Fall 2009 Activities

There will be a Trail Work Day on Saturday, September 19, 2009, on the Rolling Ridge Foundation property where the Friends Wilderness Center is located. This work day will be sponsored by For Love of Children - Outdoor Education Center (FLOC-OEC), another of the organizations that use the Rolling Ridge Foundation property.

Bring your family, you friends, and anyone else who would like a day in the wilderness helping to work on our trails. This day will be devoted to working on the eastern side of the Perimeter Trail.

Food will be provided if you let FLOC know that you plan to attend. They can be reached at 304.725.0409. Unfortunately, I will not be available that day, but please come out and help with this work. It will be a great day in the woods working with other like-minded people who feel that this is a special place that needs volunteer help to maintain our trail system.

October 17 will be our fall hike led by Lisa Payne. This is a great opportunity to hike in the beautiful fall colors and bring along your camera to take advantage of the beauty if you so desire. Bring a bag lunch and water with you. The hike will begin at 10:00 in the morning and end when you want.

October 31 will be our fall work day with much to do, including cutting, splitting, and stacking wood for the winter, working on the tree house and other items to suit skills of everyone. Please let us know you will be coming as we plan on feeding you but need to know for how many mouths to purchase food. Sheila Bach, 304.728.4820 or snbach@earthlink.net.

Hope to see you out here for one or all of these events.

There will be a poetry event but at this point the date has not been set. We will let you know as soon as it is.

Sheila Bach, General Manager
www.friendswildernes.org
304.728.4820
 

Our mission is to care for the natural setting entrusted to us and to enable all to find spiritual nurturance there.

The Friends Wilderness Center (FWC) is a 34-year-old spiritual sanctuary and wilderness preserve located in West Virginia, within 1-2 hours of the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area. It offers its membership and the general public a selection of events. There are also opportunities for individual or small group retreats, including overnight hospitality in our cabin, and camping.

FWC is located on Rolling Ridge Foundation lands, originally owned by a Quaker couple, Henry and Mary Cushing Niles, members of Baltimore, Stony Run Meeting.

The Center provides a place for individuals to find a deeper understanding of their relationship with the earth by offering a place and space for spiritual growth in harmony with nature, and to find opportunities to be stewards of the land.

During the past year, the FWC continued offering programs and events. While some events were unique, most were perennial favorites, often led by board members or coordinated through them. Friends Wilderness Center encourages other groups and individuals in considering holding an event at FWC or Niles Cabin. These programs are very popular, especially the star-gazing, the Gardening With Nature, and the Open House. Appended is a summary of programs offered during the past year. Several program events are already on the calendar for the rest of the year. Please visit our web site, www.friendswilderness.org to learn more about future events.

Looking to the future, the Friends Wilderness Center board has explored several areas where it seeks to strengthen the Center’s appeal to Baltimore Yearly Meeting as a resource, including

• Making meetings aware of the Center and what it offers;
• Improving ties with 50 allies or sister organizations vis a vis environmental, educational, and spiritual concerns;
• Offering the center as a field location for environmental studies such as climate change, ecosystems and habitat.

The FWC conducted fund drives in the past year, including a special one-time appeal to members of the Baltimore Yearly Meeting. These appeals helped support a continued growth in income in 2008, yielding $ 21,665; a copy of our financial report is available upon request. We are a 501(c)(3) organization.

During the past year, Sheila has provided program support, financial management, hospitality and coordination of numerous events and activities. The board values her deep commitment to the FWC and her efforts in ensuring that the FWC retains its focus on its mission and vision, as well as providing visitors with a meaningful visit. This year, Sheila spent much time making sure that the Friends Wilderness Center’s administrative needs and obligations were in order.

Lisa Payne
Clerk

October 6: Benefit Concert.

Richard Broadbent and Jesse Palidofsky return to Langley Hill Friends Meeting House for a concert to benefit Friends Wilderness Center. Richard’s songs tell a story, for and about people. Six- and twelve-string guitars—and the occasional harmonica—accompany his contemplative, ironic edge and rootsy performance style. Pianist, guitarist, and vocalist Jesse Palidofsky’s lyric songs are richly diverse, sublime and inspiring. With their irrepressible wit and unique style, this folk duo will transport you to a profound level of soul, self, and story. Concert begins at 7:30 pm. Call Sheila Bach at 304/728-4820 or email snbach@earthlink.net for more information. For directions to Langley Hill: www.quaker.org/langleyhill/directions.html

October 13: Poetry in the Trees.

During this annual fall poetry gathering, participants will read their own or others’ works, or simply come to listen. Friends Wilderness Poet, Ron Weber, will facilitate. This year we will be at the Jenkins Cabin instead of the Treehouse (email Chuck Kleymeyer for directions. The theme is "Nature, Spirit, and Vision" -- especially appropriate due to the 20-mile view out over the Shenandoah Valley from the cabin deck.

November 3: Autumn Work Day.

Roll up your sleeves and join us in our annual fall clean-up day. We’ll have many work projects, including repairing any summer usage damage, splitting firewood for Niles Cabin, and preparing the Tree House and Yurt for winter. Groups and people of all ages and abilities are welcome! Call Sheila Bach at 304/728-4820 or email snbach@earthlink.net net for more information.

November 10-11 Women's Retreat: “Dreaming Our Lives into Wholeness”

The dreams we have for ourselves can be ongoing revelations about who God is calling us to become. Divine revelations lead us toward God’s dream of wholeness or “shalom.” Come explore with other women how your dreams are connected to the sacred fabric of wholeness that binds together God, self, community, and the world. In the process, we will all benefit from the beauty of the natural world surrounding us at this unique wilderness retreat. For more information, contact Ann Delorey: akdelorey@yahoo.com

For more information contact:
www.friendswilderness.org
304-728-4820

The Friends Wilderness Center is a 32-year-old spiritual sanctuary and wilderness preserve that offers its membership and the general public a selection of events, opportunities for individual or small group retreats, overnight hospitality in our cabin, camping facilities, work days for trail and structure maintenance, and the exploring of nature within a 1400-acre preserve nestled in the corner of land bounded by the Appalachian Trail, the Shenandoah River and the Virginia state line.

Our mission is to care for and preserve the natural setting entrusted to us and to enable others to find spiritual nurturance there, in terms of a deepening understanding of our relationship with the earth. We do this by offering the experience of spiritual growth in harmony with nature, and opportunities to be reverent stewards of the land.

Within 1-2 hours of the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area, the Center provides one of the few unspoiled and undeveloped areas open to the public that does not charge entrance fees. We welcome visitors with a variety of backgrounds and, in keeping with Friends’ beliefs, do not limit services to any specific faith. We are a 501(c)(3) organization.

The Center has a long-term lease from Rolling Ridge Foundation for the exclusive use of 50 acres of this land, which is currently the site of a large “treehouse” for programs and camping, a weatherized yurt for year-round accommodation, a pit toilet, picnic tables, and a fire ring.

A major accomplishment this year has been the signing of an amendment to that lease, which gives us full use of and responsibility for the Niles Cabin, a four-bedroom, one-bath structure, with meeting and office space. This cabin gives us year-round space for meetings, programs, and other events, enabling us to expand what was once a four-month program season to a twelve-month one. It provides overnight retreat facilities for those who prefer not to camp. It also houses our Resident Manager, Sheila Bach, with whom we have signed a contract to trade management and accounting services for rent-free living space. Finally, we now have meeting space that we can make available to groups such as the Rolling Ridge Foundation Board and the Baltimore Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends’ Faith and Practice Revision Committee.

For the past two years we have been carrying out a capital campaign to raise $13,000 (matched by $12,000 from the Rolling Ridge Foundation) to be able to finish an array of remodeling, updating, and greening projects such as energy-efficient doors and windows, wood-burning stove and chimney, kitchen cabinets and flooring, plumbing repairs, and on-demand hot water heater.

Over the past year, we have carried out a series of programs and events, and we have more planned for the remainder of this year – primarily led or coordinated by board members:

• December 28, 2006: Annual Christmas-New Years Week Reflections Hike.
• January 20, 2007: Stargazing: An Evening under the Stars: Learn about winter constellations and planets with astronomer (and Board member) Kevin Boles, of Morgan Count Observatory in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia.
• February 17: Poetry by the Fire: Finding God in Poetry, with Friends Wilderness Center poet Ron Weber and Maryhelen Snyder, writer and educator, who will read Whitman, Hopkins, Rilke, and others so that our own poetry and prose may be inspired.
• April 21: Semiannual Work Day -- Celebrate Earth Day by helping to care for the land entrusted to us. Projects include repairing winter damage, clearing trails, turning dead and downed trees into firewood, preparing the Tree House (sleeping platform) for the season.
• April: Long-Range Planning Retreat – led by a gifted Quaker facilitator, we revised our Mission Statement and rethought our goals for the next five years.
• May 19: Annual Open House: We had a variety of hikes, a children’s activity, and a beehive and other displays.
• June 2: Morning bird walk with Loudon Wildlife Conservancy and nature journaling with writer and biologist Sarah Snyder after lunch.
• July 21: Sat. Hike. This event led and sponsored by the Sierra Club DC chapter
• August 11: Annual Local Music Festival in conjunction with the Rolling Ridge Foundation.
• August 11: Stargazing. Perseid meteor showers are at their height at this time of year.
• October 6: Benefit Concert. Quaker musicians, Richard Broadbent and Jesse Palidofsky, return to Langley Hill Friends Meeting House for a concert to benefit Friends Wilderness Center. Richard’s songs tell a story, for and about people. Jesse Palidofsky’s lyric songs are richly diverse, sublime, and inspiring.
• November 3: Autumn Work Day. We’ll have many work projects, including repairing any summer usage damage, splitting firewood for Niles Cabin, and preparing the Treehouse and Yurt for winter.
• October 27: Poetry in the Trees. During this annual fall poetry gathering, with Friends Wilderness Center poet Ron Weber, participants read their own or others’ works, or simply come to listen.
• November 10-11: This will be our fourth annual Women in the Wilderness Retreat. Last year we had many more inquiries and potential participants than we could accommodate. We had a maximum number of 20. Evaluative comments in the closing session were highly positive. Many expressed an appreciation for getting into the physical wilderness and reconnecting with nature and the spirit.

We have been very pleased with our recent affiliation with Baltimore Yearly Meeting (approved October 2006). We will continue to search for new ways to serve area Quakers, as individuals, families, and Meetings – through retreats, cooperation with BYM camping programs, young adult activities, and so on.

Our income doubled from Calendar Year 2005 to Calendar Year 2006, and it has continued to go up in 2007. Most of this increase was due to the capital campaign, but our program fee income also doubled, and our membership fee income increased by 20%.

We continue to feel blessed by our covenant with God and the Earth, to be good stewards of this land, and by the many Friends and friends who support us through attendance, cash donations, and volunteer labor. Our work and our mission are filled with the Light.

Respectfully submitted by Chuck Kleymeyer, Clerk, 7/1/07.

Gardening with Nature - March 17 - Join horticulturist Emily Morgan, organic gardener Carol Robbins, and landscape designer Terra DeMedici to learn how to create and maintain gardens and landscapes suited to our region. Gather at Niles Cabin from 1-4 p.m. Registration is required; $5 per person donation. Limited to 20 participants.

Spring Work Day - April 21 - Celebrate Earth Day with Friends Wilderness Center by helping to care for the land entrusted to us. Groups and people of all ages and abilities are welcome! A free lunch will be provided if you register by April 19.

Open House - May 19 - Come tour the land and learn about the place. Scheduled hikes to the big and little waterfalls will take place throughout the morning and afternoon. Activities for kids. Join us for a yummy lunch ($7 per adult, $5 per child; reservations required) or BYO, and chat with our Board of Directors and visitors.

Birding & Nature Journaling - June 2 - Rise with the birds and join fellow nature enthusiasts for an allday event. After lunch at Niles Cabin, join writer and biologist Sarah Snyder for an afternoon of nature journaling. All ages welcome. Birding or journaling

To RSVP or for information contact Sheila Bach at 304/728-4820 or email snbach@earthlink.net