March 15, 2015

MEETING SCHEDULE AND PROGRAM

TODAY

9:00 AM meeting for worship (unprogrammed): care of meeting, Robert Raymond

10:15 AM Hear about joys! Meeting and creating relationships with Quakers and Meetings in the upper midwest – Friends will share their experiences with Northern Yearly Meeting, our larger-area Quaker association.

11:15 AM meeting for worship (semi-programmed): speaker, Anne Lawton; Kathy Webster, musician; care of meeting, Marilyn Johnson

BAKE SALE TODAY! The First Day School children had an overnight at the meetinghouse last night and baked up LOTS of goodies for you to purchase today! They hope to raise LOTS of money to support Feed My Starving Children so LOTS of kids will not go to bed hungry tonight. Thank you!!

The end of March is the close of the Meeting’s business and fiscal year. If you have reimbursement requests outstanding, please fill out a reimbursement form, (available in the top of the blue file box in the long hall,) attach your receipt, and put in the appropriate committee file (in the blue box.) Committee clerks, please check your file often, approve requests and place them in the reimbursement request file of the blue box. Thank you Friends!

UPCOMING MEETING EVENTS

Next Sunday, March 22nd, at 10:15: Quaker testimonies with Pat Jones. What is a testimony? What was the lived testimony of Friends 350 years ago? What is the lived testimony of Friends today? What Quaker testimonies have you heard of? Peace, equality, community, simplicity, integrity, others?

There will be an organizational meeting for clerks of committees next Sunday, March 22nd, at 12:30. Clerks, please plan to attend! If you are cannot come, please find another committee member to go in your place.

SIMPLICITY is an historic Friends’ testimony and a follow-up to recent discussions of climate disruption. Come read aloud and discuss two Friends Journal articles – “Choice Poverty” and “Sustainable Simplification: Shuns, ‘Shoulds’ and Sacrifice”, this Wed, March 18th, 7 pm, George and Elizabeth Watson Memorial Discussion Group. Host John Stuart. Drop-ins and one-timers, regulars and curious, everyone is welcome!

Game Night! There will be a family-friendly game night Sat, April 25th, 7-9:30. Put the date on your calendar and start considering which board game you’d like to bring!

The draft of a proposed planning process to care for the future of the Meeting is available on the website: minneapolisfriends.org/2015/01/11/care-of-the-future/ Friends are encouraged to take a look and hold the Meeting’s planning process and its future in prayer and reflection. Opportunities for participation along the way are outlined in the draft. Comments and questions for now can be directed to Jeannette, Gayle, Pat or Ranae. Plan to attend the April 19th and May 17th adult programs that are the next step in the process.

Welcome and thank you to Susan, the new Meeting custodian!

OFFERING BOX ALERT: To meet our approved 2014-15 annual budget (April 1, 2014 – March 31, 2015) of $112,875, we need $20,000 in additional contributions before the end of this month. However, we expect to underspend our budget by $6,000. The gap between income and spending that we need to fill in the next three weeks is $12,000 – approximately $4,000 per week for today, the 22nd, and the 29th. To date, our average weekly contribution is $1,900.

OTHER HAPPENINGS AMONG QUAKERS

Loaves and Fishes, March 30th, Holy Rosary Church 2424 – 18th Ave So. Shifts: 2:30-4:30, cooking; 4:45-6:45, serving; 5:30-7:00, clean-up. Also needed, 20 batches of cookies (4 dozen to a batch) – fruit / cookies or bars on the healthier side encouraged! Help is needed in all areas, especially as many regulars are out of town. Look for sign up sheet by bulletins.

The Northern Yearly Meeting spring interim session is next weekend, March 27th and 28th, in Stevens Point, WI. Come for worship, business, reflection and fellowship with Friends from meetings throughout the region. Starts Fri night at 7:00 and winds up Sat late afternoon with the option to stay overnight and worship with Steven’s Point Friends Sunday morning. Over-night hospitality available. Carolyn is planning to go. Contact her for more or with interest.

Chuck Fager, Quaker activist and writer, will speak at a 1:30 panel at the Voting Rights Conference (see below). His topic is “Reflections on the Struggle in Selma.” Chuck was in Selma 50 years ago and also last weekend for the commemoration. He was also in jail with Martin Luther King, Jr. and has written books on both topics. Chuck will speak here at MFM on Sat, April 11th at 2:30. Help with publicity, (Ralph is working on this – other help needed), greeting, visitors, coffee / tea, etc. needed. See Pat.

Phil Lord, the American Friends Service Committee Clerk of the Board, has an article entitled “A Powerful Hope” in the new issue of Friends Journal. Read it at: friendsjournal.org/powerful-hope/

COMMUNITY EVENTS

Every Church a Peace Church: potluck supper meeting tomorrow, Mon the 16th, 6:30 p.m. at St. Joan of Arc Church, 4537 – 3rd Ave S, Mpls; speaker will be David Weiss on An Apocalyptic Peace? Pacifism and the end of the world (as we know it). David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, committed to doing ‘public theology;’ thinking out loud in plain (and poetic) English about how faith informs the way we view, encounter, and respond to God, the world, and each other.

Conference to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act will be hosted by the Hubert Humphrey School of Public Affairs, Fri, Apr 10, 8 AM – 6 PM, Cowles Auditorium. Free and open to the public but registration required. Register for half or full day: hhh.umn.edu

OFFICE HOURS
Pat Jones will be in the office Wednesday from 2:00-5:00 and other times Wed, Thurs, Fri. and Sat.
Carolyn VandenDolder, the Administrative Assistant, will be out of the office this week. 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.