About SEYM
About SEYM
Get Involved
Staff & Key Contacts
SEYM History
About SEYM
Southeastern Yearly Meeting is a community of Quaker Meetings and Worship Groups in Florida, coastal Georgia and South Carolina, Managua, Nicaragua and Havana, Cuba. We are mostly known as Quakers, but also simply as ‘Friends.’
We brings together Friends from Meetings and Worship Groups in our region to share resources, deepen our faith, and work together to advocate for peace, social justice, and sustainability. We hold events in person and online, gathering for spiritual renewal, collaboration, friendship, and fun. We connect Friends to the wider Quaker community, and write and publish the SEYM Faith & Practice.
SEYM is in the unprogrammed, liberal branch of Quakers. We are affiliated with Friends General Conference and Friends World Committee for Consultation, and send representatives to several Friends organizations.
Quakers have a non-hierarchical organizational structure. In our yearly meeting, as in our monthly meetings, all authority rests with the group gathered in meeting for worship with attention to business. While we have Clerks and committee clerks who would seem to be leaders, their job is to facilitate the discernment involved in spirit-led decision-making, being sure that all voices are heard and gathering the sense of the meeting.
As a Yearly Meeting, we gather once a year for our Yearly Meeting Gathering & Annual Sessions, as well as for Fall and Winter Interim Business Meetings. Our Executive Committee meets prior to those business sessions, in the summer, and in specially called meetings when needed.
Our full name is Southeastern Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. We are incorporated in the State of Florida as a 501(c)3 religious non-profit organization.
Get Involved
All members and attenders are welcome to participate in our Yearly Meeting community by attending our events and our Meetings for Business.
- Sign up for our newsletter
- Attend SEYM events: Our main events are the Yearly Meeting Gathering during Easter week, Half Yearly Meeting on Thanksgiving weekend, and Fall and Winter Interim Business Meetings. We hold other events online; and Youth and Young Adults also schedule events.
- Join a committee: To volunteer to serve on a committee, or in another capacity, please contact someone on the Nominating Committee:
Ed Lesnick, Beverly Ward, Shawna Doran, and Brian Olson. - Take our Child Safety Training and become a registered SEYM Youth Worker so you can volunteer with our Youth Program.
SEYM Staff & Contacts
All personnel, except for SEYM Staff, are volunteers from our constituent Meetings and Worship Groups.
Staff
Administrative Secretary: Susan Wade
office@seym.org | (407) 739-4150
P.O. Box 1062, St. Petersburg, FL 33731-1062
Field Secretary for Earthcare: Beverly Ward
fsearthcare@seymquakers.org | (813) 928-8823
Bookkeeper: Dianne Langan
Yearly Meeting Clerk
Interim Business Meeting & Executive Committee Clerk
Archives Committee
Committee for Ministry on Racism
Earthcare Committee
Half Yearly Meeting
Nominating Committee
Peace & Social Concerns Committee
Publications Committee
Worship & Ministry Committee
Yearly Meeting Gathering Committee
Youth Committee
SEYM History
On April 12, 1963, Southeastern Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends met for the first full session of their new Yearly Meeting for the first time. Their 1962 Conference minutes read in part, “Seven Meetings of the Southeastern Friends Conference having indicated by official Minutes their desire to assume Yearly Meeting status, the Planning Committee recommends that these Meetings now consider themselves the Southeastern Yearly Meeting [of the Religious Society] of Friends…”
These seven Monthly Meetings were: Augusta, Gainesville, Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando, Palm Beach, and St. Petersburg. J. Barnard Walton (Friends General Conference, 1915-1963) had been instrumental in shepherding the Conference from its inception in 1950 to this conclusion. In recognition of his support, it was decided to name the annual Saturday night lecture series, The Walton Lecture.
The birthing of SEYM was unique in Quakerism with its individuals having been members in three of the east coast’s Quaker traditions: FGC, FUM, and Conservative. By 1970, SEYM decided to formally acknowledge the organizations that had supported its meetings: FGC, FUM and FWCC.
After careful consideration, holiday weekends were selected for formal and informal gatherings to allow early Friends from SEYM’s wide geographical area to attend as many meetings as possible. Easter week was selected for Yearly Meeting and the Walton Lecture. Later, Martin Luther King weekend was chosen for Winter Representative Meeting and the Michener Lecture, and Thanksgiving weekend for Half Yearly Meeting.
Over many years in the late 1900s and early 2000s, SEYM Friends felt growing concern for the rights of LGBTQ people. Finally in 2005 SEYM approved the text of what became Chapter 8 of the SEYM Faith and Practice entitled “Marriage and Commitment” in support of its Meetings performing marriages for gays and lesbians; and in 2006 published a pamphlet entitled “Marriage and Commitment,” which uses inclusive language and includes sections on separation and divorce. In 2010, after deep discernment, SEYM disaffiliated from FUM because of their policies that discriminated against the LGBTQ community.
SEYM Meetings and Worship Groups continue to grow and wane as population centers evolve. See our ‘Find Quakers’ page for the current list of Meetings and Worship Groups.
See SEYM Faith & Practice, Chapter 15, A Brief History of Quakers in the Southeastern USA