December 21, 2014

MEETING SCHEDULE AND PROGRAM

TODAY

9:00 AM meeting for worship (unprogrammed)
10:15 AM Make music (all instruments welcome!), visit with one another, and have refreshments in the 45 minutes between meetings for worship
11:15 AM meeting for worship (semi-programmed): Patricia Jones, speaker; Kathy Webster, musician; Joanne Esser, care of meeting

Nursery care today is downstairs with Susie Kanemitsu beginning at 11:10. Earlier care can be arranged as needed.

The Director of Ministry will be in the conference room at the rise of semi-programmed worship today and next Sunday for a half- hour of conversation. If you would like to join her and others to talk about what it’s like to be in Meeting (particularly if you are new to Meeting) or if you have questions about Quaker practice, please come.

UPCOMING MEETING EVENTS

Directory photo sessions will be: Fri, Jan 2nd, 1-8:00 and Sat, Jan 3rd, 10-4:00. Sign up for an appointment. You are welcome to bring family members, friends, dogs, cats, musical instruments- whomever and whatever you would like to be photographed with. You can get a photo for the directory and other one/s for whatever purpose you would like.

Thank you to the 45 households who have already signed up! There are over 40 households not yet scheduled, and we don’t want your photo to be missing! If you cannot come on our dates, you may be able to be photographed at an alternate site, or you can submit a photo. The number of directories we receive is based on the number or households photographed.

Volunteers are needed January 2nd and 3rd – hosting during the sessions, setting up coffee or bringing treats! Call or email the office to volunteer or for details.

Next Sunday at 10:15: Racial Justice in America and this moment in time. How can we respond as Friends?

Bring some holiday cheer to Loaves and Fishes! Our next meal prep and service will be Dec 29th, Holy Rosary Church, 2424 – 18th Ave So, Mpls. The shifts are: 2:30-4:30, cooking (5 needed); 4:45-6:45, serving (10 needed); 5:30-7:00, clean-up (5 needed). Also needed, 20 batches of cookies (4 dozen to a batch), delivered to the meetinghouse on the 28th or brought to Holy Rosary by 5:00 on the 29th. Help is needed in all areas! Look for sign-up on the sheet soon.

Build community and get to know and be known by relative newcomers to the meeting! Outreach and Welcoming Committee is sponsoring a series of home potlucks in February, March and April, 2015. For details, see the fact sheets and sign-up sheets on the elevator table.

Offering boxes are located on small tables near the meetingroom doors. Please give as you are able. To meet our budget obligations, contributions need to average $2,171 per week. $1,348.65 was the average weekly contribution in Nov. Thank you, Friends, for your generous support of the Meeting in all manner of ways.

OTHER HAPPENINGS AMONG QUAKERS

Twin Cities Friends Meeting is hosting a forum of queries and responses to the challenges offered in Rex Ambler’s The Quaker Way (Christian Alternative Press, 2013); 7:00 Thurs. evenings, Jan 22nd – Feb 19th. You will need a copy of the book (available at QuakerBooks.org). You need not attend all of the forums, but are encouraged to try! Some preparation is expected: completing the reading (chpt. one for the first gathering), marking two or three ideas that you find challenging, and mentally composing that challenge as a Query to offer the group. John Cowan, Lois Yellowthunder, Howard Vogel are leading the sessions.

The Alternatives to Violence Project, a program of Friends for a Non-Violent World, is offering a first level Community Workshop, an experiential intensive workshop focusing on non-violent communication, conflict resolution, and interpersonal relationships. A unique feature of AVP is its spiritual base, called Transforming Power – the power to change. The majority of AVP workshops are hosted by state and federal correctional facilities. This Community Workshop offers an introduction to the program, an opportunity for community members to learn to use transformative power in their own individual lives, and is the first step in training to be an AVP facilitator in the future. The Community Workshop will be offered here, Jan 30th and 31st. Registration is limited. Contact Richard McLemore via email at avprichardm(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)gmail.com or call him at 651-644-5851.
Sliding Scale Fee – suggested tuition of $75-$300. Scholarships are available and no one is turned away for lack of funds. Registration includes meals and snacks. More information about this international program can be found at www.avpusa.org.

See posters for the local American Friends Service Committee’s winter Freedom School which be held at the end of this month. If you can help by supplying any of the following items: a box of ball point pens (enough for 60 people)…one pack of markers…water (either bottles or gallon jugs)…approximately 70 soft drinks (coke, diet coke, sprite, root beer, orange soda)…160 granola bars…100 individual bags of potato chips, doritos, cheetos, etc….120 paper plates…120 paper cups…120 napkins…120 plastic forks, spoons, knives, contact Sharon Goens-Bradley at SGoens(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)afsc.org

The local Quaker school, Friends School of Minnesota (FSM) in St. Paul, would like to increase the number of Friends participating in school governance. In order to build connections with the local meetings Quakers willing to lend their expertise and connections to the Committee on Trustees (nominating committee) are being sought. FSM’s mission statement says: “Our mission is to prepare children to embrace life, learning, and community with hope, skill, understanding and creativity. We are committed to the Quaker values of peace, justice, simplicity and integrity.” The school, founded on Quaker principles, is in its 26th year of providing progressive education and community building in the Twin Cities. If you are willing to get involved please contact the school at 651-917-0636, or speak to John Kraft, Bird Anderson, or Doug Herron.

Mohja Kahf is speaking (via Skype) on nonviolent grassroots activism in Syria Dec 29th at 7:00, Plymouth Congregational Church (1900 Nicollet Av, Mpls.). Mohja Kahf is the author of Friends for a Non-Violent World’s special report, “Then and Now: The Syrian Revolution to Date – A Young Nonviolent Resistance and the Ensuing Armed Struggle.” She has also written for the Fellowship of Reconciliation’s Syrian Information web page since September 2011, and co-authored with Maciej Bartkowski the two part series, “The Syria Resistance: a tale of two struggles” for the open Democracy E-zine. She is a member of the Syrian Nonviolent Movement, and is a well-known poet, performance artist, novelist, and full professor of comparative literature at the University of Arkansas, where she has taught Middle East studies with courses in Palestinian Literature, Syrian Literature and Arab Women’s Writing. She is a signatory to the U.S. Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. Co-hosted by FNVW.

COMMUNITY EVENTS

Always Lost is on exhibit at Minneapolis Community and Technical College through mid-January. Featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning combat photographs and literary meditations on the nature of war, Always Lost: A Meditation on War brings home the personal and collective costs of war and honors those who died in Iraq and Afghanistan. You can watch an intro to the exhibit at wnc.edu/always_lost or see “News” at minneapolis.edu .

OFFICE HOURS

Pat Jones will be in the office Fri. and Sat..
Carolyn VandenDolder, the Administrative Assistant, will be in Fri. Bulletin deadline, noon Friday. Bulletin items can be phoned in to the office, emailed or written and put in the bulletin file of the blue box.