Westport Friends Meeting

December Newsletter

Arise, shine; for the light is come and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and the gross darkness the people; but the Lord shall arise upon thee and his glory shall be seen upon thee.

- Isaiah 60:1-2

2-4 JHYM Retreat at Woolman Hill 4 Ministry and Counsel, 11:45 AM 11 Property Committee, 8:30 AM Advent Potluck after worship. See details. 18 Monthly Meeting for Business 11:45 20 Market Ministries 24 Christmas Eve Service followed by fellowship and refreshments in the Community House. See Ministry and Counsel for details. Dates to Save: Jan 8 Second Sunday Discussion See details at right. Jan. 28 Sandwich Quarterly Meeting at Westport Meeting Details in Jan. Newsletter.

9 Cooper Tatman 20 Ruth Jennings 27 Lucy Ann Lepreau 30 Charlie Bullis

Everyone is invited to our annual Advent Potluck following worship on December 11th. In addition to tasty foods and desserts, we will also be treated to Steve Correia’s (almost) annual Christmas Play, followed by the singing of Christmas carols. Mark Bauer will prepare a turkey, Deana Chase will cook a ham and Barbara Wicks will provide a vegetarian meat loaf. Friends are asked to bring additional dishes and desserts to compliment these entrées.

Ministry and Counsel: Christmas Eve Service will be held December 24 at 7:00 PM. Everyone is welcome! Bring your neighbors and relatives; bring the babies, the home-for-the-holidays college students and everyone in between! There will be carols and hymn singing, readings and musical instruments at our annual Christmas Eve Service.

A Second Sunday Discussion will be held January 8th at 11:30. Ministry and Counsel has asked Deana Chase, Marion Athearn and Kevin Lee to plan the program which Kevin will facilitate. In a relaxed, free-flowing and worship-sharing format with newer attenders in mind, we will explore our experience of worship and sense of community as a whole at Westport Meeting.

Finance Committee: Our meeting has successfully completed a necessary and complicated restoration, remaining within budget and on target due to good planning and oversight. The Building Fund is now depleted and has been closed. However, new capital expenditures remain ahead as detailed in the Property Committee’s report to follow.

Financially, we remain solvent and sound but certainly not abundant with funds. Our weekly First-Day offerings remain down, and Friends are encouraged to remember that our meeting also needs ongoing financial support along with other local and global worthy causes. Contributions to the Meeting can be sent to Deana Chase, Treasurer, Westport Monthly Meeting of Friends, 938 Main Road, Westport, MA 02790. Financial questions about the meeting can be directed to Greg Marsello, Clerk of Finance, at 401- 624-9840 or marsello@lern.org.

Property Committee: The committee is still considering what type of utility shed to purchase once Finance gives the go-ahead. Future upgrades include re-shingling the Community House and Residence. PropCom reported that the Meeting’s recent Fall Clean-up Day was well attended and successful. Meetinghouse windows and storms were washed, the kitchen cleaned and de-cluttered and the shed made ready for what else? More books! Thanks to the many Friends who turned out to help!

Religious Education: FDS schedule and program is still in place for all but the last Sunday of every month from 10:20 - 11AM for younger children. Also, Religious Ed. Committee continues to need Friends to sign up to help with this program.

Peace and Social Concerns Committee: The committee recently approved allocating $50 to purchase fresh fruit to be served on Christmas at the Market Ministries Soup Kitchen. The Campaign of Conscience’s project about the Rhode Island Peace Tax Fund, featuring Natalie Baker-Merril, which was originally scheduled for Dec 11 at our meeting, has been rescheduled to January. Date to be announced soon.

New Meeting Directory: Jo Devlin and Gretchen Baker-Smith are working on a new directory of our members and attenders. If you would like to be included in it and have not made this known to one of them yet, please do so as soon as possible. They hope to have it printed and available by Christmas. Call Jo at 508-636-4891 or Gretchen at 508-997-0940. gretchen@jymretreats.org.

The Jr Hi and High School First Day School Group recently started a new schedule of meeting times in order to better accommodate young people's work/sports/retreat/family schedules. They meet on the second Sunday of every month from 10:20 to 11:00 and on the third Wednesday evening from 6-9pm in the Community House. (They stay in Worship all other Sundays.) The Wednesday evening programs will always include supper. More teens are encouraged to join them. Last month, teens shared pizza and then put together a number of cookie kits which were sold as a fundraiser for Katrina Relief efforts. December's evening meeting on the 21st will involve a road trip to the Providence, RI AFSC office to talk with Noah Merrill about how we might get involved in their counter-recruitment efforts in local schools. Anyone interested in joining the group should contact Gretchen Baker-Smith, group leader at 508-997-0940 or gretchen@jymretreats.org.

Annual Oxfam Fundraising: Many Friends contributed to our annual pre-business meeting lunch, piggybacked on the end of the JYM Retreat at our Meeting last weekend. Deana Chase, treasurer, will continue to accept donations from Friends towards this effort for 2 or 3 more weeks. Thank you!

Astronomer and meeting member Greg Stone, has recently launched a new program called Driftway Observatory whose byline is “Hands on the Telescope – Eyes on the Universe...For Folks 8 to 80!” Greg accepts small groups of adults or young people (with parent/guardian) at his home observatory to share his passion for exploring the universe, The program is free. As Greg says, “What I am really striving for here is not astronomy, so much as awareness - I simply see astronomy as one way to help folks wake up to a greater awareness of how special life is.” For more information call Greg at 508-636-4291 or -visit his informative site at http://www.giveyoujoy.net/awe/

Please send items for Newsletter to Kevin Lee. kevin@jymretreats.org. 508-994-1638

Posted by Greg Stone at December 18, 2005 08:24 AM