Third Month, 2001

QUERIES for the Third Month: PARTICIPATION IN MEETINGS

• Do your resident members attend meetings regularly and punctually?
• To what extent are your meetings for worship attended by persons not in membership, and are they welcomed and encouraged to continue attendance?
• Are your meetings for business held in the spirit of love, understanding and forbearance? Do you seek the right course of action in a patient search for unity?
• Do you take your share in them?
• Do you maintain your respect for others as persons however strongly you may differ in opinion?
• Do you help in the financial support of the meeting?

CALENDAR NOTES

• Meeting for Worship for celebration of the life of James Clark Gillespie will be held at the Meetinghouse at 11 a.m. on Saturday, March third. After the Meeting there will be a Potluck at Annie's.
• In observance of our Golden Anniversary as a Meeting, Ken Leibman will tell us about the events and people surrounding the founding of our Meeting fifty years ago.
• Topic: "Improvisation on a Theme"; Readings by Patricia Loring (postponed last month.)

MEETING NEWS

• Laura Winefordner will soon have for us the names and needs of our UnChristmas family. We will assemble the gifts on April 1st at our Chain of Prayer observance.
• Our thanks to Bill Mitchell, treasurer extraordinaire, for raising the monthly treasurer's report to an art form. He reports that the receipts for contributions made in 2000 have been mailed, and should have been received by now. Anyone who needs a receipt and has not has not received it should contact him.
• Congratulations to Monica, Perry and Alexandria Keidel on the arrival of little Nicholas John into their lives. He was born on Jan 26 in Fort Wayne, Indiana where Monica is now caring for him until the legal formalities are complete.
• Gene Beardsley, one of our representatives to the Gainesville Community Ministries Board, has placed a box in the Meeting room for contributions of food and personal items. The most needed items are shampoo, tooth paste, and other basic grooming items (no mouthwash). All items will be welcome and will be distributed by the Ministry.
• Bound to Violence: The United Nations and the Modern Nation State? will be the subject of Dr. Lemuel Johnson from University of Michigan and Visiting Professor at the Center for African Studies, UF. The UNA is sponsoring the event on Thursday, March 1 at 8:p.m. It will be held in the United Way Building at 6031 NW 1st Place in Gainesville.
• In January, Mona and Walter Morris attended a meeting of Muslim students on campus who are calling on our interfaith community to join them in collecting school supplies for children in Iraq. At our February Business Meeting we agreed to join this effort. Please place your contributions in the designated box in the First Day Room by March 15. They will be added to the interfaith effort and will travel with the Omran bus for delivery to Iraq.
• The Omran Bus Tour, highlighting the plight of Iraqi children under the sanctions, is coming to town March 15 to 17. On the eve of the bus's arrival, March 14, at 7:30 pm there will be speeches and an Iraqi music concert at the Thomas Center. On March 15 at 7:30 pm there will be videos, testimonies of eyewitnesses and live Iraqi music at the Reitz Union Ballroom. On Friday, the 16 at 7:30 pm , a Mid-Eastern dinner will be served at St Augustine's Catholic Student Center. Rahim al-haj will again perform on his ancient stringed instrument and guest speakers will speak.
• Thank You to our First Day teachers. On February 3, Dick Beardsley focused on the theme of compassion, especially as exemplified by Elizabeth Fry and her work on prison reform. On February 17, Kamal Feriali.continued the theme with a concern for Iraqi children. The children plan to send art work and letters to children in Iraq (part of a nationwide effort) and they made and served oatmeal cookies as a gift to the Meeting. Scheduled to teach in March are Judy Shea on the 4th and Annie McPherson on the 18th.
• Mystery Member: Who in our Meeting almost killed him - or her - self making gun powder? Contributed by our Newsletter Special Correspondent extraordinaire, Gene Beardsley.

Other News

• From the FCNL: "The Friends Committee on National Legislation calls for the relief of suffering for the Iraqi people through an immediate end to economic sanctions against Iraq and a strengthened embargo on military material. Sanctions have not served as a humane alternative to war: they have had the same effect on the civilian population as military force. We hold no illusions about Saddam Hussein's brutal regime or potential threat. Yet the policy pursued for the last ten years has come at the cost of one million lives and the virtual destruction of an entire nation."
• From the AFSC: "What is the Campaign of Conscience? While encouraging the US government to end all non-military sanctions on Iraq, the Campaign will identify a range of items desperately needed in Iraq from Humanitarian supplies to items for rebuilding Iraq's destroyed civilian infrastructure. Donations from campaign participants will be used to purchase and ship the goods. We will apply for licenses from the US Treasury Department, and will ship these items whether or not we are granted a license."
• In addition to the events listed under Meeting News, on Thursday afternoon, March 15 there will be a protest walk here in Gainesville starting from the main Post Office and proceeding to Rep. Thurman's offices.