The greatest insight given into Aunt Alexandra's missionary circles is found in chapter 24. Scout helps Calpurnia in the kitchen while the "business" part takes place. Aunt Alexandra told her that it would bore her, but that she could join them for refreshments afterwards. The Methodist women invited to the business part consist of Mrs. Merriweather, Mill Gates, and Miss Farrow; but when it is time for refreshments, the neighborhood ladies are invited. That means that Miss Rachel, Miss Maudie, and Miss Stephanie Crawford are invited in at that time as well. Just as the refreshments are being passed around, talk seems to turn back to what the first group of women had discussed during the missionary segment. For example, Mrs. Merriweather discusses her missionary work with J. Grimes Everett and helping the Mrunas become better Christians. Then they start to discuss Helen Robinson, as follows:

"Well, I always say forgive and forget, forgive and forget. Thing that church ought to do is help her lead a Christian life for those children from here on out. Some of the men ought to go out there and tell that preacher to encourage her" (231).

It would seem that the "business" part of the circle is about making other people more Christian--or more like what they feel is Christian. Not only that, but the missionary circle discusses the black community who work for whites as maids and field hands. Mrs. Merriweather tells everyone how she told her maid, Sophie, to stop acting depressed because of the Tom Robinson case. She told her that Jesus never complained, so she shouldn't either. In order to keep her job, Sophie agreed and put on a happy face for her employer.

Mrs. Merriweather probably should not have let her opinions and activities with her missionary efforts spill over into the refreshment part of the tea party. Nevertheless, she divulges that the women from the Methodist church, which includes Aun Alexandra, must discuss making the black community more subservient by telling them to be better Christians. They must think that they are actually "saving" them, but in reality, they discuss how to keep the blacks as submissive workers while they maintain their self-righteous attitudes and "higher class" status. 

The business part of the Missionary Society consists of various members of Aunt Alexandra's missionary circle giving reports about the church's ministerial and proselytizing work in foreign lands.

In chapter 24, we find Mrs. Grace Merriweather reporting on the "squalid lives of the Mrunas." The business part of the Missionary Society appears to focus on the backward lives of Third World peoples and how they need the civilizing influence of western missionaries. 

Later, during a conversation with Scout, Mrs. Merriweather provides a little more detail about the Mrunas and the work of J. Grimes Everett (a missionary) among them. Mrs. Merriweather states that, after she met with Everett, she pledged the support of the Maycomb Alabama Methodist Episcopal Church to his ministry. So, during the business part of the Missionary Society meeting, Mrs. Merriweather regaled the ladies with stories about J. Grimes Everett's missionary work among the Mrunas. 

In her full element during the business meeting, Mrs. Merriweather trains her self-righteous indignation against those she deems primitive and irreligious. Her condemnation is predominantly focused on Africans and African Americans, which demonstrates that her supposed solicitude for the Mrunas is based on racial bigotry.

Both Mrs. Merriweather and Mrs. Farrow also suggest that white women must live in fear with the likes of Tom Robinson walking around Maycomb. So, the business meeting consists largely of gossip masquerading as solicitude for the disadvantaged, primitive populations of Africa and Maycomb.

The primary purpose of a missionary society was for the concerned and charitable women of the church to learn about the poor cultures around the world which needed to be "saved."  Nearly every Protestant church had one, and the ladies of the missionary society would work on projects and/or raise money in order to send missionaries to these poor people.  Each time they met, they would receive updates on the impact their projects and money was making on these unregenerate souls--presumably spurring the ladies on to greater levels of effort and sacrifice for the Kingdom of God.

In Aunt Alexandra's missionary society, the recipients of their giving were the Mrunas, an African tribe which desperately needed their Christian charity.  Ironically, as the group discussed the plight of these unfortunate black people, the ladies were also bemoaning the fact that their black servants were discontent and complaining after the guilty verdict was served on Tom Robinson.  Apparently charity does not begin at home.