One hundred and thirty years ago the first Neighborhood Convention meeting took place, organized by Rev. Willard Packard, who began the tradition in 1894 as a way for the various protestant congregations on the Vineyard to gather together.
On Tuesday of this week, potentially the last Neighborhood Convention meeting took place at the United Methodist Church in the Oak Bluffs Camp Ground. The Minnesingers performed for a group of about 30 people, which included members of the clergy and lay people.
After the concert, Rev. Joanne Hus talked about the power of music in worship. The mood was reflective as one of the oldest continuous meetings on the Island went on indefinite hiatus.
The Neighborhood Convention has gathered for over a century on the first Tuesday of each month from October to June, hosted at different houses of worship around the Island. The meetings are open to all and include a speaker or performance, a reflection from the hosting religious leader and a meal. The format has not changed much since the early days, although it tended to run longer in the past, said Sofia Anthony, the convention’s secretary.
“Some of those early meetings were two-day events, the vastly smaller population arriving by horse and buggy,” Ms. Anthony said.
According to the organization’s history, church members could often be suspect about other religions in the deep past. Ms. Anthony said that people who were members of different congregations in those days had little understanding of what other believers did or thought.
The audience has grown smaller over time, but those who attend say they cherish the meetings. Patricia Correia moved to Vineyard in 2011 and has been the convention’s treasurer since 2016.
“In the way you can never specifically plan, it came to mean a great deal to me,” she said. “It’s important to serve the demographic of elderly people. We have a faithful group that comes.”
Over time, the convention expanded to include the Catholic churches and the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center. It’s continued ability to help connect people outside of their existing community is important today, said Phil Dietterich, who has attended since 1994.
“I especially like it because it is a community builder,” he said. “It crosses lines of where we worship on Sunday, or our Jewish friends who worship on Saturdays. We have friends across all these lines....We get to know people outside our traditions.”
The early programming tended to focus on theological issues, such as a minister’s role in a prayer meeting. In 1953, Rev. G. Vaughn Shedd traveled from off-Island to speak about his work with the Lord’s Day League, a group dedicated to preventing activity on Sunday such as parades or selling liquor.
The programming evolved to include topics outside of religious issues. In 1969, a meeting included a discussion on the civil rights program in Mississippi and economic issues in Kenya, as well as the Quaker influence in New England. Meetings have featured a number of prominent local figures, including Dorothy West, an Oak Bluffs resident and member of the Harlem Renaissance, who spoke in 1992.
Rev. Cathlin Baker of the First Congregational Church of West Tisbury has hosted the convention many times throughout her 16 years at the helm of her church.
“It’s been a privilege to host every year,” she said. “We usually offer a bit of a reflection — worship service would be too strong, but a time of prayer, a community prayer. I would try to take the topic and connect it to some sort of spiritual question or text, which would sometimes be a stretch, and that would be fun.”
Ms. Anthony recalled a minister who began his October meeting by asking if anybody in the crowd still believed in ghosts. She said that one member of the audience quickly spoke up: the Holy Ghost.
Reverend Baker added that beyond the convention’s role socially, especially for the older generation on the Island, the group has been a force for good for local nonprofits.
“They give so generously. They are really looking for Island initiatives and nonprofits to support,” she said.
Last year, the organization donated to 12 Island organizations, including Friends of Family Planning of Martha’s Vineyard and Island Grown Initiative.
Ms. Anthony said that some of the funds kept in the convention’s bank account to keep it open will go to the Minnesingers, the choral group from Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School which regularly performs at the December meeting of the neighborhood convention.
The Minnesingers were a fitting final performance as, according the Gazette’s archive, the high school choral group has performed at the convention going back to 1977.
Abigail Chandler, the choir’s director, addressed the crowd on Tuesday before the concert.
“It’s been a very long tradition and we’re so happy to be with you again,” she said.
After the performance, Ms. Correia shared the history of the ginkgo tree that grows behind the Methodist Church. Reverend Hus then took prayer requests before the audience joined the Minnesingers at the parish hall across the road for lunch.
Ms. Anthony still has hopes that a new group will be able to revive Neighborhood Convention, perhaps someone younger as the current administration ages.
“We’re getting tired,” said Ms. Anthony. “But it’s as one of our people said at our last meeting, we don’t really have the right to stop it. It’s been so good for so long. It’s not ours. We need to find, and hope for, some younger people who can carry on.”
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