President's Blog
These are reminders about the next two weeks at NoVES. This Sunday is Stone Salad. And like the story, it's a Soup Salad made from stones. (Don't worry, the stone is reused from year to year and it's thoroughly washed.) Every family unit is to bring items for the meal. Salad items will go in salad and other items will be on tables along the sides of the room. So, my family's last name is Sinclair (if you have more than one family name, use the one first alphabetically) That means my family needs to bring two salad items - let's say zucchini and cooked yams. And I need to bring breads and spreads. Ball-Anderson family needs to bring washed and torn salad greens and salad dressing. Of course, if you want to bring other items too, you can. Additionally, remember to bring cash to contribute to Food for Others and another food bank in Maryland. I'm curious how the spread will be this year! It's never the same year to year. I also need to remind everyone that we will be closed the following Sunday, November 27th for Thanksgiving weekend.
I have been trying to track down the roots to our fall festival where we create a Stone Salad the Sunday before Thanksgiving. From what I have gathered from a long-term member, this festival, began at the Washington Ethical Society, but it's exact origins are unknown. This founding NoVES member believes it began in the children's program at WES, and it probably began sometime in the late 1960s. That Society used to plan a United Nations Day event in October, but at some point that was dropped and a Stone Soup Festival took its place. NoVES began as an off-shoot of WES almost 35 years ago and the founding members of the society brought the Stone Soup tradition with them. However, there was one big issue. NoVES didn't have a kitchen to prepare a soup! How could they make Stone Soup? The founding Leader of NoVES, Susan Bagot, wrote the continuation of the Stone Soup story where the soldiers went to the next village to make a Stone Soup, but found there was no wood to build a fire, so they decided to create a salad in a similar way to how they had created the soup. And voila! A new tradition was born! It's a cute story and I love the creative twist. Not only that, it's a fantastic salad with tons of flavor with all the ingredients. There are some rules to Stone Salad so that everyone can enjoy eating the salad. The salad is assembled ingredient by ingredient, going alphabetically. And there was: Artichokes! Asparagus! Avocado! on down the alphabet to Water chestnuts! Yams (cooked)! and Zucchini! The kids LOVE making this salad - waiting for the letter(s) of their ingredient(s) to be asked up to the bowls!
There are always helpers at the front that have bowls set aside for allergenic and special diet ingredients. There will be a bowl set aside with no cheese added to the salad. One for no wheat/bread added to the salad. And one for no nuts added to the salad. The salad is vegetarian, so we ask that no one contribute any meat. While salads are great, it wouldn't be a full meal if we didn't have salad dressings on the side, breads, and desserts too! Oh, and some peanut butter for those eaters who don't want salad at all! Lastly, Stone Salad is all about working together as a community to build something together. Let's work together so that all of our members who want to attend are able to get to NoVES to take part in the festival. If you need a ride or able to take someone to and from the festival, please contact Melissa Sinclair by November 17th so that she can make arrangements with everyone.
This coming week will be a difficult one for many in our community as we wait for election results. Whatever the result, we will continue to work to do better for the world. It might just be temporarily harder to achieve.
This election might give us a good idea of where we need to put our efforts going forward individually and as an organization. Send me ideas, programs, and activities you would like to see NoVES put their support behind so I can bring it to the Board.
Over the last several years the American Ethical Union (AEU) has been hosting more events via Zoom. Besides being useful for Platforms, it's been a great way for people to learn about other Societies. It's also interesting to experience how everyone holds their weekly platforms.
Currently, the plan is to have All Society Platforms on 5th Sundays of the month (sometimes depending on schedules). This coming Sunday is one of those occassions.
It takes a lot of people to make Sunday mornings (especially) to work, but the shared work makes it lighter for everything. And the beautiful part of that volunteering to be part of the Sunday morning/afternoon platform preparation, is that you become a bigger part of the community. I get it. It's hard to volunteer. Some of us are pulled really thin in a lot of directions, but most of the work that needs done on Sundays (especially) are small asks. Here is a list of things we need help with:
This week has been one of adventure for me. For months I had been hoping to get to Pittsburgh to ride the Great Allegheny Rail Trail, but life and circumstances kept getting in the way. Then, I found out very recently that there was a President's Council Retreat I should go to in Pittsburgh. I needed to make both happen. And I did! (email me or talk to me on Sunday about the bike ride and take a ride with me!) I'm new to the President's Council, as you all know. I really didn't know what to expect. I wanted to show a positive face and to learn. You all are relying on me to serve NoVES well and I want to live up to that expectation. And I have to say, I'm pretty impressed with what we discussed and with the ideas we walked away with. Like we experience with virtual meetings versus meeting in person at NoVES is true for the President's Council as well. There was an energy. The meeting was led completely by President of the AEU Board President, Carolyn Parker. The other board members were active and helped plan the retreat in a thoughtful and meaningful way. 30 plus people gathered from around the US to learn about "what's next" and to plan. The event was so successful, we all agreed we should do it again in a year. Materials are all being shared over the next few days as the AEU Board gathers all the info gained during the retreat. I will share them as I get them. (And come get an Ethical! button this Sunday)
As soon as I type this up and hit submit, I will be driving to Pittsburgh for this year's President's Council Meeting with the American Ethical Union. It will be the first time for me to attend in this role.
By the time this is put in the newsletter, I will have been in Pittsburgh for 2 days. I hope I will find it useful and that I will be able to gather information for everyone back at NoVES. I will miss seeing you all this Sunday, but I hope you enjoy the Platform and the other activties that are happening in the next few days (Walk, Happy Hour, etc.) Until next week.
Now that we are up and running, we need to slowly and efficiently add in committees and Sunday morning prep to the schedule. (How nice does it feel for it to happening again?) With there being a 2 year hiatus of meeting in person, we have shuffled some things around to fit the Zoom format and we have gained and lost committees because of it. So, please let the president, Melissa Sinclair know what committee you would like to be a contributing member too. Please note, that not all committees are listed here. These are the bare minimum needed to get us going. We will be adding more as we go along and see the need. For now we need people to be on the:
And then, we are returning to asking for contribution to the Snack Table as follows (please note, this is the schedule from pre-COVID days, so this schedule might be amended if needed). Also, the week you bring in snacks is also your week to help with Sunday Morning Set-up and Tear-Down.
SET-UP TEAMS:
(if your family has more than one last name, choose the first alphabetically for your family).
This Sunday, conveniently is First Sunday for the month of October, so we ask families whose last names start with A-D to contribute to the snack table and to held with set-up/tear-down.
This coming week we are continuing the trend of trying something new. This Sunday we are having a discussion platform versus a traditional presentation. Let's see how how we like this format. I think it will be a great way to be more welcoming to newcomers who are trying to get to know us! Plus, it will probably help us gather more ideas for future discussions. Speaking of newcomers, people are finding us and members we haven't seen in awhile (thanks to COVID) are returning. Oh, that makes me so happy! Keep the feedback coming for ideas you have for activites. See you on Sunday (with my bike, again!) Speaking of the bike - I've been thinking of a fall bike ride especially with teens. Please let me know if there is interest.
Platform was wonderful this past week despite some dust and rust and a few slow starts because of the terrible weather and horrible traffic. You could tell that we were hungry for each other's company. How nice was it to see people face to face and to see so many people on Zoom too? It really lifted my spirits to see you all! So what about this week? Well, this week is the President's vision for the coming year. My plan is to have this platform to be interactive (much like Randy did a bit of that last week too). Sure, I have ideas for this coming year, but I'm just one member. I want us to talk about: festivals, parties, other activities, books, food, etc. Having this break from the routine platform the last 2 years gives us an opportunity to try new things (as we have been. Like, how wonderful it has been to have the Zoom option?). It doesn't mean we would forgo the old style, but we can add in bits and pieces to jazz it up or make it more accessible. I absolutely love brainstorming, so I'm really looking forward to people's ideas! See you on Sunday!
