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In the three years that I have been clerk of the QEW Steering Committee, I have seen a change among Monthly Meetings. More and more Quakers are discerning how the great environmental issues of our time are intimately connected with what Quakers are called to do and be. And the questions about what can we do? is being asked in a different way.

QEW has grown stronger and more focused in the past three years. It has been my pleasure and privilege to be part of QEW and to work closely with members of the Steering Committee while this growth was taking place.

I urge everyone to continue supporting the work of QEW and to attend the Annual Meetings each Columbus Day weekend in October. Also, please encourage your Yearly Meeting to become part of QEW if it hasn't done so already. All Yearly Meetings that are a part of QEW can have two representatives on the Steering Committee. If your Yearly Meeting needs a QEW representative, take the opportunity to work with this outstanding group of Quakers.

As my term as clerk comes to an end, I will continue to be a member of the Steering Committee and you will see me in the pages of BeFriending Creation. I hope I will still have the opportunity to visit Yearly Meetings.

Y'all be good now! •

Barbara's series of articles on greening our homes will continue in the next issue of BeFriending Creation.

'Signs of Hope' at Quaker Ecology Action Network (QEAN) meeting

We are pleased to report that our "Signs of Hope" special interest group at Canadian Yearly Meeting in 2007 was well received, with at least 30 persons present.

We noted the change in attitude of society at large and governments of all sizes and in some areas of the commercial world. We are not needed as much now to be advocates of interest in this concern. We are called to seek and offer perspectives for change.

Participants included Tracey McCowen (cym representative to Quaker Earthcare Witness), Anne Mitchell (Quaker Institute for the Future), Bill Currey (speaking on aspects of the nuclear/uranium debate in Canada), and Vince Zelasny and Don Alexander, representatives from Canadian Friends Service Committee (CFSC).

Hollister Knowlton of Quaker Earthcare Witness (who lives in the U.S.) had arranged an excellent QEW display and gave an interest group on Gaviotas, Colombia.

QEAN continues to search for an ecology role within Canadian Yearly Meeting. We heard a report on our work within CYM, with references to recommendations around ecology concerns in the Yearly Meeting. We will continue our networking and enter into dialogue with CFSC, which is examining its place in the environmental witness (see Quaker Concern, spring issue 2007, with the title, "Mending Creation."

We are appreciative of the CYM Program Committee's efforts to make the Yearly Meeting sessions as environmentally friendly as possible. We note the excellent website that QEW is maintaining and the development of the QEAN site in CYM. We encourage QEAN members to continue their witness, contributions to discussion, and publication.

We concluded with a short DVD on the Earth Charter and a time of worship.

—Arnold Ranneris, clerk

New Steering Committee member brings economics perspective to peace, justice, and Earthcare work

DAVID CISCEL, Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting & Association's new representative to QEW, says he began to see the conflict between industrial society and the idea of "an earth restored" when he led an environmental concerns seminar at the University of Pittsburgh in the early 1970s.

A member of the Memphis (Tenn.) Friends Meeting, David later got a spiritual perspective on ecology and economics through SAYMA's Ecological Concerns Network. Later he got involved with the Friends Testimony on Economics (FTE) project, offering his long experience as a professor of economics. FTE leader Ed Dreby invited David to join Quaker Earth-care Witness. He is now active in the QEW Sustain-ability: Faith & Action interest group, and he will be the next QEW treasurer next spring.

Since his recent retirement, he has been busy with hobbies, carpentry, and social activism. He and his wife have four adult children and three grandchildren. •