Came across an 2004-era page of mine (the Baby Theo homepage) via an Archive.org search today. Here was a description on the sidebar:
This website is part of a informal emerging network of Friends that are reaching across our institutional boundaries to engage with our faith and with each other. The “ministry of the written word” has often sparked generational renewal among Friends and there’s something afoot in all these comments and linkbacks. There are lots of potential projects that can be launched over the new few years (books, workshops, conferences, etc) so if you like the direction of this site and the questions it’s asking, please consider a donation to the nonviolence.org site.
Quakers Uniting in Publications, better known as “QUIP,” is a collection of 50 Quaker publishers, booksellers and authors committed to the “ministry of the written word.” I often think of QUIP as a support group of sorts for those of us who really believe that publishing can make a difference. It’s also one of those places where different branches of Friends come together to work and tell stories. QUIP sessions strike a nice balance between work and unstructured time. It has its own nice culture of friendliness and cooperation that are the real reason many of us go every year.
The theme of the 2004 annual session was “New Ways to Reach Our Markets in a Changing World” and our guest presenters were publicists Doug and Kate Bandos of KSB Promotions: http://www.ksbpromotions.com
The Evans House, built 1855: Gurneyite high style back in the day… It’s now the home of the Quaker Hill Conference Center, where we met. The Gurneyites evolved into Friends United Meeting and I had some good conversations with Friends about some of the visioning FUM is doing. Pretty interesting stuff, like many Friends they too are trying to figure out how to wrestle more fully with Quaker tradition.
Our hosts were the staff of “Friends United Meeting. The FUM campus in Richmond, Indiana, is very pretty in April, with flowers and the crabapple trees
Even prettier is the reforested trail down to the Whitewater River Falls.
We wouldn’t be Quakers if we didn’t have lots of meetings. Left: QUIP clerks Lucy Duncan, Barbara Mays, Elizabeth Cave.
Philip Arnold from the Quaker Bookshop in London, Ann Raper of North Carolina YM (FUM) publications committee and Liz Yeats, a former FGC employee and longtime QUIP stalwart (Ann and Liz are also both board members of “Friends Journal).
QUIP meetings are really all about the conversations in between sessions. Barbara Mays of Friends United Press talks with the new FUM webmaster Curtis Hermann (who later showed me the secret FUM coffee supply and chatted about collarless shirt vendors).
Marjorie Ewbank holds up QUIP’s “Quaker Tapestry”:http://www.Quaker-tapestry.co.uk panel, which should be finished by the end of the century.
Obligatory picture of Simon, sometimes referred to as the “QUIP baby“since his parents met at an annual QUIP meeting.
A field trip to the Levi Coffin house in Fountain City. Run entirely by very dedicated volunteers, it’s the only home still standing of Levi and Catharine Coffin, Friends who helped thousands of escaped slaves get to Canada through the Underground Railroad.
How many cameras does it take to make a group shot? That’s Trish Carn (the UK’s Quaker Monthly), Anthony Manousos (Western US’s Friends Bulletin) and our very gracious photo-taker (who I think might be Ann’s son?).
The many faces of Sally Rickerman, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting character par excellence. Sally spent part of the weekend challenging me about my plain dressing — okay, politely asking me a question and then following up my answer with her opinions. Sally also brought along a parody she once put together, a flyer for an organization called something like “The Society of Sentimental Friends” for all those who want to be Quaker because their great great grandparents were Quaker and they like antiques like old musty meetinghouses.
The many faces of Sally Rickerman (2)
The many faces of Sally Rickerman (3)
Barbara Hirshkowitz in front of the falls. I think Friends General Conference should put in a nature trail near our office too (I vote for bulldozing the “National Constitution Center”).