About IMYM

Intermountain Yearly Meeting (IMYM) is a community of Quaker Meetings and Worship Groups across the Rocky Mountain West. We are part of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), in the unprogrammed tradition.

Our communities are spread across a vast geographic region, but we come together in many ways for worship, fellowship, spiritual nurture, learning, service, and action on concerns that arise from our faith and which connect us.

IMYM is both a community of Friends who gather together and an organization that is active throughout the year. IMYM connects Friends and Meetings across our region, offers activities and programs for Meetings and individuals, and creates opportunities for Friends to serve the wider community through the work of the yearly meeting. There are many ways to take part in Quaker life and each offers different ways to connect, contribute, learn, worship, and share in the life of our community.

Our History

The great distances of the Mountain West have shaped IMYM from its beginnings. In the 1960s, Friends in the region were affiliated with yearly meetings centered far away, making regular participation difficult. Friends began gathering closer to home for worship, fellowship, and community, and these gatherings grew into the Intermountain Friends Fellowship.

In June 1974, at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, New Mexico, Friends approved the formation of Intermountain Yearly Meeting. 

GUIDING MINUTE OF INTERMOUNTAIN YEARLY MEETING

1974 — Minute II-2          The following Minutes converting the Intermountain Friends Fellowship to the Intermountain Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends were read and approved. Following several years of prayerful search, it is the present sense of the meeting that the Intermountain Friends Fellowship now constitute itself as a yearly meeting to be known as the Intermountain Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, emphasis to be on fellowship, community and spiritual renewal. The organizational structure is to be minimal. Meetings affiliated with other yearly meetings may have associate status with the Intermountain Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. The Yearly Meeting will periodically evaluate whether the yearly meeting structure is meeting the needs of the members. The Yearly Meeting will continue in the traditions of the Intermountain Friends Fellowship with the Continuing Committee as a standing committee. The monthly meeting is the primary place for business and caring for members and attenders. 

—  From the Minutes of the Fifth Annual Meeting of Intermountain Friends Fellowship (which became the First Annual Meeting of Intermountain Yearly Meeting). June 6-9, 1974, Ghost Ranch, Abiqui, New Mexico

Four years after IMYM was formed, Norma Adams Price reflected on the character of the still-new yearly meeting:

“We are still a young yearly meeting, sensing the adventure of the journey.”
— Norma Adams Price, 1978

IMYM Today

More than fifty years later, IMYM continues the journey begun by those Friends. Fellowship, community, and spiritual renewal remain at the heart of our yearly meeting, even as the ways we gather, connect, and serve one another continue to evolve.

IMYM connects Friends and Meetings, nurtures relationships across generations and distances, and provides ways to share our gifts, concerns, experience, and resources. The forms may change, but the purpose remains much as it was in 1974: strengthening the community of Friends while honoring the central place of local Meetings and Worship Groups in Quaker life.

If you have questions or you would like assistance to find something, email imym@imym.org