if you may be able to help teaching or leading a song with the group.
New England Yearly Meeting of Friends is committed to making the life of our faith communities more accessible and removing barriers to participation whenever possible, and to offering a wider welcome to those seeking nourishment in the Quaker tradition.
In keeping with our commitment to removing barriers to participation for Friends regardless of financial means, Discernment Discovery Day will continue our experiment with the Pay-As-Led approach to event fees.
Here's how it works (with your help, and the guidance of the Spirit):
During registration you will be presented with different suggested fees described below. We then ask you to prayerfully consider your available financial resources and the value you place on this opportunity to gather with the wider spiritual community of New England Friends. Based on this personal reflection, we invite you to pay what you feel led and able to pay to attend the event—that's it.
If you are indeed unable to pay anything at this time, you will have an option to pay $0 to attend this event, as with Annual Sessions. For those with greater financial resources, you may make a tax-deductible donation to support the attendance of others with more limited means and the wider ministries of New England Friends by visiting neym.org/donate.
Note: There is a similar set of options for children. We're deliberately keeping the cost for children low to facilitate the participation of families with young children. Parents can opt to pay $0 for children as well, if needed.
Community Fee: Covers the full direct and indirect cost of your participation at Discernment Discovery Day and supports the attendance of others ($94 for adults/$20 for children).
Complete Cost Fee: Covers the full cost of the gathering including staff time for Discernment Discovery Day this year($74 for adults/$15 for children).
Basic Fee: Covers the direct costs of Discernment Discovery Day and a small portion of staff time. Similar to the "Traditional Fee" used in the past ($66 for adults/$10 for children).
Partial Fee: Covers a portion of direct costs of Discernment Discovery Day. You are invited to choose this fee or another amount below.($47 for adults/$7 for children).
Any amounts in excess of the basic fee will be treated as a tax deductible donation to the Equalization Fund to support the participation of all Friends in Sessions and other events sponsored by New England Yearly Meeting
