First Month, 2005

QUERIES for the First Month: What is the State of Your Meetings for Worship and Business?

• Are your meetings for worship and business held in expectant waiting for Divine guidance?
• Is there a living silence in which you feel drawn together by the presence of God in your midst?
• Do your meetings give evidence that Friends come to them with hearts and minds prepared for communion with God?
• Are they a source of strength and guidance for daily living?

Sunday Jan 2	12:30 pm	Forum
Wednesday Jan 5	7:30 pm	Meeting for Healing
Saturday Jan 8	2:00 pm	Memorial Meeting for Judy Shea
Sunday Jan 9	12:30 pm	Meeting for Business
Sunday Jan 16	12:30 pm 1:00 pm	Potluck at rise of meeting Quaker Earthcare Witness Committee
Wednesday Jan 19	7:30 pm	Meeting for Healing
Saturday Jan 22	To be announced	Moving workday
Sunday Jan 23	9:30 am 12:30 pm	Peace and Social Concerns Committee Bible Study
Friday Jan 28	6:00 pm	Quaker Study Group
Saturday January 29	9:00 pm	Air Potato Roundup
Sunday February 6	11:00 am	Last meeting for worship in the old Meetinghouse

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CALENDAR NOTES

• Most of the things which we are taking from the old meetinghouse will be packed and stored on Saturday January 22nd. The chairs and other things needed to hold Meeting for Worship here will be dealt with on February 6, following the final meeting for worship in the old meetinghouse..
• Beginning next Sunday, February 13, we will meet at the Hillel's new building, which is the blue and white building on the North side of University Avenue between 20th Dr and 20th St, opposite the parking lot for the O'Connell Center. We will meet there until the new meetinghouse is completed.
• The Forum this month will be a Threshing Session on the SEYM Faith and Practice proposed section, Monthly Meeting.
• After potluck this Sunday, we will study and discuss another chapter of Simpler Living, Compassionate Life.
• Bible Seminar will continue the study of what we really know about Jesus. Don Smith will lead.
• Join us at the Buskirks in a celebration of Community. Enjoy the company of F/friends, delicious food and a chance to brainstorm study-topics for the upcoming year.

The Quaker Market Subcommittee would like to express to each and every fundraising-supporter out gratitude for the dedication and love each expressed for the project. You were the reason the project was able to raise money for the new Meetinghouse. Your hard work, creative energy, and determination brought forth more than funds for our Meeting. The community spirit that is blossoming, as we grow closer as F/friends, will carry us into the challenges of tomorrow. Thank you for expressing the truest of love, focus of purpose, and the gentleness of spirit. It was a most inspiring experience.

Quaker Market Subcommittee member Sheree Sims.

MEETING NEWS

• Sayonara, Tek. It is with a great sense of loss that we say goodby to our good F/friend Tek as he returns to his homeland in Japan.
• Welcome Joyce Chandler and Earl, here for four months from their Meeting in Storrs Connecticut.
• Moving Day is coming! We need boxes to pack up First Day School and kitchen. To make it easier for those packing, please claim anything - dishes, utensils or food- that you have left in the kitchen at one time or another.
• Peace and Social Concerns Committee member, Patricia Ulrey, writes:

  I attended the protest at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia, with my friends, Linda Pollini and Bob Ellenberg the weekend of November 20th. Linda and Bob have attended this protest for several years, but this was my first time. My interest in participating in this protest stems from the knowledge that thousands of Somoza's (Nicaragua's dictator until 1978) soldiers trained at the School of the Americas. Bob has written an excellent essay that mirrors my perspective on this sublime experience. I am happy to report there were also other people from Gainesville representing several Peace/Social Justice groups.

  Please check the SOA website: www.soaw.org (Ellenberg's letter is also on our bulletin board in the kitchen)

• FROM THE LIBRARY COMMITTEE:

  By January 9, 2005, we expect all library books to be returned to the library. This is a special appeal to please return the books by Arnold Von der Porten, which we note have not all been checked out but that have been borrowed. It is wonderful that there is such interest in the work of a fellow Friend but we do wish to take care of our collection. Before the end of January the library books and other reading materials will be packed up and placed into storage until we have moved into our new building.

  Over the summer and into the fall we have completed a card index that will help to computerize our holdings. We will know exactly what we have in the collection and we will be able to trace and find individual items as they are borrowed and returned.

  A Library Wish List idea has been designed. It will appear at irregular intervals and will be published in this newsletter. We are asking you to purchase a book, read it and enjoy it, then donate it to the library. In this way our library will continue to grow and we will save some library committee-dollars. The price range will be from $2.50 to $40. To prevent unnecessary duplication please let Sybil Brennan know which books you will be buying. The following items are available through the Friends General Conference Book Store, E-Mail: bookstore@fgcquaker.org or telephone 1-(800)-0966-4556.

  Friends Memorial Meeting for Worship from Wooster (Ohio) Monthly Meeting	10 @ $0.35	$3.50
  Principles of the Quaker Business Meeting	5 @ $1.00	$5.00
  The Gathered Meeting by Thomas Kelly	10 @ $0.25	$2.50
  And to Think We Thought We'd Never be Friends by Mary Ann Hoberman. Dragonfly, 2003.		$6.99
  The Flower Hunter: William Bartram, America's First Naturalist by Deborah Kogan Ray. Farrar, Strous, Giroux, 2004		$17.00
  Living the Peace Testimony: The Legacy of Howard and Anna Brinton by Anthony Manousos. Pendle Hill, 2004		$4.00
  Transforming Power for Peace by Lawrence Apsey, Quaker Press, FGC, 2002 $8.95
  Lives That Speak: Stories of Twentieth-Century Quakers. Quaker Press, FGC, 2004		$14.95
  Elizabeth Fry: Britain's Second Lady on the Five Pound Note by Dennis Bardens. Chanadon, 2004.		$30.00.
  The Quakers in America by Thomas Hamon. Columbia University press, 2003		$40.00

  Sybil Brennan, Clerk Library Committee

There is not a fragment in all nature, for every relative fragment of one thing is a full harmonious unit in itself. When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

John Muir,
naturalist, writer, conservationist, founder of The Sierra Club