Tag Archives ⇒ martin kelley

QuakerQuaker on the move

September 10, 2016
· Martin Kelley

Cross­post­ing from Quak­erQuak­er:

Cardboard boxes in apartment, moving day

The biggest changes in half a decade are com­ing to Quak­erQuak­er. The Ning​.com ser­vice that pow­ers the main web­site is about to increase its month­ly charge by 140 per­cent. When I first picked Ning to host the three-year-old Quak­erQuak­er project in 2008, it seemed like a smart move. Ning had recent­ly been found­ed by tech world rock stars with access to stratospheric-level funds. But it nev­er quite got trac­tion and start­ed dial­ing back its ambi­tions in 2010. It was sold and sold again and a long-announced new ver­sion nev­er mate­ri­al­ized. I’ve been warn­ing peo­ple against start­ing new projects on it for years. Its lim­i­ta­tions have become clear­er with every pass­ing year. But it’s con­tin­ued to work and a healthy com­mu­ni­ty has kept the con­tent on Quak­erQuak­er inter­est­ing. But I don’t get enough dona­tions to cov­er a 140 per­cent increase, and even if I did it’s not worth it for a ser­vice stuck in 2010. It’s time to evolve!

There are many inter­est­ing things I could build with a mod­ern web plat­form. Ini­tial research and some feed­back from fel­low Quak­er techies has me inter­est­ed in Bud­dy­Press, an expand­ed and social ver­sion of the ubiq­ui­tous Word­Press blog­ging sys­tem. It has plu­g­ins avail­able that claim to move con­tent from exist­ing Ning sites to Bud­dy­Press, leav­ing the tan­ta­liz­ing pos­si­bil­i­ty that eight years of the online Quak­er con­ver­sa­tion can be main­tained (wow!).

I will need funds for the move. The sub­scrip­tions to do the import/export will incur costs and there will be plu­g­ins and themes to buy. I’m men­tal­ly bud­get­ing an open-ended num­ber of late Sat­ur­day nights. And the per­son­al com­put­er we have is get­ting old. The charge does­n’t hold and keys are start­ing to go. It will need replace­ment soon­er rather than later.

Any dona­tions Friends could make to the Pay­pal account would be very help­ful for the move. You can start by going to http://​bit​.ly/​q​u​a​k​e​r​g​ive. Oth­er options are avail­able on the dona­tion page at http://​www​.quak​erquak​er​.org/​p​a​g​e​/​s​u​p​p​ort. Thanks for what­ev­er you can spare. I’m as sur­prised as any­one that this lit­tle DIY project con­tin­ues to host some many inter­est­ing Quak­er con­ver­sa­tions eleven years on!

In Friend­ship,
Mar­tin Kel­ley for Quak​erQuak​er​.org

Camp Acagisca

June 20, 2015
· Martin Kelley

A two-night scouts camp­ing trip with two of my kids to the coun­ty facil­i­ties at Camp Acagis­ca nears Mays Land­ing turned into a one night with one kid affair (my 11yo got way too mouthy when it came time to decide who was going to share a tent with dad and went home imme­di­ate­ly; the 9yo end­ed up in a melt­down mid morn­ing on the sec­ond day.)

Camp at dusk 
A vis­i­tor stops hop­ping for a moment 
Fran­cis stays up to read Curi­ous George sto­ries by flashlight 
Cook­ing eggs in a ziploc bag 
Break­fast time 
The group starts off on a hike down to Great Egg Har­bor River 
Cool growth on downed trees 
A bro­ken down out build­ing from when this was a Girl Scouts camp. thr 2012 Mays Land­ing dere­cho came right through here and closed the camp for a long while. 
Riv­er side 
I pho­tographed this most­ly to have the emer­gency num­ber handy if needed. 
The road in and out. 

 

Rain camp­ing

A video post­ed by Mar­tin Kel­ley (@martin_kelley) on

 

And while I assumed the name was some sort of Lenape con­struc­tion, it’s appar­ent­ly an amal­gam of Atlantic City Area Girl Scout Camp.

New Monastics & Convergent Friends update

April 28, 2010
· Martin Kelley

blankMy work­shop part­ner Wess Daniels just post­ed an update about the upcom­ing work­shop at Pen­dle Hill. Here’s the start. Click through to the full post to get a taste of what we’re preparing.

Mar­tin Kel­ley and I will be
lead­ing a
week­end retreat at Pen­dle Hill in just a cou­ple weeks (May 14 – 16)
and I’m start­ing to get real­ly excit­ed about it! Mar­tin and I have been
col­lab­o­rat­ing a lot togeth­er over the past few months in prepa­ra­tion for
this week­end and I want­ed to share a lit­tle more of what we have
planned for those of you who are inter­est­ed in com­ing (or still on the
fence). Dur­ing the week­end we will be encour­ag­ing con­ver­sa­tions around
build­ing com­mu­ni­ties, con­ver­gent Friends and how this looks in our local
meet­ings. I want­ed to give the descrip­tion of the week­end, some of the
queries we’ll be touch­ing on, and the out­line for the week­end. And of
course, I want to invite all of you inter­est­ed par­ties to join us!

Read the full post on Wess’s blog

Some pseudo-convergent outreach events at Gathering

June 30, 2006
· Martin Kelley

Those Quak­er Ranters read­ers who are com­ing to the “FGC Gathering”:www.FGCquaker.org/gathering but haven’t lost inter­net access yet might be inter­est­ed in some of the events the Advance­ment & Out­reach com­mit­tee is spon­sor­ing over the week. There will be a fly­er in the reg­is­tra­tion pack­ets (all these events will take place in Admin 203). For those not com­ing, I sus­pect I’ll have some sort of Gath­er­ing round-up post at some point after it’s all done. I’m also co-hosting a Mon­day night inter­est group with LizOpp and Robin: “On Fire! Renew­ing Quak­erism through a Con­ver­gence of Friends.” For details, see “Liz’s post”:http://thegoodraisedup.blogspot.com/2006/06/interest-group-at-gathering.html or “Robin’s post”:http://robinmsf.blogspot.com/2006/06/convergent-travels.html.

bq.. The FGC Advance­ment and Out­reach com­mit­tee is spon­sor­ing after­noon events dur­ing four days of Gath­er­ing. Come share your out­reach ideas, learn about FGC and sup­port the growth of Quakerism!
*All Friends Wel­come, 1:30 – 3:00*
Mon­day: “What Do Quak­ers Believe?” Come talk about the range of Quak­er beliefs, from Robert Bar­clay to the present day, and explore what binds us togeth­er as Friends. Con­vened by Deb­o­rah Haines.
Wednes­day: A spe­cial wel­come to Friends from Pacif­ic, North Pacif­ic and Inter­moun­tain Year­ly Meet­ings. Come talk about the spir­it, con­cerns, and Quak­er ways of these three inde­pen­dent year­ly meetings.
Thurs­day: Vis­i­tors from Free­dom Friends Church will join us to talk about the wit­ness of this unique inde­pen­dent evan­gel­i­cal Friends Church.
*Out­reach Hours, 3:15 – 4:15*
Sun­day: Vis­i­bil­i­ty. Inter­est­ed in pub­li­ciz­ing your meet­ing and get­ting the Quak­er mes­sage out into your com­mu­ni­ty? Friends are invit­ed to come share their sto­ries and ques­tions and pick up a free copy of our “Inreach-Outreach Pack­et for Small Meet­ings.” Jane Berg­er will host.
Mon­day: Iso­lat­ed Friends & New Wor­ship Groups. Learn about FGC’s new ser­vice for Friends and seek­ers who live far from any meet­ing or wor­ship group. Are you inter­est­ed in help­ing to nur­ture new wor­ship groups? Come find out what resources are avail­able from the FGC Advance­ment Com­mit­tee, and share your sto­ries and ideas.
Wednes­day: Friends inter­est­ed in affil­i­a­tion. FGC is an asso­ci­a­tion of 14 year­ly meet­ings and region­al groups and 9 direct­ly affil­i­at­ed month­ly meet­ings. A&O clerk Deb­o­rah Haines will talk about the work of FGC and the ben­e­fits of affiliation.
Thurs­day: Spir­i­tu­al Hos­pi­tal­i­ty. It’s easy to feel iso­lat­ed even with­in a local meet­ing. A&O coor­di­na­tor Mar­tin Kel­ley will talk about some strate­gies to over­come the iso­la­tions of age, the­ol­o­gy, race, lifestyle, etc. What can meet­ings do to help these Friends not feel isolated?

Christian peacemaker Teams News

March 23, 2006
· Martin Kelley

On Sat­ur­day, Novem­ber 26, 2005 four mem­bers of “Chris­t­ian peace­mak­ers Teams”:www.cpt.org were abduct­ed in iraq. On March 20th the body of Amer­i­can Quak­er Tom Fox was found; on March 23rd, the remain­ing three hostages were freed by U.S. and British mil­i­tary forces.
Here at Non​vi​o​lence​.org, we have always been impressed and high­ly sup­port­ive of the deep wit­ness of the Chris­t­ian peace­mak­ers Teams. Their mem­bers have rep­re­sent­ed the best in both the peace and Chris­t­ian move­ments, con­sis­tent­ly putting them­selves in dan­ger to wit­ness the gospel of peace. Not con­tent to write let­ters or stand on pick­ett lines in safe west­ern cap­i­tals, they go to the front­lines of vio­lence and pro­claim a rad­i­cal alternative.
While we can be grate­ful for the release of the three remain­ing hostages, we should con­tin­ue to remem­ber the 43 for­eign hostages still being held in iraq and the 10 – 30 iraqis report­ed­ly tak­en hostage each and every day. As iraq slips into full-scale civ­il war we must also orga­nize against the war-mongerers, both for­eign and inter­nal and finde ways of stand­ing along­side those iraqis who want noth­ing more than peace and freedom.

Here’s links to recent articles on the situation: https://​deli​cious​.com/​m​a​r​t​i​n​_​k​e​l​l​e​y​/​n​e​w​s​.​c​p​t​-​f​o​u​r​.​f​o​x​m​e​m​o​r​ial

And a per­son­al note from Nonviolence.org’s Mar­tin Kel­ley: I myself am a Chris­t­ian and Quak­er and one of our folks, Tom Fox, of Lan­g­ley Hill (Vir­ginia) Friends Meet­ing is among the hostages. I don’t know Tom per­son­al­ly but over the last few days I’ve learned we have many Friends in com­mon and they have all tes­ti­fied to his deep com­mitt­ment to peace. Some of the links above are more explic­it­ly Quak­er than most things I post to Non​vi​o​lence​.org, but they give per­spec­tive on why Tom and his com­pan­ions would see putting them­selves in dan­ger as an act of reli­gious ser­vice. I am grate­ful for Tom’s cur­rent wit­ness in iraq – yes, even as a hostage – but I cer­tain­ly hope he soon comes back to his fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty and that the atten­tion and wit­ness of these four men’s ordeal helps to bring the news of peace to streets and halls of Bagh­dad, Wash­ing­ton, Lon­don and Ottawa.

Action Step:

If you have a blog or web­site, you can add a feed of that will include the lat­est Nonviolence.org-compiled links. Sim­ply add this javascript to the side­bar of your site [Dis­abled Now] 

Call for Tom Fox memorials

March 17, 2006
· Martin Kelley

John Paul Stephens has asked if I could help com­pile a list of online trib­utes to our Tom Fox, the fall­en Chris­t­ian Peace­mak­er for FreetheCaptivesNow.org’sTom Fox Memo­ri­als page. I’ve start­ed a list, now up on Quak​erQuak​er​.org, that I’ll keep up for a few months. Any read­ers who know of some­thing that should be includ­ed should either email me at martink-at-nonviolence-dot-org or tag it “for:martin_kelley” in Del​.icio​.us. Thanks. Here’s my list so far:

h3. See also:
* “FreetheCaptivesNow.org”:http://freethecaptivesnow.org/
* “Chris­t­ian Peace­mak­er Watch”:http://www.quakerquaker.org/christian_peacemaker_teams/ over at Quak​erquak​er​.org
* “My posts on the Chris­t­ian Peace­mak­er witness”:/martink/cpt
* “A real­ly nice page on Tom over at Elec­tron­ic Iraq”:http://electroniciraq.net/news/2302.shtml