Transition Towns - Dandenong Ranges: Training weekend coming up

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Of Quakers and a Cook

It has been a long time between drinks.

Check the posting dates.

Miss Eagle is back -

with a story to tell...

of Quakers and a Cook

Quakers in the unprogrammed tradition (Australian Friends are in the unprogrammed tradition) do not have ministers and very few paid positions. There are no theological colleges. This, however, does not stop Quakers from studying within their tradition. However, in Britain and in the USA there are Quaker study centres: Woodbrooke in Britain, Pendle Hill in the USA. Over the years, many Friends (Quakers are properly called the Religious Society of Friends) in Australia have discussed the possibility of a study centre somewhere in Australia.

Tentative steps are now being taken towards an Australian Quaker Centre at Silver Wattle near Bungendore not too far from Canberra, the national capital. Plans are being made. Courses have been listed, the brochure published. Please hold the Australian Quaker Centre in The Light.

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So that's the background.

Then last Saturday I made a funny comment on a Friend's facebook wishing her well with AQC but saying that, as an aged pensioner, I didn't think I'd get there because of the prices unless they were (and here I was intending to be funny) able to take into account cooking, cleaning, gardening and weeding.

The Friend came back on facebook and said, well......

The upshot of all this is that I start at the Australian Quaker Centre on 1 September for a nine week stint until 31 October as The Cook!!!

AQC will pay my travel. I am to do a first aid course - AQC will pay. And I will get a wage. I will get one day off a week. But that's OK - and I have friends inthe surrounding countryside I can visit.

I will probably depart Melbourne for Bungendore and Silver Wattle on the afternoon of 30 August after Meeting for Worship. I will overnight somewhere on the road and get in to Bungendore the next day. Helen is trying to arrange a night with a Canberra Friend for me. We move in on September 1. Working bee up to and including Sept 5 and open the doors for paying guests on 6 September.

So I am a bit excited about this and all the possibilities.

And all because of a sentence or so on facebook!

Follow the journey right here.

Belinda and Andrew came to visit on Sunday afternoon.

They brought gifts - a tomato plant and a tomatillo.

How prescient were they!

Because of the move to Home Beautiful, did not have either of these.

There is little space in the garden at HB. It is almost all spoken for.

But dear B and A,

they have been planted in the furthest corner of The Secret Garden.

They have been watered and Charlie Carp'd.

And they brought this book below.

I had never heard of Transition Towns until recently.

Now with Carol, Belinda, and The Book

just maybe I'll become an armchair expert!

Seasons of the Soul: Advent 1 2008

From website, www.earthsong.org.au

We are being called into a new place and our creativity is being placed at the service of Earth, in a new millennium and a new moment.

There is an awakening of deep energy, for embracing the interconnectedness of the whole life community and finding the place of the human within this community.

Living within the Divine Mystery, we celebrate the sacredness of all beings and the integrity of all creation.

Drawing on the wisdoms of our past, we are moving into new expressions of our response to the creation: 'groaning in one great act of giving birth'.

We seek to learn new ways, widening our horizons, believing in a possible dream, touching into our deepest experience to give and to receive life.