Young Friends Winter Gathering

1. Making art

3. Attending the George School winter play, "The importance of being Ernest."2. Show & Tell (wasn't this the best part of elementary school!) Bringing art you have made to share!

Workshops to date:

Sara DiMino- Basic Photography Skills: This workshop would go over some basic tips on how to improve your photography skills and make your work look cleaner and more interesting. Afterwards we will go try out newly developed skills! Please try to bring a camera to this workshop, though if you don't have one, I'm sure there will people you can borrow from or share with

Sara DiMino- Cyanotypes: Cyanotypes, more commonly known as sun prints or nature prints, are formed by placing objects onto UV-light sensitive paper and then leaving them out in the sun for 2-20 minutes depending on the amount of sun available. The sun then exposes the paper, leaving behind shadows of the objects. This activity can be done even on cloudy days! If there is rain we will improvise.

Zan Lombardo - "Everything Is, Indeed, Reaching Out to Everything Else". Strung across the balcony at Newtown Friends Meeting, Zan's 30-foot watercolor will take you through poems, stories and queries. Zan will draw you in, involve you in discussion, and ask you to respond to questions about how art makes a better world.

Tim Mammel- Creating By Committee. Do committees kill creativity? We will set out to demonstrate thatit's possible for a committee to create something remarkable, being greater than the sum of all its parts. We will create a group sculpture that will express the best of each individual and reflect on the experience of creative collaboration.

Jeff Rosenthal  -  Coffeehouse workshop  - This is a place where people can present their songs, poetry, short stories, or other pieces that can be performed.  We will be going around in a circle, so be prepared to present more than once. I will have a guitar if anyone needs to borrow one.  

Newtown Friends Meeting was organized in 1815 by Edward Hicks and a number of his Bucks County neighbors and friends. Today Hicks' is recognized as one of America’s great primitive painters. Edward Hicks’ grave, with the low headstone preferred by Friends, may be found near the sycamore tree across from the front porch of the meeting house that he loved so much. 

Read about: Hicks’s Peaceable Kingdom By John Braostoski,  Friends Journal  February 2000

Saturday night Young Friends will walk about a mile to George School for the student production of the farcical comedy,  "The importance of being Ernest." Some Young Friends are in the cast & crew. 

Free time: During the late afternoon Saturday, Young Friends will have 2 hours unstructured free time. Young Friends go out into the town of Newtown. Young Friends can walk to Newtown Book & Record Exchange, Starbucks, go to the park by Greg Sowiak's house. There may be a "Wink" game upstairs. Of curious note: Newtown is where M. Night Shyamalan's 2002 science fiction film Signs was filmed.

Registration And Financial Details: Cost $80.00. DO NOT STAY AWAY FOR LACK OF MONEY! Scholarship aid is available from the Sergei Thomas -Haley Yarmark Memorial Fund. Please pay what you can and indicate on the registration form how much aid you need. Parents who can afford to donate to the scholarship fund are encouraged to do so. All donations are used to provide scholarship aid to Young Friends whose families could not otherwise afford to send them to these events. 

Special needs: Please give us early warning if you have special needs for diet, food allergies, housing, transportation, etc.

Location: The Newtown Friends Meeting is located at 219 Court Street, Newtown, PA 18940 Easy Access from the Newtown Rte. 413 bypass Google Maps  A short drive (or long walk) from George School. With prior arrangement we can pick you up at the Langhorne SEPTA train Station, on the West Trenton Line.

CAR POOLING LISTS and program updates will be e-mail to you about 10 days before the gathering. 

Accommodations at the Newtown Meeting are on the floor in single-sex rooms. There are no showers. Bring pajamas in which you will be comfortable being seen by the opposite sex and that they will be comfortable seeing you. A Friendly Adult Presence (chaperone) will be present in each room.

BRING Art to share and display, Your own cup with your name on it! warm clothes, rain gear for the walk to George School, sleeping bag, camera, musical instruments, jammies, pillow, towel, and games. Sleeping accommodations are on the floor. A floor pad or air mattress is highly recommended. There are NO Showers at Newtown Meeting.

SOME PRACTICAL REMINDERS: Plan to arrive Friday between 6:00 and 7:00 pm. A simple meal will be served Friday at 6:30 pm. The Program will begin at 8:00 PM. Please plan your transportation home to leave at 12:30 PM Sunday after Meeting for Worship, AFTER we have completed the cleanup.

  Still have questions? Call Cookie Caldwell at (215) 241-7222 or 1-800-220-0796 extension 7222 toll free or by E-mail at ccaldwell [at] pym [dot] org 

Help! Friendly Adult Presences Needed!!!

We need Friendly Adult Presences. If you are able to volunteer please let me know as soon as possible. If you could help recruit appropriate adults from your meeting that would be a great help. Thanks to you and other Friends like yourself, we are able to plan and carry out wonderful events that create opportunities for our young teenagers to explore their own ideas, feelings and understandings of themselves and our constantly-changing world These programs are especially effective in supporting the personal and spiritual journeys of Young Friends, because they take place in the context of a safe, Quaker community of age peers. Ensuring this sense of safety is our highest priority, and thanks to your generous volunteering, we have been able to maintain it.

Who can be a Friendly Adult Presence? You must be over age 21. You must be known in your Monthly Meeting community, or Yearly Meeting, or Quarterly Meeting, or a Friends School for a minimum of six months. We and the Insurance Carrier are leery of adults who drop in out of nowhere and want to work with our kids.

Criminal Back Ground Checks: Our Insurance Carrier is requiring that we do criminal back ground checks on all staff and Volunteer Friendly Adult Presences involved in overnight programs. They have found a way of doing this through a private company that is able to do the back ground checks on line in minutes rather than months like the Pennsylvania State agency. We do the on line criminal back ground check. Once you are cleared you are ready to be a Friendly Adult Presence at any Young Friends or Middle School Friends gathering. This Criminal Back Ground Check needs to be redone every five years.

Here is how it is done. Fill out and sign the "Friendly Adult Presence Form" with references and the "Background Investigation Consent for Volunteer Chaperones." Mail both forms to me, yes, it must be snail mailed, we need an original signature on the consent form. We will then go on line to get the clearance. This information will be kept confidential. Only those who need to see the results will have access.

Current Friendly Adult Presences: If you have already been cleared, then all you need to do is call, write or e-mail me to say that you are coming. Please do not assume that I can read you mind and know that you are coming. Sometimes I can barely read my own mind. -Cookie  ccaldwell [at] pym [dot] org