Meeting (social)

“ Many members regret the transfer of the annual meeting of the association from the summer to the winter. It is certainly true that the large meetings in a city are likely to sacrifice the social pleasures to business efficiency and to neglect one of the main objects of the association—the diffusion of science. ”

“ Start counting yourself in the group then we are all ten’.
This is what happens when we start any social activity, including organised work. We expect others to be punctual. They must come on time for the meeting. ”

“ The second means not only freer interaction between social groups (once isolated so far as intention could keep up a separation) but change in social habit—its continuous readjustment through meeting the new situations produced by varied intercourse. ”

“ She is in touch with, has, as we have seen, her stake and her responsibility in regard to every single activity of the meeting of which she is a member. Through every meeting and through every home, moreover, there is the cleansing and ventilating ebb and flow of the life of the whole society, and this not merely by means of the circulation of matter relating to the deliberations and the work of the society, but also in the form of personal contact. ”

“ The advantages of a weekly meeting, for conversation, might be great enough to repay the trouble of attendance, if they consisted only in supplying a point of union to well-educated and thinking women, in a city which, with great pretensions to mental refinement, boasts, at present, nothing of the kind, and where I have heard many, of mature age, wish for some such means of stimulus and cheer, and those younger, for a place where they could state their doubts and difficulties, with a hope of gaining aid from the experience or aspirations of others. ”

“ The men, mostly the older men, run the meeting and often are the meeting. Their influence may be out of all proportion to their numbers. It is they who decide the place where the local shall meet and the hour at which members shall assemble. ”

“ In the case of a permanent society, having regular meetings every week, month, or year, for example, each meeting constitutes a separate session of the society, which session however can be prolonged by adjourning to another day. ”

“ In conclusion, I must express the wish that this meeting of our association may be as delightful and as useful as any that it has ever held. Those who remember how hard we used to work at them, what a harvest of mutual confidences we used to gather at them, and what a glow of fresh enthusiasm we carried away with us from them, will know what such a wish implies. Those who come fresh to this meeting will find themselves made at home in half a dozen worlds of science at once. ”

“ You will see this class of men at meetings, and conventions, both political and religious, without the most distant idea of promoting the objects of the meeting, convention, etc., as the case may be, but with no higher aim than introducing their idea to notice, making the meeting an engine, and men, met under other obligations, and with the ostensible object of the meeting before them, instruments to carry the pet idea on the high road to fame. ”

“ The next day we attended their monthly meeting, which proved a time of deep exercise to my spirit; occasioned, as I believed, by the dead and lifeless state of the professors of truth in that meeting. I sat through the meeting for worship in silence, under a great weight of death and suffering, and saw no way of relief until near the close of the meeting for discipline, when a prospect opened in my mind, with a degree of light, to propose to Friends, that the men and women should sit together again at the close of their business. ”

“ But if you will go into the streets, you will find certain persons in the different Wards who have an excuse for not attending meeting. Some are so very industrious that they cannot attend meeting. I would not doubt much but what we could now go to several houses and find women at work; they are so very industrious. ”

“ To call a general meeting of the society for its discussion would be sure to result in newspaper notice that would doubtless be as disagreeable to you as it would be offensive to us and injurious to our organization. ”

“ A lady once said to me of a certain gentleman and lady whom she missed from her circle, 'They have been at our house every Wednesday evening for twenty years.' It seems to me that this frequency of meeting is the great secret of agreeable society. ”

“ In a friendly call much of the restraint of meeting in large assemblies is thrown aside, mind meets mind much more easily in an easy tete-a-tete conversation, and the conversation may be allowed to partake somewhat more of a personal character than it could in the ball-room or evening party. ”

“ A public speaker said to me this last week, "I may come with my address to a weekday meeting, but it all depends upon the spirit and mood of the meeting; it is one thing in one place, and another in another;" and if you have ever tried to speak in a Church or at a meeting you will have found it to be so. There may be a dozen men present in that meeting whose spirit is all that you may want, but they cannot make the result ”

“ Suppose for a week you try to discover what it means to be a good neighbor, and report next Friday. The rest of my plan is very simple. To hold meetings every week or once in two weeks, as you choose, and I have some fascinating work which I know you can learn to do, and surprise the girls. I shall have it ready for the next meeting, and while you work we can have reading, or you can select a subject to discuss. ”

“ Indeed, unless my insight is at fault, I should say that, in a meeting of working men, even when the discussion appears on the surface to be concerned merely with material subjects, the hearts of the audience are generally set on something quite different. ”

“ He then informed the audience of the private circular, and appealed to his hearers if it was fair or right for men to come down to this meeting with the deliberate intention of thwarting a good work, the object of which was solely and entirely to mitigate the sufferings of the most miserable of our fellow citizens. ”

“ It is very observable that meetings, where those things are apparent, are generally in a declining state. I was exercised in a plain way of dealing with those delinquents, showing them the hurtful tendency of such conduct. Truth prevailed, and many hearts were much tendered, and the hands of the faithful strengthened; to the Lord only wise be the praise of his own work, who is over all, worthy for ever.
The 23d we attended a meeting at a place called the Gap, where there was a small meeting of Friends. ”

“ When the question is somewhat of a burning one, and the meeting begins to grow warm, all speak at once, and none listen. On these occasions the assembly breaks up into groups, each of which discusses the subject on its own account. ”

“ The subject spread and led to communication, in which the people were invited to acquaint themselves [Pg 325] with God, and be at peace with him by doing his will, and not our own, whereby good would come unto us; hence we should please one another to our mutual edification and comfort.
On fifth day our monthly meeting was held. It was a season of exercise, occasioned by a case of difficulty being improperly introduced into the meeting. ”

“ The place of meeting, and rules of the society, shall be established, revoked or altered, and new members admitted, at any of the stated meetings, by a majority of the attending members, if they be a majority of those present, not being less than one-fourth of the whole. ”

“ It is best to begin as you can hold out. A great meeting, a vast roll of by-laws, a regiment of officers, a parade of speeches, these make a fine meeting, and that’s all. Let a few stanch friends to improvement put their heads and hands together, without show or noise; begin at the little end, and hold fast what is gained. ”

“ But in civilization generally when we part we either look forward to meeting again at some not remote period, or we have so many varied occupations, or so many friends around us, that if the partings are welded together, so also are the meetings. ”

“ The meeting-house is a community centre drawing to itself like a magnet family groups and individuals from miles around, overcoming their isolation and breaking into the daily monotony of their lives, and with its worship and its sermon awakening new thoughts and impulses for the enrichment of life. ”

“ If any of you feel that there is no life in your meetings, as I occasionally hear some of the brethren say, then it becomes {264} your duty to go and instill life into that meeting, and do your part to produce an increase of the Spirit and power of God in the meetings in your locality. ”

“ When I had got the pledge from him I told the people that Thursday’s meeting would only be a prayer meeting. But after this some of the people went to him and he turned round again, and said it was a business meeting. I know that he said no business should be done at that meeting, and afterwards said it should be a business meeting. I then saw that this was a deep and cunning plan laid to divide the best people that ever lived. ”

“ He went to justify the right of public meeting by his presence, and to share the responsibility of those who convened it. What man eminent as a thinker, save he, or Mr. John Morley, would incur the odium, peril, and discomfort of attending, for such a purpose, a workman's meeting such as that? ”

“ A soap company might engage a lecturer on cleanliness to speak in the schools of leading communities. Or a woolen firm arrange for a home economics authority to lecture to women’s clubs on dress. These speeches of course, locally, gain a wider audience than the speaker would who addressed a single meeting because they give opportunity for treatment in newspapers, advertising, circularizing, and other mediums. ”

“ In every city where local circles exist, at least three joint meetings should occur in the year. Each society should be represented at these meetings, and provision should be made for social converse. ”

“ In cities, one of the most valuable helps in charitable organizations is the constant meeting of the workers at informal gatherings, when the larger aspects of the subject are discussed and the various parts of the work are harmonized. ”

“ By meeting frequently in conference, an acquaintance and familiarity is cultivated, which is so necessary for the promotion of the cause—Each elder is furnished with an account of the labors, and success of all ”

“ Are there no public meetings held amongst us for the purposes of political change, social improvement, religious extension, moral amelioration, charity, or festivity, in which large numbers of the people, and often of all ranks and both sexes, are brought together, in which there is ample room for the display of all the graces of oratory, and in which the most eloquent and impassioned speaker is sure to carry away the palm? ”

“ Let us notice what happens in a public meeting as it develops into a crowd, and see if we can trace some of the steps of the process. Picture a large meeting-hall, fairly well filled with people. Notice first of all what sort of interest it is which as a rule will most easily bring an assemblage of people together. It need not necessarily be a matter of great importance, but it must be something which catches and challenges attention without great effort. ”

“ Let everything be done decently and in order, applies to religious meetings of all kinds, as well as to other things, and any one who has sufficient executive ability to preside over deliberative bodies, can, by a little study, gain a sufficient knowledge of the common rules of order to conduct a meeting in an orderly manner. ”

“ We arrived on seventh day evening at Dunning’s Creek, where there is a monthly meeting of Friends. They lie very much detached from the body of society; the nearest meeting to them is about sixty miles distant. We attended their meeting on first day, which proved, through heavenly help, a comfortable, strengthening opportunity. ”

“ They vary in size from a chance meeting of two or three friends who stop on the street corner and separate after a few minutes of conversation, to the great mass-meeting, that is called for a special purpose and interests a whole neighborhood, but adjourns sine die. ”

“ You may be surprised to learn that approximately one-third of those who registered as purposing to attend the meeting belonged to the gentler sex, and the proportion in attendance was somewhere in that neighborhood. This is one of the delightful features of our annual gathering which is steadily increasing. More and more are the ladies attending our meetings, and in larger number are they becoming members of the association aside from any relation they may sustain as wives or daughters to those who are already members. ”

“ On some we are never long without the sound of wheels, and folk pass us by so thickly that we lose the sense of their number. But on others, about little-frequented districts, a meeting is an affair of moment; we have the sight far off of some one coming towards us, the growing definiteness of the person, and then the brief passage and salutation, and the road left empty in front 96 of us for perhaps a great while to come. ”

“ I happen to think that any time you can begin three days into your term and have a meeting with somebody who advocates something that's important and something that many people think you're far apart, and it becomes clearer and clearer you're not so far apart, and both parties say it's a good meeting, then the process is beginning on the right note. ”

“ Resolved, That meeting-houses are places constructed for the convenience of the people, and that nothing ought to be admitted into them that is opposed to public sentiment, or which can possibly offend it. ”