JHYM Retreat Staff Notes

What makes a true friend, and how can we, in our spiritual community, keep it real? How do Friends’ practices, especially listening and seeing that of God in everyone, help us to be better friends? In addition to the usual games, music, great food, and worship, weather permitting, we’ll go on a field trip to a local city park, and maybe, just maybe, ride the carousel.

WE ARE: Anne Anderson, Kara Price Bachand, Dave Baxter, Jerry Carson, Dimity Peters, and myself,

WITH Benigno Sanchez-Eppler making his first appearance as a JHYM Retreat cook

AND Stephen Haynes coming to help Benigno on Saturday, and Karen Sanchez-Eppler in the role of sous chef on Friday and possibly Sunday.

WE ARE DEEPLY BLESSED by Kevin Lee’s extensive behind the scenes registration, website, and support help leading up to this retreat, and by Debbie and John Humphrey’s and Ed Rodley and Jennifer Hogue-Rodley’s willingness to join us on Saturday afternoon to help with the field trip to Bushnell Park.

WE ARE a tad short staffed, but so covered in grace and love! Thank you for your generous hearts and spirits and solid youth ministry work. Grace will attend, and all will be well. Take good good care of yourselves between now and then, though!

JOINING US are 28 or 29 JH’ers. (Yes, I thought I’d cut it off at 25, but there were a few that fell in the cracks between Kevin and I when he was doing the registrations, so…there you have it.) Ten are first timers, including four sixth graders – but all ten have been to JYM and/or Yearly Meeting, so we should be able to microwave this crew into a JHYM community pretty seamlessly! I’m very much looking forward to it.

The JHYM Retreat program’s goal is to provide a safe and trusting community in which we seek to find that of God in ourselves and in each other. Our charge, as ministers of the Spirit, is to help our young people create a sanctuary. What I appreciate more as the years go on, is just how rare and astounding a “safe and trusting spiritual community” truly is for young teens. What we “do”, with the Grace of God, is provide them with an experience in building a spiritually grounded community that they then take with them, and hopefully build on, for years and decades and a lifetime to come.

Timelines

Arrival: I will be arriving with one JH’er around 4:30pm. Registration is at 7pm. I am hoping a few of you can arrive by 6:30. Please let me know your E.T.A. Thanks!

Wrap-up: Sunday Morning Worship is at 10:00, followed by announcements and lunch. I anticipate we’ll be out by 1 or 1:30pm. We need all staffers (and hopefully some parent volunteers) to stay until cleanup is done – this way we will all get on the road sooner. Thank you!

Small Groups

Small Groups will meet three times over the course of the weekend: Friday evening, Saturday morning, and early Saturday evening. We will be divided into 3 small groups – with 9 or 10 JH’ers and 2 staffers for each group. You’ll be in the same small group for the weekend. Remember that this will be the first experience of ‘small groups JHYM Retreats-style’ for many attenders – there’ll be a learning curve, though our numbers are way more balanced than last year, when the first timers outnumbered the elders almost 3 to 1!

Please always start small groups with just a little bit of Worship to honor and center what will be shared amongst you.

1. Talk about what JHYM small groups are, stressing confidentiality: Share and talk about this quote from Kevin Lee’s office: WHOM YOU SEE HERE, WHAT YOU HEAR HERE, WHEN YOU LEAVE HERE, LET IT STAY HERE…Please refer to the “About Small Groups” sheet in your staff notebook for more specifics if you need them (though you all are veterans at this and will be just fine!)

3. I’ve gathered a bunch of unfinished sentences for you to take turns picking out and answering. You can either all answer the same question before moving onto the next one, or each pick a different sentence. Your choice!

Saturday morning small group: For Real friends

2. Break the group into pairs, preferably with Friends whom they know less than others. One person in each pair takes 3 minutes (one staffer will need to be the timekeeper) to tell their partner about one of their best “for real” friends. The catch is that they have to do the whole thing pantomiming (NO WORDS OR SOUNDS!!!). When “time” is announced, the listeners should spend a few minutes relaying to the “speakers” what it is they think was “said.” Then, pairs can reverse roles, including the check-in at the end. Spend a few minutes as a group reflecting on how easy or hard this exercise was, and what you were able to learn or not learn from it.

3. Launch a discussion on what it means to be “real”, why it matters to have friends that are real, what makes them different/special, and who those actual friends are in our lives

* What are the best things friends can do for us when we’re mad…sad…being dishonest…not facing reality…in danger…screwing up…

Saturday evening small group: For Real Friends

1. You might start with a quick group/trust building activity, making a fairly tight circle and then sitting on each other’s laps. Make sure there is room for you to fall, though hopefully this won’t happen! If you sense that someone in your group is not comfortable with being in this close physical proximity (directly ask them all if you are unsure), invite them to be the organizer and the one who counts off when to sit, etc.

3. Have a discussion on what about being a Quaker makes it easier or harder for us to have real friends and Friends.

* Are there some ways of listening or working together that being a Quaker helps us to do more fully? (What about the exercise you just did?)

* Consider aspects of being a Quaker: Trust…safety…an understanding of ‘that of God in everyone’…Quaker process…hearing different points of view…expectations about ways of interacting and being heard…How do these help or hinder our ability to be “for real friends” in and out of our Quaker community?

* Are there things that the JHYM Retreat Community needs to pay attention to more and “do better” with this program year around these ways of being friends and in relationship?

Other Things about this retreat

Yes, there will be a Friday Night Get to Know you Activity, with fabulous door prizes.

Livi, Phoebe, and Jonah have all agreed to speak around the theme of “For Real Friends.” I am so very grateful to them.

Saturday late morning: We’ll gather for singing and worship before lunch with a Bible Story, if one arises……

Saturday afternoon at the park: After lunch, we’ll head off to Bushnell Park in Hartford for the afternoon. (If the weather is lousy, we will stay at the Meeting House.) This is a large city park, with lots of trees and fields and other people. It’s a great place to hang out. I’m grateful to the Humphreys and the Hogue-Rodleys who will be helping with transportation and with being adults of presence at the park. We’ll play games (capture the flag, kick ball), have snacks, enjoy the sun and each other, and ride the Carousel. (Check out the photos of Wendyl from the Sept. of 2005 Retreat if you want to see true bliss.)

Please let me know how many passengers you can take in your car, if you haven’t already emailed me this info. Thanks!

Saturday Evening Large Group Activity: Paper Bag Skits

I asked Robyn Churchill to gather sentences for the skits. As you can imagine, they are fun. Please try to bring a dozen or so items from your house to contribute to the bags, okay? The groups will be different from the small groups of the weekend. If any of you are uncomfortable leading one of these please let me know!!!

Sunday Morning: Breakfast will be at 8, followed by cleanup and Opening Circle at 9-ish. We will re-read the Friday night letters we wrote to ourselves, and then reflect on how we did individually and as a group over the weekend.

A note on supporting Benigno

Whenever you can, please check in with Benigno to see if he needs any additional help in the kitchen. (Dee Kelsey taught me this wonderful querie to use when supporting others: Are you still smiling? And if not, what do you need, or how can I help shift things, so that you return to smiling?)

The Quiet Room

For a couple of years now, JHYM Retreats has had a Quiet Room available throughout the retreat for JH’ers who need a break. It’s become a lovely haven – and, no, staffers, you can’t all be people of presence there all weekend but I do encourage you to stop by and help to nurture and preserve the space.

“FREE TIME”

Junior Highers want free time, but most of them want it with structure so that they can be in community. This is my mantra: “free time” is not staff free time. All of us on staff need to initiate group games (Apples to Apples, Egyptian War, JYM Ball, Graveyard Tag), inspire craft projects, encourage the creation of new Who’s Who Book pages, and engage stragglers into the mix in any ways we feel led – or the young people themselves lead. With JH’ers, it can be especially important to gently, continually nurture inclusivity. Please consider your gifts and leadings – and go for it!

Staff Assignments

Retreat Cook: Benigno, with help from Karen and Stephen – Thank you thank you!