First Interim Report of the Ad Hoc Committee for Burial (Mt. Toby Monthly Meeting)

July 12, 2009

�� The first two items of our charge, approved by the meeting in February 2009, are:

1. To determine whether burial vaults are presently required by the Meeting and, if so, to discern whether to lay down this requirement;

2. To determine whether �green burial� should be an option.

With respect to the first item, we have determined that meeting guidelines for the burial ground do not require use of a burial vault.� The Handbook says nothing about them, and this omission appears to be intentional.� For example, Burial Committee Recommendations dated August 24, 1974, include the following:� �5.� That concrete vaults not be required (unless we find upon investigation that they are legally required).�� They are in fact not legally required.

�� Thus, although the two body burials presently interred in the meeting�s burial ground used concrete vaults, in keeping with the modern convention, they were not required.

�� As to the second item in our charge, it is our sense, based on conversations with individuals and on responses during our March 22, 2009, 11:40 Hour, that the Meeting community would like �green� burial to be an option.� As we noted in our report on the 11:40 Hour, �Those present were clear that green burial ought to be an option in our existing burial ground.� There was not agreement on whether green burial ought to be required� (April 2009 newsletter, page 3).

�� The three basic elements of a �green,� or natural, burial are no embalming, no metal casket, and no vault.� None of these is legally required by the Town of Leverett, the state of Massachusetts, or the federal government.� Since Mt. Toby also has imposed none of these requirements, �green� burial is in fact already an option here.� It only remains for the Meeting to recognize this option and, ideally, to minute its affirmation of the practice.

�� Possible wording for such a minute might be:� The Meeting affirms that �green� or natural burial is acceptable in its burial ground.

Ad Hoc Committee on Burial:

Carol Coan, clerk

John Foster

Frank Gatti

Susan Reyes, recording clerk

Approved July 12, 2009.