Choices: Workshops, Reflection Groups, and Mealtime Opportunities at Sessions

Mealtime Opportunities

Looking to connect over a meal? Mealtime Opportunities are drop-in conversations that will take place in the back left quadrant of the Worcester Dining Hall. Read descriptions for the mealtime opportunities here.  

Note on timing of Mealtime Opportunities: Unless otherwise specified, Mealtime Opportunities begin at the following times: Breakfast 7:30 a.m.; Lunch 11:45 a.m.; Dinner 5:15 p.m. Participants are welcome to join the conversation as they are able (it's OK if you miss the start time).

All workshop and reflection group details including time, description and location (including Zoom Rooms) can be found at this link. Click on a selection to read the full description. 

Note: There is a color code. Offerings highlighted in green on on campus only; those highlighted in red are on Zoom only; and those in purple are available both on-site and online are highlighted in purple.

Zoom links for online offerings will be posted on the LinkTree shared with Sessions registrants.

Scroll down to read workshop descriptions and Reflection Group details.

Questions? Contact Program Director Nia Thomas ([email protected])

WORKSHOP DETAILS

Saturday, August 2nd at 3:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

How Do You Know? The Mystery of Leadings

Format: On campus

Location: Integrative Learning Center, ILCS331

Description: Are you a new Friend who is trying to understand how these people around you seem to know that they are called to deliver a message during meeting for worship (or an old Friend with the same question)? Are you trying to make a life decision about what you are called to do professionally or privately? Are you a Friend who can speak to how you have tried to recognize leadings in your life? If you find yourself answering yes to any of the above, then this workshop is for you.

I hope this will be a workshop created by its attenders – where we can talk about times we were led and how we recognized that it was a true calling;  perhaps times where we thought we had a leading but later felt otherwise; how your understanding of leadings has evolved over time; and the testing of leadings.

Bring your questions, insights, faith, and practice. Facilitated by Phil Veatch (Fresh Pond).

Newcomers Reflection Group

Format: On campus

Location: Integrative Learning Center, ILCS311

Description: Are you new or newer to Sessions? This is an opportunity for worshipful small group reflection. Participants will be invited to share out of the silence regarding their Sessions experience and how they sense the Spirit is at work in their lives. An opportunity for connection, reflection, and discernment. Facilitated by Lucy Meadows (Beacon Hill).

Reflection Group for Parents

Format: On campus

Location: Integrative Learning Center   ILCS220

An opportunity for parents of kids ages infant through teens to gather for gently facilitated reflection on the intersection of our parenting and our spiritual journeys. Facilitated by Donn and Diane Weinholtz, Hartford (CT) Meeting. 

Building Belonging - Embracing Abilities and Disabilities

Format: On campus

Location: Integrative Learning Center  ILCN255

Come share your experiences as we explore our personal landscape of decline and growth. Then taking a line from the London Tube - “Mind the Gap!” we ask what do communities need in order to care for our differently-abled selves. Presented by Patti Muldoon - NEYM Aging Resources Consultation and Help (ARCH) Coordinator.

Worship Sharing on Israel and Palestine

Format: On campus

Location: Integrative Learning Center ILCS211

Please join the Israel-Palestine Resource Group (under the care of the Permanent Board) for an opportunity to listen together and to each other in a worship sharing format. Facilitated by Bob Watt (Providence).

Praying - sharing our experiences, questions, and ponderings.

Format: On campus

Location: Integrative Learning Center  ILCS110

A chance to hear from and share with one another about our relationship to prayer; our experiences, questions, ponderings, uncertainties, fears. Sharing and exploring the mysteries of prayer, hopefully deepening or broadening whatever understanding can be had. Facilitated by Allison Randall (Keene).

A Friends School’s Toolbox for Practicing Civil Discourse in Everyday Interaction

Format: On campus

Location: Integrative Learning Center  ILCS140

This scenarios-based workshop on civil discourse offers a glimpse of how students and adults at Moses Brown School are teaching, modeling, and practicing peace work in everyday conversations, and invites Friends to consider how MB’s guiding principles and commitments for civil discourse might be relevant to other contexts. The presentation will offer a brief introduction to the school, share some highlights of current work, and summarize some basic tools for navigating challenging interactions and conversations. Attenders will critically examine MB’s guidance to its community by testing it in scenarios and sharing insights about limitations and possibilities. (This work is connected to MB’s Faith and Practice document, which has been developed over the past year with generous support from the Obadiah Brown Benevolent Fund. Friends who are interested in viewing the draft document will find copies available at Sessions. Facilitated by Jen McFadden (Providence Meeting & Moses Brown School).

Out from Under the Bushel: What's holding us back?!

Format: On campus

Location: Integrative Learning Center ILCN211

We will explore “experimentally” (as Fox might say) ways we could become Publishers of Truth to the world—again. What’s getting in our way? How might we rekindle a longing to share with those around us the ways we’ve experienced the Inward Teacher at work in our lives and community? We’ll practice with each other saying out loud what makes us passionate about our faith—as we could to neighbors or nations, on an airplane ride or on the steps of a federal courthouse. Facilitated by Peter Blood-Patterson (Mt Toby).

[Zoom] Quaker Reconciliation Leaders Revitalize Communities with Imaging

Format: Zoom

Location: Zoom links for online offerings will be posted on the LinkTree shared with Sessions registrants.

"Come and participate in an experiential healing exercise called” "Imaging,"" one of the core competencies of the Quaker Reconciliation Leaders program. Our time together will begin and end with singing chants with Paulette. Imaging is a personal and corporate discernment process taught to Virginia by elder/mentor Elise Boulding, which offers access to our imagination as a place to grieve, forgive and heal. We will do step one of a three-step imaging process: creating an image or words—Upon request, Virginia will offer time after sessions for steps 2 and 3 to make a timeline and an action plan with your image or words. Please have paper and art supplies such as markers or colored pencils with you.  Virginia Swain, Facilitator; Paulette Meier, Quaker Singer/Songwriter; Alberta Guise, Elder.

[ZOOM] Sustaining Peace in Times of Uncertainty: Quaker representation at the United Nations in New York 

Format: Zoom

Location: Zoom links for online offerings will be posted on the LinkTree shared with Sessions registrants.

What does Quaker witness look like on the global stage? This workshop offers a unique opportunity to learn how the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) brings the testimonies of peace into quiet diplomacy at the UN. Come explore how Friends are making a meaningful impact on international policy and how that work is grounded in shared values. Facilitated by Chelsea Comas of the Quaker United Nations Office.

Monday, August 4th at 1:15-2:45 p.m.

Does How We Manage Our Money Matter: Navigating Your Financial Journey

Format: On campus

Location: Integrative Learning Center ILCS140

In this session, we’ll explore the different aspects of a household’s financial journey throughout the life span, from developing a spending plan and saving for the future (including incorporating your values) to estate planning, investing for impact, and being generous.  Facilitated by Lyle Miller and Craig Foor (Everence). 

Disability Awareness

Format: On campus

Location: Integrative Learning Center  ILCN211

Workshop participants will have queries about their experiences with disabilities. There will be time for personal narratives. The workshop is intended for everyone, anyone who wants to learn about or be more comfortable with disability. Facilitated by Whittier Mikkelsen (Worcester).

Doing New Things, learning from different streams in the desert among Friends

Format: On campus

Location: Integrative Learning Center ILCS331

Following this years theme of Doing New Things;Making a way in the streams of the Desert, the coordinators of the Northeast Regions of USFW (Friends Women United International) and of FWCC (Friends World Committee for Consultation), are jointly leading a workshop where everyone shares unique ways individual Friends and local meetings are being enriched by learning from different Quakers without having to travel long distances, especially during these turbulent times. Facilitated by Marian Baker (Weare) and Judy Goldberger (Beacon Hill). 

Campus Protests for Peace and Justice in Palestine/Gaza

Format: On campus

Location: Integrative Learning Center ILCS240

The workshop includes a discussion with a panel of representatives of UMass Faculty, Staff, and Students about protests and administration reactions at UMass last year and other actions to address the on-going massacre and ethnic cleansing in Gaza and West Bank. Participants will be invited to share their own motivations and experiences with protests/actions on Israel/Palestine. The workshop is sponsored by Quaker Advocating Justice for Palestine (https://neym-ip.org/). Facilitate by Steve McKnight (Wellesley).

Being Queer Quakers in Challenging Times

Format: On campus

Location: Integrative Learning Center  ILCN255

If you identify as LGBTQ+, how are we being led to speak and witness Truth?  Where are we finding spaces for nurturing inner strength and outward testimony, particularly for those of us who are trans and non-binary?  Come listen and share your lived experience as we consider queries together, drawing from what has sustained us in the past (including the FLGBTQC community) as we prepare, as led, for the future.  Our time will include 20-30 minutes of meeting for worship. Facilitated by Petra Doan and Liz Kamphausen-Doan (Brunswick).

Let Their Lives Speak: Reading the Journals of Almost-Forgotten Friends

Format: On campus

Location: Integrative Learning Center ILCS311

Many Friends today are familiar with just a few of the best-known Quaker journals, but our Quaker forebears 200 years ago had many more works to choose from where they could read about the religious experience of other Friends. This workshop will allow us to spend time reading about and reflecting on the spiritual journeys of two eighteenth-century Quaker ministers through excerpts from their published journals: Patience Brayton and Samuel Neale. During the workshop, we'll read about and then discuss (in a worship-sharing format) Patience Brayton's leading to travel in the ministry from her home near Swansea, Mass. to Georgia in the early 1770s, and her anti-slavery concern, as well as Samuel Neale's experience, as a young man in eighteenth-century Ireland, of leaving behind a life as a self-described “libertine” and evolving into a Quaker minister. Workshop participants will be encouraged to read about these Friends' lives in a contemplative spirit — much as you might listen to a Friend in your meeting telling you about their spiritual journey. Facilitated by Martha Mangelsdorf and William (Chuck) diGiacomantonio (New Bedford). 

Puente de Amigos Interest Group

Format: On campus

Location: Integrative Learning Center ILCN101

This gathering will offer the opportunity for attendees to talk with Friends in Cuba in real time.   We expect the experience to be useful to people who are interested in the work Puente does and for people who have traveled to Cuba.    It offers an opportunity to share in the spiritual friendship that has been nurtured over 33 years, and it is an invitation to join in supporting this essential ministry as we move forward. Facilitated by Carolyn Stone (Wellesley) and  Richard Lindo (Framingham). 

[ZOOM] Holding people who trouble us in our hearts 

Format: Zoom

Location: Zoom links for online offerings will be posted on the LinkTree shared with Sessions registrants.

Friends’ belief in that of God in everyone is crucial in this troubled time. I believe that those with a different vision of the future have something to teach us.  The workshop offers an opportunity to share stories of your experience with respecting people who trouble you, or conflicts with those you love. We will exchange stories with each other and then worship share with the larger group about the experience. Facilitated by Bruce Hawkins (Northampton).

[HYBRID] Budget Listening Session

Format: Hybrid

Location:  Integrative Learning Center ILCS211.   For Zoom, Zoom links for online offerings will be posted on the LinkTree shared with Sessions registrants..

An opportunity to continue reflection and conversation related to discernment regarding NEYM's budget. Point person: Scot Drysdale, Finance Committee Clerk.

Monday, August 4th at 7:00-8:30 p.m.

The Care and Feeding of All Ministry

Format: On campus

Location: Integrative Learning Center ILCN211

At times in your life you may have a concern so deep it feels like you are compelled forward, much like standing up in open worship, palms sweating, heart beating with a message the Spirit has placed on your heart. But this concern may be a new life direction. Who do you talk to about it? Can your meeting support you, help you discern how to go about, keep you accountable as you put it into practice? Facilitated by Windy Cooler (Baltimore YM).

Racial Justice: Universal Voting on the Path to Prison Abolition

Format: On campus

Location: Integrative Learning Center ILCS140

What is the present (local and regional) Quaker call for enacting racial justice? Using a broad reparative framing, Melchor invites reflection on the importance of dismantling prisons (in the long-term) and advocating for universal voting rights within prisons (in the short-term). The workshop is a call to action with concrete organizing, activist, and advocacy opportunities. If possible, Melchor's collaborator Al-Ameen (currently incarcerated at MCI-Norfolk) will join the conversation (by phone) for this reckoning with questions of Quaker responsibility to undo the violence of prisons.  Facilitator's note: While I am speaking about disenfranchisement and a current (signature) campaign in Massachusetts, I would gladly extend the conversation to other states, such as New Hampshire, where voting rights are similarly revoked from persons serving felony sentences. Facilitated by K. Melchor Q. Hall (former Pendle Hill workshop leader, Friends Meeting at Cambridge attendee).

Challenging Israeli Apartheid: Quakers Joining Apartheid-Free Communities

Format: On campus

Location: Integrative Learning Center ILCS211

What might be a good next step in our faith-based peace and justice ministry on Israel/Palestine? Apartheid-Free Communities is a growing interfaith network convened by the American Friends Service Committee, which has over 600 organizational members, including over 35 Quaker organizations. What is involved in joining? How can it help build a principled nonviolent movement to end the US-backed system of Israeli apartheid and promote peace, justice, and equality for all in Israel/Palestine? What questions do you have?  Facilitated by Steve Chase of Friends Meeting of Washington's Peace and Social Concerns Committee Co-Clerk (Baltimore Yearly Meeting's Palestinian and Israeli Peace and Justice Working Group).

Power of Enough

Format: On campus

Location: Integrative Learning Center ILCN255

How are my relationships and my use of time, energy, and “things” in right balance to contribute to right order in our world, and to free me to do God’s work? What is essential? How much is enough? Through personal reflection, discussion, play, and worship sharing, we will explore queries to discover our power of enough. Presented by Megan Fair of Right Sharing of World Resources, a Quaker organization about right sharing and right relationship. www.rswr.org. Facilitated by Megan Fair (Right Sharing of World Resources).

Board of Manager's Information Session

Format: On campus

Location: Integrative Learning Center   ILCS331

Mike Shade and Erik Philbrook will be talking about the de Burlo Group & Board of Manager's approach to the aspect of Stewardship dealing with responsible investing through a Quaker Values lens.  The discussion will provide a brief history of de Burlo Group's investing approach and the Board of Manager's recent changes to the Quaker Values screening process.

Tuesday, August 5th at 1:15-2:45 p.m.

Strengthen Your Meeting with Spiritual Storytelling

Format: On campus

Location: Integrative Learning Center  ILCN211

We will share stories about our early spiritual experiences and recent spiritual insights. Storyteller Katie Green will offer story structure prompts and queries that will spark memory and creativity. Storytelling makes a heart to heart connection that will enhance communication between Friends and a deeper spiritual bond. Facilitated by Katie Green (Clearwater Meeting in Florida).

The witness of Ramallah Friends School in the time of uncertainty

Format: On campus

Location: Integrative Learning Center ILCS240

I will share updates from a challenging year, reflect on what it means to hold fast to values like integrity, peace, and resilience, and consider how education can be a faithful witness. Together with the participants, we’ll explore how community is nurtured under pressure, and what it means to sustain hope in a challenging world and during the most difficult times. Led by Rania Ma'ayeh (Friends United Meeting, Ramallah Friends School). 

Imaginative Play around Life’s Endings 

Format: On campus

Location: Integrative Learning Center  ILCN155

Come explore end of life with imaginative play.  Using theater techniques, we will act out scenarios of interacting with and responding to various deaths. Come solo or with family or friends - all are welcome. Presented by Patti Muldoon - NEYM Aging Resources Consultation and Help (ARCH) Coordinator and Death Doula, and Mahayana (Yana) Landowne - New York Yearly Meeting ARCH Coordinator and Theater Director. 

Bringing Sustainability Home

Format: On campus

Location: Integrative Learning Center ILCS110

This workshop will encourage participants to discern, through interactive activities, our inward—spiritual, bodily, gut-level—responses to the state, national, and global issues that are concerning us. Together we will imagine the spiritual and concrete ways we can respond to these issues in our personal lives, neighborhoods, and communities about how we or how others in our community whom we are supporting are "bringing sustainability home."  Facilitated by Ruah Swennerfelt (Middlebury). 

Reparations Cafe: What's in it for You?

Format: On campus

Location: Integrative Learning Center   ILCN255

This workshop is for those interested in Reparation and Reparative Actions. Through a series of interactive exercises, we will explore how Friends are called in doing reparations. With a unique building of our collective ideas, we will offer some concrete next steps. This workshop will focus on our relationships  to Indigenous kin. Kim West (Cambridge), Minga Claggett-Borne (Cambridge), Suzanna Schell (Beacon Hill). 

Now what? Faith and action in dark times

Format: On campus

Location: Integrative Learning Center ILCN101

 An exploration of ways to care for self and others while also working to undermine authoritarianism and injustice. Workshop will include circle practice with prompts, worship sharing, and gentle movement. Facilitated by Maggie Fogarty (AFSC NH program, Dover Friends Meeting) and  Rick Wilson (AFSC US economic justice director).

NEYM Archives Show and Tell

Format: On campus

Location: Du Bois Library in room 2601 (26^th floor)

Come see the NEYM Archives in the UMass library; learn how the collection is organized and cared for and view some exciting documents from our history.   SCUA archivist Caroline White will be presenting and available for questions.

Materials will be out on tables around the room, with labels and other information to identify them. I/we will stay, of course, to assist and answer questions as we can. We have pulled an assortment of materials, both from your lists and items that we think might be of interest.

[ZOOM] Power of Enough

Format: Zoom

Location: Zoom links for online offerings will be posted on the LinkTree shared with Sessions registrants.

How are my relationships and my use of time, energy, and “things” in right balance to contribute to right order in our world, and to free me to do God’s work? What is essential? How much is enough? Through personal reflection, discussion, play, and worship sharing, we will explore queries to discover our power of enough. Presented by Megan Fair of Right Sharing of World Resources, a Quaker organization about right sharing and right relationship. www.rswr.org. Facilitated by Megan Fair (Right Sharing of World Resources).

[ZOOM] Does How We Manage Our Money Matter: Navigating Your Financial Journey 

Format: Zoom

Location: Zoom links for online offerings will be posted on the LinkTree shared with Sessions registrants.

In this session, we’ll explore the different aspects of a household’s financial journey throughout the life span, from developing a spending plan and saving for the future (including incorporating your values) to estate planning, investing for impact, and being generous.  Facilitated by Lyle Miller and Craig Foor (Everence).

[HYBRID] Faith and Practice Listening Sessions on Draft Chapter (Testimony)

Format: Hybrid

Location: Integrative Learning Center ILCS140; For Zoom Zoom links for online offerings will be posted on the LinkTree shared with Sessions registrants..

The Faith & Practice Revision Committee has brought a draft chapter to Sessions titled Testimony: The Fruits of the Spirit. You can find it at https://neym.org/engage-texts-currently-under-discussion. This Listening Session is your opportunity to hear how Friends from across New England are responding to the draft, to ask questions of committee members and to give feedback.Phebe McCosker, Clerk of NEYM Faith & Practice Revision Committee.

Tuesday, August 5th at 7:00-8:30 p.m.

Holding people who trouble us in our hearts

Format: On campus

Location: Integrative Learning Center ILCS110

Friends’ belief in that of God in everyone is crucial in this troubled time. I believe that those with a different vision of the future have something to teach us.  The workshop offers an opportunity to share stories of your experience with respecting people who trouble you, or conflicts with those you love. We will exchange stories with each other and then worship share with the larger group about the experience. Facilitated by Bruce Hawkins (Northampton).

Sustaining Peace in Times of Uncertainty: Quaker representation at the United Nations in New York

Format: On campus

Location: Integrative Learning Center   ILCS140

What does Quaker witness look like on the global stage? This workshop offers a unique opportunity to learn how the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) brings the testimonies of peace into quiet diplomacy at the UN. Come explore how Friends are making a meaningful impact on international policy and how that work is grounded in shared values.  Facilitated by Chelsea Comas of the Quaker United Nations Office.

[ZOOM] Worship Sharing on Israel and Palestine

Format: Zoom

Location: Zoom links for online offerings will be posted on the LinkTree shared with Sessions registrants.

Please join the Israel-Palestine Resource Group (under the care of the Permanent Board) for an opportunity to listen together and to each other in a worship sharing format.  All ages welcome. Facilitated by Leslie Manning (Durham). 

[ZOOM] Quaker Connect: a Laboratory for 21st Century Quakerism

Format:  Zoom

Location: Zoom links for online offerings will be posted on the LinkTree shared with Sessions registrants.

Join Friends World Committee for Consultation Section of the Americas Executive Secretary Evan Welkin and Program Operations & Communications Coordinator Philip Maurer to learn more about the Quaker Connect program, a new initiative currently accepting applications from monthly meetings and churches across the Section. Quaker Connect is a 2 year program inspired by the convergent Friends model, inviting meetings to experiment in their local communities with support from spiritual companions, a cohort of other apprentices across the Americas and a curriculum developed by FWCC. Join us to learn more about the program, ask about whether it is right for your meeting, and receive more information about the application process. Facilitated by Even Welkin and Philip Maurer (FWCC).