SOUTHAMPTON FRIENDS MEETING

710 Gravel Hill Road, Southampton PA 18966

215-364-0581

NEWSLETTER May 2008

Carolyn Eckel, clerk, H-215-355-5925

C-215-290-2926

Robert Maly, newsletter editor, 215-364-0581

Website: www.quakersbucks.org/soton.htm

Meeting for Worship begins at 10:00 AM each Sunday, with childcare available.

Hymn Singing, announcements and social time follow meeting for worship.

Children are always welcome and we provide a program for them when they attend.

"Welcome" signs at the driveway

***Monthly Meeting for business:

May 4, 1:15 AM 2008 at the Meetinghouse

Proposal for signs at driveway "Welcome to Southampton Friends Meeting"

Plans for the work day

Proceeding on Quaker Quest

Reports on the Bucks Quarter fun day

"Welcome" signs at the driveway

WORK PARTY SATURDAY MAY 30TH

9:00 AM –12 noon bring a sandwich for lunch

Potential jobs: we need all hands

Tree removal toward Carlin

Trim back brush around parking lot

CFL bulbs – Neo light less mercury, no lead-bulbs

Crack dining room wall - spackling

Pavers abutting each other with a stone base for path, or wood chips enclosed. For a path

Addresses of new residents from Kelly S-E

Bucks Quarter Singing Group meets for singing and worship the first Wednesday of most months at Makefield Meeting at 7:30 PM. Session May 7, 2008, then June 4th.

News of Members

We had recent visits from Kaki Sjogren, member, and Guiling Zheng Corley, who attended regularly a few years ago.

Quiring Vacation

Ethel Quiring, with Kathryn and Nancy, flew to central Kansas for a week over Easter to visit Karl’s siblings and cousins. They missed his next younger brother who passed away a few weeks before they got there but were glad to visit with his wife, with Karl’s older sister (age 94) and her husband, another brother, and seven cousins of Karl’s. Because it was Easter, they were lucky to see cousins of Nancy and Kathryn visiting from western KS, Arizona and Missouri . There were walks in the arboretum, finding gravesites, and experiencing Easter church service (quite different than the last time they were there) in the small town of Goessel where Karl went to high school. Kansas weather was better than that in the rest of the country. The rain was over, the sound of the singing of frogs had come, the winter wheat was greening nicely. Written by Nancy Quiring

Report from our FCNL contact

In response to this year’s request by the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL – our Quaker lobby in Washington, DC) for guidance in setting forth their legislative priorities for the 111th Congress (2209 – 2010), Southampton Monthly Meeting is sending them the concerns we agreed upon at April’s Meeting for Business. We are asking that FCNL work as strongly as possible to:

• Replace military forces with peace workers and diplomats for preventing and resolving deadly conflicts.

• Eliminate use of torture and secret prisons.
• Establish a living wage and universal health care for all people.
• Acquire large-scale funding for conservation and for rapid employment of renewable energy sources.
• Restore integrity to our government’s use of scientific information, and boost funding that enhances health services and environmental justice – such as for eradicating diseases, or for fully researching consequences of releasing genetically engineered crops before distribution into poor countries.

Harry Rothwell, FCNL contact for

Southampton M. M. thanks to Harry for telephoning meeting members and attenders for their opinions.

Mother’s Day Walk for Peace

The Second Annual Mother's Day Walk and Talk for Peace will take place in Doylestown on Saturday, May 10. The public is invited to gather at the Courthouse for a sendoff by Mayor Libby White at 1:30. Walkers will be escorted by a bagpiper through town to the Mount Carmel Peace Garden where Christa Tinari will speak on Educating for Peace and Justice - Creating A Better Tomorrow Today. She will report on the International Summit of Conflict Resolution that she attended and give a brief overview of Peace and Justice Educational Initiatives that are happening around the globe.

"Quaker Quest": We need to make plans for publicity and organizing. See who is willing to go for training to be a speaker or be there to talk with guests. Bob Dockhorn is willing to help recruit people from other Meetings to help work on this. Ideas about when to get it started, (September, October?) what day of the week, etc. The guideline booklets, the various thinking of other Friends, are Twelve Quakers and: God, Jesus, Simplicity, Worship, Pacifism.

MINISTRY AND WORSHIP AT WRIGHTSTOWN MEETING May 16

6 PM Brown bag dinner 7 PM program :

Readings from Emerson’s "Self Reliance" which speak to Friends

BUCKS QUARTERLY MEETING AT

PLUMSTEAD MEETING

SUNDAY MAY 18

9:00 9:30 AM Registration,

9:30-10:30 AM Meeting for Worship,

11:00-12 noon – Arthur Larrabee General Secretary of Phila. Yearly Meeting will speak on QUAKER DECISION MAKING, Discernment Clearness

12:00 - 1:00 Brown bag lunch, Plumstead Meeting providing beverage and dessert.

1 PM to 3 PM Meeting for Worship for Business.

A note from your Clerk:

I have been clerk of Southampton MM for about five years now and I am wearing out. During that time I have taken on additional jobs, or not given up those I had already been doing. In addition to clerking, I do the newsletter, secretary of trustees, programs, ministry and worship. To be truthful, I am wearing out. I think the term should be two to three years, with an assistant clerk. About a year and a half ago I developed a head tremor, somewhat controlled by medication, but not completely. This makes it very difficult to concentrate on a computer screen for long periods of time. My work life takes a lot of energy also, being there fully for each patient I see. We must figure out how we can support each other and make this job doable. I love Southampton Meeting and want to see it continue, and see Quaker Quest come here. But these take a lot of time and energy. I would like to discuss this at Monthly Meeting.

Sincerely, Carolyn Eckel

YEARLY MEETING SUMMER SESSIONS

July 30-Aug. 3 – at Desales University, Allentown The 328th Sessions of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Summer Sessions. We will come together as a Yearly Meeting to live our questions with faith and courage and to conduct business in the manner of Friends.

In plenary Meeting for Business we’ll explore the Governance Report from Interim Meeting, the future of the Arch Street Meeting House, our Testimonies, and the Budget. We’ll have reports from the 2009 Gathering on Peace, epistles from the Standing Committees, and we’ll experiment with a process for discerning the Yearly Meeting’s priorities.

For updates and details on the schedule for Yearly Meeting Sessions, please see our ever-evolving web site: http://www.pym.org/annualsessions. Contact: Michael Gagné, Sessions Coordinator, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends at michaelg@pym.org; office: (215) 241-7238 or 800-220-0796, Ext. 7238 / Fax: 215-241-7045

Help with children’s sessions is needed! Use you creativity!

Southampton Friends Meeting Page 2 May 2008