Category Archives: Announcements

Durham Friends Meeting Plant Sale, May 2025

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May 2025 Plant Sale! hosted by the Woman’s Society

DATES: Our annual plant sale will start in May, with set-up starting Wednesday, May 21. The official start of the sale is Sunday, May 25, and will continue 2-3 weeks, unless we run out of plants more quickly.

SETTING UP: Please bring any perennials or seedlings you can donate and label them. There are pots available in the horse shed if you need any.

PROCEEDS: Plan to peruse the plants for something you might like. As usual, we will ask for donations, which will be used to support charitable work.

Any questions? Check with Dorothy Curtis, Kim Bolshaw, or Nancy Marstaller.

Thanks for all your help and support!

Maker Session and Café, April 17, 2025

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Make a Terrarium with Kim Bolshaw

Live Music with The Peterson String Band

5:30-6:30 Learn How to Make a Terrarium with Kim

  • Advance sign up required. Email Craig@Freshley.com to reserve your spot.
  • There might be a materials charge; details provided when you write to sign up or inquire.

6:30-8:30 Maker Cafe with The Peterson String Band

  • Free and open to the public. No sign up required.
  • Bring a project to work on. Some knitting, stitching, writing, reading, drawing, coloring, carving, or whatever you want. And if you don’t bring a project that’s okay too.

Maker Session and Cafe, Thursday, March 20, 5:30 to 8:30 pm

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ABOUT the Maker Cafe at Durham Friends Meeting

Thursday, March 20, 2025: Make a Hand Broom with Ezra Smith (please pre-register)

5:30-6:30 Learn How to Make a Hand Broom with Ezra Smith

  • Advance sign up required. Space is limited to 12, then we start a waiting list. Email Craig@Freshley.com to reserve your spot.
  • All supplies provided. $10-$20 donation is collected on site.
  • Ezra is a woodworking teacher at Maine Coast Waldorf School.

6:30-8:30 Maker Cafe with Live Music by Fanning the Breeze

  • Free and open to the public. No sign up required.
  • Bring a project to work on. Some knitting, stitching, writing, reading, drawing, coloring, carving, or whatever you want. And if you don’t bring a project that’s okay too.
  • Fanning the Breeze is Michael Fenderson and Bobbi Goodwin. They are two teachers who love sing-alongs and anything that pulls community together for good work and fun!  They were recently spotted at the annual Thompson’s Ice cutting day in South Bristol.

5:30-6:30 Make a Hand Broom with Ezra Smith

All supplies provided (donation collected on site).

Advance sign up required. Email Craig@Freshley.com to reserve your spot.

6:30-8:30 Maker Cafe

Live Music Fanning the Breeze

Hot drinks, snacks, and light supper available. All ages, genders, and beliefs welcome. No Charge for thr Maker Cafe, donations welcome

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Please bring a project of your own to work on. Some knitting? Mending? Painting? Sculpting? Crafting? Carving? And if you don’t bring a project, that’s okay too.

Please don’t bring your phone or other screen-based devices. This is an offline place where we try to connect with

Maker Session and Cafe, Thursday, February 20, 5:30 to 9:00 pm

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ABOUT the Maker Cafe at Durham Friends Meeting

Thursday, February 20, 2025:

**Mend Clothes with Emily Bell-Hoerth

**Live Music by Craig Freshley and Frederik Schuele

5:30-7:00 Learn How to Make a Shashiko Embroidered Patch with Emily Bell-Hoerth

All supplies provided ($7-$14 donation collected on site). Bring your clothes to mend! And sewing tools you may have. Mending helpers will be on site to assist with all mending projects.

Advance sign up required. Email Craig@Freshley.com to reserve your spot.

6:30-9:00 Maker Cafe

Live Music by Craig Freshley and Frederik Schuele

Hot drinks, snacks, and light supper available. All ages, genders, and beliefs welcome. No Charge for thr Maker Cafe, donations welcome

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Please bring a project of your own to work on. Some knitting? Mending? Painting? Sculpting? Crafting? Carving? And if you don’t bring a project, that’s okay too.

Please don’t bring your phone or other screen-based devices. This is an offline place where we try to connect with what we’re doing and who we’re with.

Durham Friends Retreat, Saturday February 8, 9a.m.

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Please join us for a Meeting-wide retreat, open to all, on Saturday, February 8th beginning at 9 a.m. and ending no later than 3 p.m.

With worship, small group discussion and artistic expression, we will examine how to prioritize the work and good functioning of the Meeting given our current numbers, and reaffirm our commitment to one another as a Meeting and as Friends. And have fun in the process!!

Lunch will be provided.

It is a great opportunity to listen and learn together and to connect with our beloved community. If you can only come for part of the day, just come!! We welcome you!

Please let us know if you will attend by emailing durham@neym.org. Everyone is needed!

Request for Contributions of Medicines and Other Health Products for Cuban Friends

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Mimi Marstaller and Kristna Evans will soon be traveling to Cuba as part of a larger NEYM group to visit Cuban Friends including members of our sister Meeting there. 

They will be taking some medicines and other health products with them because these are difficult/impossible to purchase in Cuba.  Below is a list of the items they have been asked to bring with them.  If you would like to contribute such items, please bring them to the Meetinghouse by February 1.

Thank you.

Acetaminophen, adult

Acetaminophen, children

Paracetamol

Ibuprofen

Aleve (naproxen sodium)

Vitamins for women

Vitamins for men

Vitamins for children

Allergy relief (loratadine)

Omega 3

Vitamin C tablets

Nystatin vaginal tablets

Antidiarrheal (Imodium)

Antacids for heartburn

Triple antibiotic creams

Anti-itch cream (cortisone)

Clotrimazole antifungal cream

Zinc oxide antifungal cream

Muscle relaxant tablets

Muscle relaxing creams

Menthol cream

Mouthwash tablets

Toothbrushes

Anti-dandruff product

Ace bandages

Joint compression support

Blood pressure sleeve

Reading glasses

Amoxicillin

Asthma inhalers

About the Maker Sessions and Maker Café

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Each month, we are holding Maker Sessions and Maker Cafes at our Durham Friends Meetinghouse, generally on the the 4th Thursday of each Month. Each such event is publicized on the DurhamFriendsMeeting.org website and also on the MakerCafe.org website.

Here at Durham Friends Quaker Meeting, we’re trying to provide a welcoming, offline place for folks to hang out, learn, and connect. We want to share our Meetinghouse with a wider community. We want to help neighbors meet neighbors and help people learn how to make things, together.

A US public health advisory was published in 2023 called Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation. Among many other factors, the report highlights how screen-based technology negatively impacts social connections. Further, the growing political divide has spooked many of us to stay home and not engage with our neighbors. In response to these trends, we’re trying to help people get out and get together more. With neighbors. In our historic Meetinghouse.

Maker Sessions (5:30-6:30) are held prior to each café and require advance sign-up and typically a materials fee. All materials are provided and you go home with something you made.

Maker Cafes (6:30 to 8:30) are free although donations are accepted for the food, drinks, and for the musicians. The Maker Café is run entirely by volunteers. Please join us.

For questions or to volunteer, please contact Craig Freshley: Craig@Freshley.com.

Maker Session and Cafe, Thursday, January 23, 5:30 to 9:00 pm

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ABOUT the Maker Cafe at Durham Friends Meeting

MAKER SESSION: Learn How to Make Prayer Flags with Nancy Marstaller, 5:30 – 7:30 pm on Thursday January 23, 2025

Advance sign up required. Email Craig@Freshley.com to reserve your spot.

For this session, $5-$10 to be collected on site.

Nancy will provide all materials and instructions. You will be able to take home prayer flags that you made yourself. The Prayer Flags Maker Session will go from 5:30pm until about 7:00pm when the Cafe starts.

CAFE: 7:00 – 9:00 pm on Thursday January 23, 2025

Hot drinks, snacks, and light supper available. All ages, genders, and beliefs welcome. No Charge, donations welcome

Please bring a project of your own to work on. Some knitting? Mending? Painting? Sculpting? Crafting? Carving? And if you don’t bring a project, that’s okay too.

Please don’t bring your phone or other screen-based devices. This is an offline place where we try to connect with what we’re doing and who we’re with.

Live music by The Peterson String Band!

Falmouth Quarterly Meeting, January 25, 2025, 9am

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Falmouth Quarterly Meeting will gather on Saturday January 25th at Portland Friends Meeting (1837 Forest Ave., Portland Maine). Friends are invited to arrive for fellowship at 9:00 for a full day together.

When asked: “What do we most need to do to save the world?” Thich Nhat Hanh replied “What we most need to do is to hear within ourselves the sounds of the world crying.”

We invite you to come and share about the life and spirit in your meetings.  Our hope is that our entire time together is a time of worship, with laughter, business, connections and fellowship.  All are welcome.  Here’s the  zoom link  for those who would like to attend remotely.

The schedule for our time together is:

9:00 arrival, coffee, hot water, bagels and fellowship.

9:30 program – Sharing and exploring, both as individuals and meetings, what these times require. We hope to start by naming what we need, and what are we given.  And then move to considering the question: How we, in this time, can do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with Spirit?

11:45 A brief question about the Quarter’s archives. 

12:00 lunch & visiting. – There will be a pot of soup. Please bring whatever else you might need or would like to contribute.  

1:00 Afternoon Listening and Visioning Session on our yearly meeting’s annual gathering (sessions) Recent years have brought many changes, both internal and external, to the context and circumstances surrounding NEYM Annual Sessions. These include increasing costs, diminished capacity to pay on the part of many Friends and families, reduced and shifting patterns of attendance, increased demand for supportive services and capacities, reductions in volunteer availability, and growing awareness of the need to focus and prioritize limited attention and resources.

In light of all of these changes, the Yearly Meeting’s model of programming, logistics, services, and funding for the event of Annual Sessions is in need of review and reimagining. We will hold a facilitated discussion to inform any future plans.

Silent Auction is On!

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Silent Auction is On!

The Woman’s Society is holding a silent auction to raise money for Tedford Housing, which runs the adult and family shelter apartments in Brunswick.

The auction opened this past Sunday (November 24) and will run until just after Meeting on December 15. Find gifts and treasures! Be generous as you can, as we support our neighbors in need.

Thanks to all who have donated items, and to all our bidders!

Wreath Making and Maker Café at Durham Friends, December 5, 2025, 5:30 pm

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On Thursday evening, December 5, there will be a hands-on wreath making session at the Meetinghouse. Supplies will be provided (or bring your own). Also a light supper. Also Music!

Wreath making, 5:30 to 7:30

Makers helping all who come: Kim Bolshaw and Wendy Schlotterbeck

Cafe, 6:30 to 8:00

Light supper (feel free to volunteer to make something); Music by Craig Freshley

This will be the first of a series of Quaker Maker sessions on Thursday evenings at the Meetinghouse. Watch this website for further announcements.

Makers Sessions Planning Dinner, October 4, 5pm

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Maker Sessions — A Planning Meeting, October 4, 5pm

Craig, Leslie, Ellen, Doug, Kim, and Ezra have met a couple of times to talk about “Maker Sessions” — a way build community within and beyond Durham Friends Meeting.

Please join us to share ideas, hopes and aspirations at 5 p.m. on October 4 at the Meetinghouse.

A pot-luck “soup-er supper” will be served.

Details about ideas generated up to this point can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/55fea32z And you can always ask questions or send comments to craig@Freshley.com. 

Listening Session, September 22, after Meeting

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Ministrfy and Counsel announces:

This Sunday, September 22, we will be having a Meeting-wide listening session to continue our ongoing conversation regarding

the use of Zoom technology in the Meetinghouse during our Sunday worship.

We expect to allot1 hour for the discussion, which we will hold after fellowship and the rise of Meeting. Approximately, from 12:00-1:00 pm.

Please bring your thoughts, comments and questions so that we may discern our way forward with this important aspect of our community life!  

Respectfully,Tess Hartford, co-clerk of M&C

Singing for Shepherds, Worship via DFM, September 15, 2024

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Here is some background to September 15 Worship presentation regarding Singing for Shepherds — Leslie Manning

Sunday, September 15, 2024
9 a.m–6 p.m. Eastern // 6 a.m.–3 p.m. Pacific

You’re invited to a joyful, hopeful drop-in Zoom event. Participate as a whole meeting, as a Sunday school group, as a family, or as an individual Friend. You can come anytime and leave anytime. Appropriate for all ages!
 
During this day-long gathering, we’ll focus on two missions among pastoralist people in Kenya: Samburu Friends Mission and Turkana Friends Mission. We’ll hear stories about these missions, watch videos, and look at photographs. We’ll sing hymns together, pray for the missions and the people, and have a little fun with trivia. Depending on when you come, you might hear a Scripture-based message, join a prayer, see photographs of the missions, watch videos about the missions, participate in a trivia game, or sing a hymn. The activities will switch often. If you come for a whole hour, you might encounter as many as nine different elements.

We’ll also set a goal for $1000/month in new contributions to these missions. Why monthly commitments rather than one-time donations? Because these two missions bear remarkable fruits. They create church communities, run schools, provide health care, give scholarships, and deliver emergency feeding interventions, and yet it’s perpetually difficult to raise the necessary monthly funds to keep them going. We pray for the opportunity to change that as a global community. Every commitment will help, no matter how small.
 
All are welcome to participate in the event, and the hope is to have a Spirit-filled, brimming-with-love celebration of stories of faithfulness. If your Meeting or church has Zoom capability, you can join all together during your social hour or religious education time or even for a half-hour period as part of your business meeting agenda. Or join in as an individual, couple, or family. Please come.
 
Register here to receive a Zoom link:  tinyurl.com/singingforshepherds. Registration is free. You’ll receive the link to participate right away, but if you lose it, don’t worry. It’ll come again a week before the event, and the day before,  just to make sure everyone has it.

Still have questions? We have a question-and-answer page here.

Meet Mary Rowlandson, July 19, 2024, 7pm

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Meet Mary Rowlandson, presented by Quaker storyteller Katie Green

Friday, July 19 at 7 PM, Durham Friends Meeting

Based on her own account, Mary speaks of her capture by Native people during Metacom’s Rebellion, aka King Phillip’s War, in 1670’s Massachusetts. 

This challenging narrative will be followed by discussion on issues that remain important today- racism, theocracy and right relationship with Indigenous neighbors.

It will also be made available by Zoom; please email durham@neym.org for details.

rowlandson_poster-1Download

AFSC Briefing, June 29, 3:30pm, Friends School Portland

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Invitation:

A conversation with Joyce Ajlouny, General Secretary, American Friends Service Committee, and

Keith Harvey, Director, AFSC Northeast Region

Saturday, June 29, 2024, 3:30 p.m., Friends School of Portland, 11 US-1, Cumberland Foreside, ME

Learn about AFSC’s life-saving aid in Gaza, support for immigrant rights, and ongoing commitment to confront injustice and promote healing among the Wabanaki communities in Maine.

(Click here for driving directions listed on the school’s website.)

Please RSVP by June 21

This is a rare opportunity to hear first hand about some crucial and desperately needed work bringing our Quaker witness to life in the world.

Keith Harvey, AFSC’s Regional Director, will update us on AFSC’s work in the Northeast, especially its advocacy on immigration and the rights of indigenous peoples in Maine. Joyce Ajlouny, AFSC’s General Secretary, will speak about AFSC’s work globally,  including an update on the work our Meeting has been supporting in Gaza. 

Please help us in spreading the word, and RSVP’ing at this link: https://secure.afsc.org/a/conversation-afscs-joyce-ajlouny 

Also, we welcome some help! We could really use 2 set-up helpers, 2 break-down helpers, and those of you who feel led to hold this very important AFSC mission and presentation in the light, to do so in person. If you can be one of those helpers, please contact Becky (steelebecky@gmail.com) or Doug (douglas_mccown@yahoo.com).

FWCC’s Quaker Connect Program

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Durham Friends is considering applying to participate in FWCC’s Quaker Connect Program. (FWCC is Friends World Committee for Consultation, the organization that links Friends across the globe.)

Members of Durham Friends are encouraged to read these materials and participate in discussions around whether the Meeting should consider seeking to participate.

The three paragraphs below give a brief overview of the program. More information can be found on the Quaker Connect website.

Quaker Connect helps Friends meetings and churches to try new experiments and learn from each other how to connect the depths of our Quaker tradition and the breadth of our Quaker community with the living reality of our local context under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Quaker Connect will be a structured network of Quaker meetings across the branches of Friends
in the Americas. Each participating local meeting will nominate one to three Friends to join a cohort
of other energized Friends in virtual workshops over a two year period. At the heart of the program,
each meeting will choose one signpost of renewal that is lacking in their meeting, one Quaker,
Christian, or FWCC practice to address the need, and take three months to try the experiment, and then initiate further experiments. Robust evaluation and communication processes are essential parts of the program. Quaker Connect is designed to adapt and seed the continuing revitalization of the Religious Society of Friends.

In the United States, the project is being funded through Lilly Endowment’s Thriving Congregations
Initiative. An additional $200,000 grant from the Thomas H. and Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund
will extend the program to Friends outside of the United States—from Canada to Bolivia—and
enhance collaboration among Quaker organizations to support the growth and vitality of the
Society of Friends.

MEIRS Gala Invitation, July 12, 6:00 to 9:00 pm

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Maine Immigrant & Refugee Services (MEIRS) is holding its 2nd Annual gala, themed “Connecting Cultures, Creating Community,” on Saturday, July 12, from 6:00 to 9:00 pmin Lewiston at the Agrora Grand Event Center.

Bopnnie Lewis (MEIRS) wrote Wendy Schlotterbeck, “Here is the Gala information for your crew! Let me know if they are interested. I think everyone would have a wonderful time and they would get to meet some incredible people who are new Mainers!  Along with the fabulous food there will be dancing and music!!!! We would ask you to come as our guest!”

Thopse interested in attending should contact Wendy. More information on MEIRS available here and also below.

Falmouth Quarterly Meeting & Potluck Dinner, June 8, 2024

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Falmouth Quarterly Meeting will hold a community gathering on Saturday, June 8, 2024 at 3pm at the Durham Friends Meetinghouse. All are welcome. We will plan family fun, some worship, purposeful connection time and singing.

Potluck- Quaker Feast at 5:30.

Please come for any or all of the day on Saturday- “Sing and rejoice, ye Children of the Day and of the Light” (G Fox)

Gathering for Friends with a Concern for Gospel Ministry

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June 8, 2024, 10:00 a.m. to mid-afternoon

Location, Durham Friends Meeting

Brian Drayton (Souhegan) and Noah Merrill (Putney), following a concern, invite Friends active in gospel ministry to gather for worship and conversation at the Durham (Maine) Friends Meetinghouse from 10 a.m. to mid-afternoon, June 8th, 2024.

You may travel in ministry, or your service in speaking as led in worship may be primarily in your own meeting. If you contribute to the vocal ministry under a sustained sense of duty and concern, you are invited to join us.

If you hope to attend, or have questions, please email Brian and Noah.

Diana White Memorial Service, June 22, 11am to 2pm

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The Memorial Service and Potluck for our member Diana White will be held Saturday, June 22 from 11-2 at Durham ME Friends Meeting (durhamfriendsmeeting.org) and available on Zoom. 

The memorial service will be from 11:00 to 12:15, with the potluck lunch to follow.

Diana, formerly of Farmington and Portland Meetings, was also a clerk of Friends Committee on Maine Public Policy and active in New England Yearly Meeting in several leadership roles.  She was the first woman to serve as Treasurer of the Yearly Meeting.

To learn more about her, please read her recent First Day message postyed on this website, “What I Bring to the Spiritual Potluck“.

And join us on the 22nd to celebrate her life and spirit.  All are welcome.

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Getry Agizah at Durham Friends on Sunday, May 19 and again on Monday, May 20

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Getry Agizah will bring the prepared message to Durham Friend’s semi-programmed worship this Sunday at 10:25 

and

visit with Woman’s Society Monday evening at 7 PM.  Both events are available by Zoom or at the Meetinghouse, durhamfriendsmeeting.org.  FMI contact durham@neym.org

Getry is the Programme Coordinator for FUM’s Africa Ministries Office in Kisumu. She coordinates the work of the Friends Church Peace Team, as well as overseeing the Girl Child Education Programme, and guiding the formation of the new Shepherd Boy Scholarship program. She also manages FUM’s relationships with Turkana Friends Mission and Samburu Friends Mission.  Her ministry has been financially supported by the Falmouth QUarter for many years.

Getry’s will and heart are in peace work. She has spent the past fifteen years working for peace, both in and outside Kenya in countries like Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Southern Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, China, South Africa, Guatemala, and Ireland. She has also traveled within the U.S.A. to raise support for Friends Church Peace Teams, visiting Quaker churches and Meetings in many of the States. Her hobbies are traveling, doing reconciliation work, and helping her society to know real peace.

Annual Family Campout, June 8-9, 2024, Now Cancelled

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UPDATE June 2, 2024:

Due to a major broken water pump at Betsy’s cottage in Georgetown, we need to cancel the Family Campout scheduled for next weekend- June 8-9. Instead, we invite Friends to gather at Durham Friends meetinghouse on Saturday only (no planned events on Sunday)

For those interested- come at 10am Gathering for Friends with a Concern for Gospel Ministry with Brian Drayton and Noah Merrill

At 3pm all are welcome to a FQM Quaker Community Gathering at Durham Friends Meetinghouse. We will plan family fun, some worship, purposeful connection time and singing.

Potluck- Quaker Feast at 5:30.

Please come for any or all of the day on Saturday- “Sing and rejoice, ye Children of the Day and of the Light” (G Fox)

Also Falmouth Quarterly Meeting gathering.