Dorothy Muma Memorial Bursary
Overview
Home Mission and Advancement Committee (HMAC) is offering a new bursary, funded by the Samuel Rogers Memorial Trust to recognize Dorothy Muma ‘s long contribution to Friends and Canadian Yearly Meeting. The award must go to an Ontario resident or support a spiritual leading in Ontario .
Dorothy was a member of Toronto Monthly Meeting for almost sixty-two years. Her spiritual life was rooted in the words of George Fox: “Be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations, wherever you come, that your carriage and life may preach among all sorts of people, and to them….” Dorothy’s expressed her faith through faithful service to her own Meeting and Canadian Yearly Meeting, using her considerable organisational and administrative skills, financial acumen and knowledge of Friends’ ways to assist with the business and procedural life of the Meeting.
Dorothy served with Canadian Friends Service Committee, and was secretary to both the Samuel Rogers Memorial Trust and the Robert Owen Foundation. She was also Secretary-Treasurer of Canadian Yearly Meeting and a member of its Discipline Committee, Nominating Committee, Finance Committee and Personnel Advisory Committee. Dorothy served as a trustee of Canadian Yearly Meeting for 23 years and was a founding member of the Canadian Friends Historical Association.
Who may apply?
Ontario Friends or others who are either members or attenders of Monthly Meetings that constitute Canadian Yearly Meeting who wish to pursue a project or leading in Ontario.
What are the considerations?
HMAC wishes to support the next step in an applicant’s spiritual journey, to nurture his or her deepest inward spiritual leading. This may include writing, teaching, music and art-making, farming, mediation, education, and healing. The idea is to enable the Friend to be a pattern and a living example of Friends’ beliefs.
Friends may be awarded any HMAC educational grant or loan only once in any three-year period.
Amount of the bursary
$500 is provided to HMAC by the Samuel Rogers Memorial Trust each year, but at times more funds may be available.
How to apply
Before applying go through a process of discernment which includes a Clearness Committee appointed by your Monthly Meeting. (See Organization and Procedure, Canadian Yearly Meeting 2002 , Chapter 8.) Fill in the application form provided on the CYM website and submit it to the HMAC Grants and Loans Officer. Include with your application a short essay about your spiritual journey and a Minute of Support from your Meeting.
Include the following in your essay: a statement of your spiritual journey showing how this project or educational pursuit is an integral next step in that journey; the proposal for the program you wish to undertake; the reasons why the award is helpful at this particular time; and other sources of financial support that you may have for this project. Consider whether this project would place a burden on family responsibilities or any outstanding debts.
When to apply
Applications should reach HMAC’s Grants and Loans Officer by March 1 for consideration by HMAC at its spring meeting. (Applications that are received by HMAC after March 1 may be considered, depending on available funds.) The award will be announced at CYM in session. The bursary is valid until the following May.
How to report back
HMAC expects the Friend who is awarded the Dorothy Muma Memorial Bursary to share his or her experience with his or her Monthly Meeting, to submit a report to HMAC and either write an article for The Canadian Friend, or share through another medium (e.g. blog, workshop, or video).
Are there alternative funding sources?
HMAC has other funds for Quaker Education for both members and attenders. Friends are encouraged to consider these other categories, and also the Pendle Hill Scholarship.
Please contact Brent Bowyer, HMAC Grants & Loans Officer for more information.
For application form, click here – Application Form
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Hi Brent,
I’ve been looking at the info on the Dorothy Muma Memorial Bursary and I’m writing this note both for further information and to prompt some discussion at HMAC. (Do you still have Skype meetings?)
I was in on crafting this bursary application process but now, looking at it from the outside, I can see how you might not get applicants. It is unclear what I should do first to apply for the bursary. The deadline is in March but I need to ask for a clearness committee and get a minute of support before then, presumably. I assume that the clearness process is the first step, but if I do this through Toronto Monthly Meeting (my home meeting) it is questionable that all would be done by March, given distance and winter driving conditions. Can the Clearness Committee contain any members who are not Friends? Both my local worship group and the monthly meeting that oversees it (Simcoe Muskoka) are struggling at present. I struck up a Clearness Committee for myself a couple of years ago that consisted of two members of my worship group and two people from an interfaith discussion group of which I am a member. Would that do?
All in all, although I fully support the value of a clearness process in applying for this bursary, I fear that it makes the application process so cumbersome that few will engage in it. It is likely that people will take the easier route of applying for an Education Grant. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but surely it goes against the spirit of the Dorothy Muma Bursary.
Could you let me know as soon as possible what choices I have for the clearness committee? I would like to give the DMMB a go so others can see it as a possibility.
In peace,
Jerrine Verkaik