Canadian Friends Historical Association

Category: AGM

  • CFHA Annual General Meeting and Visit to Coldstream Friends

    Canadian Friends Historical Association Annual General Meeting
    and Visit to Coldstream Friends
    Saturday September 27, 2025
    Ron Nickles “Sketches” Quaker Meeting House — Coldstream, Ontario.

    Join us for our 2025 AGM!

    The meeting will be in person with a Zoom link (to follow) for those who cannot be at the AGM.

    • 10:30 arrival Coldstream meeting house
    • 11:00 Annual General Meeting
    • 12:30 catered lunch (by donation)
    • 1:30 Tour of Coldstream meeting house 1859 and burial ground with a talk about the history of the monthly meeting. Coldstream (Lobo) was established 1857 as a preparative meeting and was a member of Genesee Yearly Meeting (Hicksite).
    • Sheila Havard will speak of her research on the 1955 union of the three Yearly Meetings (Canada Yearly Meeting (Orthodox), Genesee Yearly Meeting, and Canada Yearly Meeting (Conservative) that became Canadian Yearly Meeting. She has been transcribing minutes of the three Yearly Meetings.

    Billeting is being offered by Coldstream Monthly meeting members. Please contact Coldstream MM here.

    Also the Holiday Inn in Strathroy is close to Coldstream for those that wish to stay in the area.

    Canadian Friends Historical Association is incorporated and as such must hold an annual general meeting. The Executive is presently made up of Evelyn Schmitz-Hertzberg, chair, Bob Barnett, treasurer, Ginny Walsh, recorder, and Sylvia Powers. At the AGM the chair gives a message of welcome and reports on the activity of the year. The fiscal year is June 1- May 31.

    The membership year is from September 1. Please note that only currently paid members can vote at the AGM on resolutions. Reports will be shared digitally before the AGM to members: chair’s report, accept minutes of 2024 AGM, treasurers report, Friendly Fridays, membership, CFHA blog, digital archivist, Canadian Quaker Library and Archives CQLA. Nominations for the executive 2024-2025 are to be accepted at the AGM.

    CFHA is actively looking for more members to join the CFHA executive. Bob Barnett is looking for an assistant treasurer.

    Any questions please contact Eve Schmitz-Hertzberg — [email protected]

    Please RSVP to Eve if you are coming in person. This is needed for luncheon numbers.

  • Reminder! Renew Membership Before the AGM

    The CFHA Annual General Meeting will be held in Coldstream Friends meeting house in Coldstream, Ontario, on Saturday, September 27th. 

    A reminder to please renew your CFHA membership before the meeting, as only current members may vote on an AGM resolution. All registration information can be found here, including online membership renewal.

    CFHA is planning an in person and hybrid meeting this year. There will be lunch served and afterwards presentations of Canadian Quaker historical interest. More information to follow in the coming weeks.

    Coldstream (Lobo) preparative meeting was a member of the Genesee Yearly Meeting (Hicksite) (picture from Arthur Dorland’s The Quakers in Canada, A History)

     

  • Extracts from the CFHA Chair’s Message to CFHA Membership

    Extracts from the CFHA Chair’s Message to CFHA membership and friends at the CFHA AGM September 14, 2024:

    On November 16, 2023 the remaining members of the CFHA executive met via Zoom*. Because Elaine Bishop, interim chair, had stepped down at the 2023 AGM there was no one acting as chair. Eve Schmitz-Hertzberg offered to take on the role until the 2024 AGM. At the 2024 AGM the current Executive volunteered and has been accepted to continue until the 2025 AGM.

    As chair I have called executive meetings, set the agenda, and chaired meetings. Bob Barnett has been acting as treasurer, Ginny Walsh as recorder, and Sylvia Powers attending. We have met every four or five weeks since November 2023.

    The 2024 CFHA AGM was held in person at Yonge Street meeting house in Newmarket, Ontario. Before lunch a number of us visited the Sharon temple. (The photo above is the abandoned Sharon temple before renovations) It is always fascinating to contemplate what motivated the Yonge Street Quakers to separate under David Willson’s charismatic leadership and to form the Children of Peace 1812-1889. The temple in Sharon is now an historical monument to the Children of Peace who essentially ceased to exist after David Willson died.

    The executive has been coming to grips with the workings of CFHA as a registered charity, a not-for-profit corporation, receiving BMO bank signatories and statements, and understanding the membership list. A registered charity must deal with CRA and file an annual tax return. As a not-for-profit corporation CFHA must have Ontario Not-For-Profit Corporations Act (ONCA) compliant bylaws. CFHA has undertaken a relationship with Business Sherpa Group (BSG) to do our accounting and CRA filing. CiviCRM, constituent relationship management software for not-for-profits, manages our membership list. Tax receipts are issued by Canada Helps and by CiviCRM.

    We have moved CFHA from a “Cash Accounting” system to a more formal “Accrual Accounting” system, using professional accountants at BSG. This has been a learning curve for all of us on the Executive, but puts us in a better position to make more accurate budgets, to be transparent to auditors, and to take advantage of tax rebates that are available to Not-for-Profit corporations. The first year startup costs have been higher than we expected, but we are in discussion with BSG to change our fee system to a fixed monthly rate. The costs can be appreciated by looking at the financial statements. The executive has felt that Gordon Thompson and the subsequent CFHA executive left us “holding the bag” without clear understanding of what was in the bag. Bob Barnett has been doing most of the work to sort it out and reporting to the executive.

    Bob’s message to CFHA regarding the new by-laws: “Find attached a new set of By-Laws for CFHA that are compliant with the requirements of the Ontario Not-for-Profit Corporations Act (ONCA). The Act went into effect in October 2021, with a three-year grace period for Not-for-Profit Corporations to come into compliance.” We have formally confirmed this new by-law at our 2024 AGM and we have submitted the new bylaws to the Province in October 2024. (The by-laws were sent out to CFHA membership). We thank the Ontario Historical Society for having provided the template we used, for conducting a webinar, and for answering our questions along the way as we tailored the template for CFHA. Thank you, Bob, for your work in this process. Thanks also to the Ontario Historical Society which has enabled to do this without having to hire a lawyer to do the work.

    Bob Barnett has attached the financial statements June 1, 2023 to May 31, 2024 and the budget June 1, 2024 to May 31, 2025. He was present to answer questions at the AGM via Zoom from Holland. Please note Bob is looking for someone to assist him with the treasurer’s role.

    Allana Mayer is CFHA digital archivist. She manages the website. She has also been organizing CFHA archival material at our space in the Haslam room at Friends House, 60 Lowther Ave, Toronto. The executive is seeking to clarify our contractual relationship with Allana. The executive is very thankful for her continuing care for the website.

    The CFHA transcriptions of Quaker minutes that have been done over many years and are posted on the CFHA website, have been done under the supervision of Randy Saylor. Carm Foster was the main transcriber. Sheila Havard was and still is active doing transcriptions. However this project has been essentially laid down due to participants’ age related health limitations. This work has been in cooperation with the Canadian Quaker Library and Archives at Pickering College and York University Ontario Archives microfiche collection. We are very thankful for the dedicated work. It would be wonderful if a volunteer would step forward to continue supervising this interesting work. Shiela Havard is the contact to understand what is involved. Transcriptions allow us to get a glimpse of what Quakers in the past where thinking. Of course what is behind the words that were written as minutes of a meeting is always up to our imaginative understanding. The original documents are handwritten in cursive and are difficult to decipher.

    Donna Moore sent a report of Friendly Fridays, a study of George Fox Journal (Nichols Edition) on line. Those that participate find it very inspiring.

    The executive is also very thankful for the continuing work of Sydney Harker to post submissions on the CFHA blog. At this time this is the only publication that CFHA is undertaking. Please sign up to receive notifications for blog postings and read them. Comments are welcome.

    In May 2023 Canadian Yearly Meeting clerks Ruth Pincoe and Marilyn Manzer were approached by Elaine Bishop as interim chair of CFHA along with Bob Barnett. This meeting was an attempt to see if a change in the relationship of the Canadian Quaker Library and Archives (CQLA) and CFHA should be brought about. Elaine was envisioning that CFHA be merged with CQLA. CQLA is owned by Canadian Yearly Meeting trustees and managed by a CYM committee. CFHA is an independent organization. The CYM clerks could not see this merger as a possibility. The clerks of CYM recommended that CFHA be laid down. I am still quite disturbed that this was the only suggestion that came out of this meeting. CQLA has a different mandate from CFHA. CQLA is the repository of minutes and documents of Canadian Yearly Meeting, constituent Monthly Meetings, and committees. CFHA is an organization with the mission to do historical research into and write about Canadian Quaker history. The CQLA archives are an important resource for this work. I hope that CQLA and CFHA may continue to have a mutually agreeable relationship.

    I am Kathleen Hertzberg’s daughter and would like to try to carry on her legacy with CHFA. As she would quote:

    A people without history

    Is not redeemed from time,
    for history is a pattern 

    Of timeless moments.
    -T.S.Elliot “Little Gidding”

    Eve Schmitz-Hertzberg, Chair Canadian Friends Historical Association

  • Save the Date: Hybrid AGM – Join Us In-Person and Online

    Save the Date: Hybrid AGM – Join Us In-Person and Online

    Save the Date!

  • Report of the Annual General Meeting 2023

    Report of the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Canadian Friends Historical Association (CFHA) held September 23, 2023 on Zoom 

    CFHA board must call the members of Canadian Friends Association to meet an annual general meeting. CFHA was incorporated 2009 and is subject to the Ontario Non-Profit Incorporation Act. CFHA is also a Canadian Charity (Federal) and can be found on Canada Helps: https://www.canadahelps.org/en/charities/canadian-friends-historical-association/

    Elaine Bishop chaired the AGM as interim chair of CFHA. Reports were given:

    At the beginning of the AGM Jim Thompson joined to report that in January 2024 CFHA should receive a legacy bequest of $75,000 from Gordon Thompson, former chair of CFHA who died in January 2022.

    • Interim chair report (Elaine Bishop). Elaine stepped down at the conclusion of the meeting.
    • Financial statements for the fiscal year ending May 31, 2023 (Robert Barnett)
    • Presentation of the budget for fiscal year June 1, 2023 – May 31. 2024. A deficit budget.
    • CFHA bylaw change to state our fiscal year is June 1- May 31
    • Transition to Business Sherpa Group (BSG) to manage our financial affairs. (Chris Landry has left)
    • Membership report. CFHA uses CiviCRM to manage membership. Membership year starts September 1.
    • CFHA space at Friends House (Haslam Room), 60 Lowther Avenue, Toronto. Much of the material had been at Gordon Thompson’s house. All of the material in Unionville has not been moved. Haslam Room material needs to be sorted out, inventoried, and some culled.
    • Report of Friendly Fridays which continues every other Friday reading George Fox’s Journal (Donna Moore and Chad Dionne). Those who participate feel spiritual inspiration.
    • Canadian Quaker Library and Archives (CQLA) report (Elaine Bishop, chair of the CQLA committee). CQLA is owned by Canadian Yearly Meeting (CYM) trustees and the committee that looks after it reports to CYM. The Archives receives and cares for minutes, records and related materials of the Yearly Meeting and its committees, and the constituent Monthly Meetings. The Archives is available for Yearly Meeting, academic, genealogical, and other research use by appointment. CFHA donates annually $500 to CQLA
    • Report of CFHA digital archivist (Allana Mayer) Allana manages the CFHA website.
    • Sydney Harker is the contact for the blog. She uploads material to the blog. She offers to edit submissions to the blog.
    • Nominations: Sylvia Powers has joined the executive board.
    • Discussion about the future of CFHA. The decision was taken that CFHA will continue as a not for profit organization and the executive board will meet as necessary to further the association’s organizational needs and its mandate.

    The CFHA executive met 16 November, 2023. Evelyn Schmitz-Hertzberg chaired the meeting and will continue to do so until the next AGM in September 2024. We are looking to hold an in person AGM and are looking for a topic for a lecture and historic site visit in conjunction with the AGM. Volunteer help would be greatly appreciated.

    CFHA is in a quiescent period. The loss of Gordon Thompson has made a big decline in the CFHA board. Other executive members have also stepped down. The board has legal status, but in the past was also the organizational body for the CFHA events/pilgrimages to Quaker sites. The pandemic forced CFHA to hold its AGMs on Zoom. Members of the board were located at great distances across Canada and this made in person meetings difficult. CFHA as with many organizations has migrated to online meetings (AGM and lectures). This can be alienating for many who have interest in Quaker history and may be non-academics. CFHA was not started by academics though Professor Arthur Dorland gave it his blessing, and CFHA has attracted over the years many who are not trained as academics in history or archives in records and information management. At the threshing session held October 2022, Rob Leverty of the Ontario Historical Society which has been in existence since 1888, stated that “people want…to protect history. If Quakers don’t save their history, it isn’t going to happen…Quaker history is a critical voice during this crisis of democracy and civil society. Groups such as ours can be exhausted and consider folding…Groups can go into hibernation or make a big shift in what they are trying to accomplish…He recommends we keep our executive alive. We may slip down to three executive directors legally and can always revive.”

    “The mission of the Canadian Friends Historical Association is the preservation and communication of the on-going history and faith of Friends (Quakers) in Canada and their contribution to the Canadian Experience.” This is not the same as the Canadian Quaker Library and Archives mandate: “The Archives receives and cares for minutes, records and related materials of the Yearly Meeting and its committees, and the constituent Monthly Meetings. The Canadian Quaker Archives also includes the Arthur Garrett Dorland Friends Historical Research Library with the Rendell Rhoades Quaker Discipline Collection as its core.”  CFHA was started 1972 to encourage the study of and to communicate Canadian Quaker history. The Quaker Archives was located at the University of Western Ontario (now Western University) and was moved to Pickering College in Newmarket in 1983. It is clear that the two groups do similar work and as such must have a cooperative and collegial relationship.

    CYM clerks’ opinion in May 2023 was that they were not interested in an amalgamation of CFHA and CQLA. They suggested rather that CFHA be laid down.

    It has been stated that what can be said about Canadian Quaker history has already been written about. There is however much that still remains to be said. Quaker history has continued to be made in the past 50 years of CFHA. Our understanding of who we are as Quakers is evolving. Past events and people could be revisited on that basis. The next generation of Quakers is hopefully interested in our history. Marcus Garvey famously wrote: “A people without knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots”. Quakers must not become an unarchived group.

    CFHA was started in 1972 and is therefore 51 years old. 40 years in 2012 was wonderfully celebrated at the AGM held in Isaiah Tubbs Resort and Conference Centre in Prince Edward County (PEC). Quakers had settled Prince Edward County (PEC) in the 1790’s and CFHA toured the county as part of the celebration. Gordon Thompson wrote a lovely article about the time in PEC: Canadian Quaker History Journal 77 (2012). https://cfha.info/journal77p1.pdf

    CFHA and others at Meeting for Worship Bloomfield 2012.

    If anyone is interested in the details of the reports from the AGM please contact me:
    Evelyn Schmitz-Hertzberg
    November 30, 2023
    [email protected]

  • Save the Date – AGM on September 23rd

    This year, CFHA’s Annual General Meeting will be held on Saturday, September 23rd.

    The executive committee plans to present on the Threshing session held last October on “Reimagining the Future of the CFHA.” As CFHA moves forward, the executive welcomes thoughts, ideas, and blogs from members.

    More information and a link to the online meeting are forthcoming. Please mark your calendars and plan to join us!

  • CFHA’s 50th Anniversary AGM this Saturday

    CFHA’s 50th Anniversary AGM this Saturday

    Please be reminded that this Saturday, the 24th of September, we will hold:

    THE 50th ANNIVERSARY ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF

    THE CANADIAN FRIENDS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

    Zoom invitation forthcoming on Friday!

    From 1-2 p.m. Eastern (Toronto) time we will conduct our business.

    From 2:30-3:30 our annual lecture will be presented by former and oncoming member of the Executive Committee, Kyle Jolliffe, who will provide us with “a look back at the first year of the Canadian Friend,” with a brief response by the current editor of the CF, Tim Kits.

    CFHA is in a time of transition, so please consider joining the new Executive as a volunteer, and help continue and move forward the work of our Association.

    Thank you, and hope to see you on Saturday!

    Jeffrey Dudiak, Chair

  • Save the Date! AGM on Saturday, September 24

    Save the Date! AGM on Saturday, September 24

    This year, CFHA’s Annual General Meeting will be held on Saturday, September 24th.

    The business portion of the AGM will take place from 1:00 – 2:00pm EDT. All members are encouraged to attend.

    The business portion will be followed by the program portion from 2:30 – 3:30pm EDT and is open to everyone.

    More information and a link to the online meeting are forthcoming. Please mark your calendars and plan to join us!

  • AGM 2021 Highlights

    Thank you to everyone who participated in our Annual General Meeting this year! This was our second virtual gathering, allowing for a number of attendees from a distance to participate.

    Our thanks and appreciation also go to the keynote presentation panelists who shared about their research from Quakerism in the Atlantic World, 1690-1830, including Robynne Rogers Healey, Richard C. Allen, Erica Canela, Elizabeth Cazden, Andrew Fincham, Sydney Harker, Rosalind Johnson, Emma Lapsansky-Werner, and Geoffrey Plank. Their insight contributed to rich discussions about Quaker history and touched on a range of topics including memorial testimony writing, inequalities among Friends, the shaping of Quaker discipline, marriage legislation, family and community formation, Quakers and Indigenous Americans, and industrial development. Their work demonstrates the importance of decentralizing the narrative of Quaker history from the centres of Quakerism and exploring the diversity of Quaker thought and lived experience in the eighteenth century.

    “Sketch of the Quaker Meeting House in Sparta” by F.D. Poole, 1980. Courtesy of the Elgin County Archives.

    Thank you as well to everyone who came to listen and to those of you who stayed for the business portion.

    From the business session, updates were shared on the development of the CFHA Digital Archive, the success of our Friendly Fridays series, and many new and exciting proposals for the year to come.

    If you’re interested in becoming a member of CFHA, you can do so on our membership page.

     

     

  • Upcoming Keynote Presentation & AGM

    A reminder that CFHA’s Annual General Meeting is fast approaching! Our meeting will take place online this Saturday, September 18th (beginning at 0800 Pacific, 1100 Eastern, 1600 UK).

    We’re thrilled to have a Keynote Presentation beforehand by the authors of Quakerism in the Atlantic World, 1690-1830.

    The authors of the recently released Quakerism in the Atlantic World, 1690-1830 will share their findings and reflect on the role of Canadian Quaker history in the larger history of Quakerism. Quakerism in the Atlantic World, 1690-1830 is the third volume in Penn State University Press’s New History of Quakerism series.

    Registration is free and we’ll be giving away a free copy of the book and the press has provided a 40% discount code for the book.

    Please RSVP here to receive a confirmation notification and the AGM Zoom link. Note that the Zoom details will only be available through the registration page.

    Individuals not currently in membership are welcome to become members before the meeting, or to attend as guests. Please contact [email protected] if you wish to attend as a guest, or if you require additional information.