2005 Annual Meeting

28 Friends from the US and Great Britain gathered at Twin Rocks Friends Camp, Rockaway, Oregon for the annual meeting of QUIP, Quakers United In Publishing.
(Click on pictures to enlarge them.)

The QUIP theme for 2005 was �Fostering Lifelong Learning: Developing Quaker Readers of All Ages. At our opening session, Friends were encouraged to share a small story not related to the business of writing but personally significant to us. This opened the theme of communication through biography.

Gil Skidmore of Britain Yearly Meeting led us in understanding the virtue of writing our own journeys in her talk: Past and Present Voices: Encouraging Lifelong Learning Using Spiritual Autobiography. Her publications include Turning Inside Out: An Exploration of Spiritual Autobiography (1996), Dear Friends and Sisters: 25 Short Biographies of Quaker Women (1998) and Dear Friends and Brethren: 25 Short Biographies of Quaker Men (2000). She is currently writing the centenary history of Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham and is also working as the research officer for the Location Register for 20th-Century Literary Manuscripts and Letters project at the University of Reading.

Michael Birkel of Clear Creek Meeting (IN) and Professor of Religion at Earlham College spoke on Inviting the Reader to Spiritual Growth. He brought a text to us from Margaret Fell with the Bible references printed on the reverse of the page. Friends shared in reading the passages aloud and then we discussed how it would be to enjoy the hospitality of Margaret Fell and how it would be to host a gathering with that Friend as the honored guest and how to invite others to attend from a polarity in the spectrum of Quakers. These threads gathered into a strand on the topic �Hospitality� and wove into the examination of what our forebears heard when reading the King James Bible in their day and time. Michael Birkel's forthcoming book is: Engaging Scripture: Reading the Bible with Early Friends. It will be published in June.

A panel of young Friends (Zion Kloss, Rachel Stacy, Claire Reddy, Jeffrey Black, Milam Smith, Martin Kelly), who were assembled at the QUIP conference to arrange and edit the 89 submissions from Quaker youth, shared with us Saturday evening on: How do they get their Quaker/spiritual learning? What resources have been most helpful? We older ones were greatly spoken to and challenged to learn:
* what their meeting libraries contained, (or did not contain)
* what books they found and read on their own,
* what books they had seen at home when growing up,
* what books had been handed to them in a timely way by an important mentor

One young Friend found spiritual resources in artistic expression through photography rather than through books. One must ask how we, as publishers, writers, teachers, older Friends, can improve our connection to this most vital segment of our population, our future.

On a sunny Friday afternoon, Friends broke into three groups for workshops. The woodland setting afforded pleasant spaces on porch or clearing for the following topics:
1. Using Book Groups -----
2. Decision Makers in Book Purchasing - Barbara Mays
3. Lifelong Learning Through Non-Print Media - Martin Kelly

Saturday morning, the worship session was a memorial for Bill Taber. Friends shared about his life and later circulated a card of condolence. In the afternoon, 24 Friends went on excursion to a replica of Lewis and Clark's Ft. Clatsop. The rainy day was more typical of the explorer's experience than the 12 non-rainy of their 107 days on the site.

Sunday's business session included the budget concerns and revisions and the treasurer's report. We discussed the move to add book reviews to the QUIP website and eventually have a slate of QUIP reviewers to submit them. The treasurer's report highlighted the need for grants to fund some line items or to augment them. Several discussed details and offered to assist with grant writing. Rachel Stacy appealed for young EFI Friends, ages 12-20, to add contributions to the book project. Of the 89 submissions, only 2 mentioned the name of Jesus Christ and one of those was from an unprogrammed Friend. The meeting concluded with a minute of appreciation for the facilities and staff of Twin Rocks Friends Camp and for Dan McCracken and others from Barclay Press for facilitating transportation and our stay on the Oregon Coast.

Half-Yearly Meeting will be September 24 at the Friends SW Burial Ground, Upper Darby.

QUIP 2006 will be held April 27-30 at Powell House in upstate New York with the theme: �Sound Business Practice for Publications.

QUIP 2007 will be held April 26-29 at Glenthorne in the Lake District of England.



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