Quarterly meetings meet four times each year. All quarterly meetings belong to a yearly meeting. Yearly meetings are the highest level of authority among Friends. They hear appeals of membership decisions from quarterly and monthly meetings. They compile and publish the Discipline that governs their members and meetings.
Yearly meetings appoint committees to carry out concerns dealing with the testimonies.
Yearly meetings generally include all of the quarterly meetings in one or more states. At every level the business meeting is very similar. A presiding officer, called a clerk, listens to the concerns of members. Through the process of discerning God s will, the clerk crafts a minute. The minute is then read to the membership, who are asked to give their approval.