January 4, 2015

MEETING SCHEDULE AND PROGRAM

TODAY

9:00 AM meeting for worship (unprogrammed): care of meeting, Doug Herron

10:15 AM Linda Coffin, Minneapolis Friends Meeting’s historian, will show slides and tell stories from earlier eras. Come learn about the Meeting’s history. Bring your Quaker questions!

11:15 AM meeting for worship (semi-programmed): Jeannette Raymond, speaker; Dave Bostrom, musician; care of meeting, David Woolley

Nursery care today is downstairs at 11:15. Earlier childcare can be arranged as needed.

You are welcome to the monthly potluck lunch today! – at the rise of semi-programmed worship. Please label your pot-luck item/s with ingredients! Also, look for ways to help – clear / wash dishes; wipe tables and put away chairs; grab more plates or forks as needed – any job is easier when there are lots of hands helping!

UPCOMING MEETING EVENTS

Next Sunday at 9:45: monthly meeting for business. There is a business meeting at 9:45 every second Sunday of the month. All F(f)riends are welcome to this act of faithful discernment and community.

Read aloud and discuss an article on White Narcissism from the Sept issue of Friends Journal. The George and Elizabeth Watson reading group will meet here on Weds, Jan. 14th, 7 pm, (instead of the third Weds. schedule). All are welcome.

SIGN UP TODAY: Build community and get to better know and be known! Outreach and Welcoming Committee is sponsoring a series of home potlucks in February, March and April. Fact sheets and sign-up sheets are on the elevator table. Did we mention sign up today?

Hannah Graf Evans, a Friends Committee on National Legislation program associate, will be visiting the Twin Cities at the end of January and will be speaking here at the meetinghouse on Wed, Jan 28th, at 7 PM. Come hear from this recent Macalester graduate, now contributing to the Quaker lobby effort on Capitol Hill. Doug, MFM’s FCNL liaison, host.

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. Copies of the budget are on the long table. Thank you, Friends, for your generous support of the Meeting in all manner of ways.

OTHER HAPPENINGS AMONG QUAKERS

Prayerful reading, Lectio Divina (Divine Reading), or in Quakerese, worship sharing, will be offered from 12 – 12:30, Thurs, Jan 8th, Kenwood Isles. Light lunch to follow.

The Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP), an experiential intensive series of workshops which offer training in non-violent communication, conflict resolution, and interpersonal relationships, is offering a first level training HERE, Jan 30th and 31st. Come prepared to help others discover their power to chose alternatives to violence in their lives and discover your own need for these skills. Registration is limited; contact Richard at the Friends for a Non-Violent World office for information and registration, avprichardm(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)gmail.com, or call 651-644-5851. Sliding Scale Fee – suggested tuition of $75-$300. Scholarships are available. Registration includes meals and snacks. More at avpusa.org. MN AVP is sponsored by FNVW.

The local Quaker school, Friends School of MN (FSM) in St. Paul would like to build connections with local meetings and increase the number of Friends participating in school governance. Are you willing to lend their expertise and grouding to the Committee on Trustees (nominating committee)? 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.

Twin Cities Friends Meeting is hosting a forum of queries and responses to the challenges offered in Rex Ambler’s The Quaker Way; 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 night), marking two or three ideas that you find challenging and using it / them to form a query to offer the group. John Cowan, Lois Yellowthunder, Howard Vogel are leading the sessions. RSVP to stillsittingJohn(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)gmail.com

There’s a Quaker channel on You Tube! Quaker Speak is a project developed by Friends Journal, Friends General Conference, Quaker Volunteer Service and Quaker, Jon Watts. Subjects covered are: worship – speaking, silent waiting, the gathered meeting, Quaker beginnings, faithfulness, activism, racism, among others. Check it out! http://quakerspeak.com/

COMMUNITY EVENTS

Local Anti-Racism resources: the following are resources for people wanting to be involved in anti-racism work. • Ferguson Response Tumblr – http://fergusonresponse.tumblr.com/tagged/MN. This link takes you directly to MN-based actions; go to its homepage and do a search for the state you are interested in. • Black Lives Matter Minneapolis – Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/BlackLivesMatterMinneapolis. This group is organized primarily by young people of color, a number of whom have been in Ferguson, and who organized the recent shut down of I-35. • To receive text updates from Black Lives Matter Minneapolis, text “@blacklives” to 23559. • Neighborhoods Organizing for Change – FB page and website https://www.facebook.com/mnnoc, or http://mnnoc.org.

There will be a MN Interfaith Power and Light community meeting Wed, Jan 7th, 6:30pm, at Gandhi Mahal Restaurant, 3009 27th Ave S., Mpls. Gather and design winter actions focusing on the Clean Energy and Jobs Day at the Capitol, National Preach-In on Climate, and Love your Planet 2, our annual fundraiser and comedy night!

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 Wednesday from 2:00-5:00 and other times Wed, Fri. and Sat.
Carolyn VandenDolder, the Administrative Assistant, will be in Wed. afternoon and Fri. Bulletin deadline, noon Thur. Bulletin items can be phoned in to the office, emailed or written and put in the bulletin file of the blue box.