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’s has its own nice culture of friendliness and cooperation that are the real reason many of us go every year.
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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/.
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Our hosts were the staff of “Friends United Meeting”:http://www.fum.org/. The FUM campus in Richmond, Indiana, is very pretty in April, with flowers and the “crabapple trees”:http://www.waynet.org/waynet/spotlight/2002/020422-crabapple.htm all in bloom.
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Even prettier is the reforested trail down to the Whitewater River Falls.
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The Evans House, built 1855: Gurneyite high style back in the day… It’s now the home of the “Quaker Hill Conference Center”:http://www.qhcc.org/, 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.
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We wouldn’t be Quakers if we didn’t have lots of meetings. Left: QUIP clerks Lucy Duncan, Barbara Mays, Elizabeth Cave. On the right: Philip Arnold from the “Quaker Bookshop”:http://www.Quaker.org.uk/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”:www.friendsjournal.org).
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QUIP meetings are really all about the conversations in between sessions. Left: Charles Martin of “Western Christian Friends Conference”:http://www.sfQuakers.org/CFC/ and Marjorie Ewbank of the “Tract Association”:http://www.tractassociation.org share conversation. Right: Barbara Mays of “Friends United Press”:http://www.fum.org/FUP/ talks with the new FUM webmaster Curtis Hermann (who later showed me the secret FUM coffee supply and chatted about collarless shirt vendors).
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The many faces of Sally Rickerman, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting _character par excellence_. Sally spent part of the weekend challenging me about my “plain dressing”:http://www.nonviolence.org/Quaker/plain_dress.php — 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.
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Left: 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. Right: a field trip to the “Levi Coffin house in Fountain City”:http://www.waynet.org/nonprofit/coffin.htm. 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.
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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?).
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Obligatory picture of Simon, sometimes referred to as the “QUIP baby“since his parents met at an annual QUIP meeting. Left: with dad Graham Garner. Right: with me teasing him from the back seat of the shuttle van.
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Barbara 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”).
h4. Related:
bq. “QUIP has a website of course!”:www.quaker.org/quip.
