Other name | PoHo |
|---|---|
| Type | Conference and retreat center |
Religious affiliation | Religious Society of Friends, New York Yearly Meeting |
| Location | , , 42°25′24″N73°34′25″W / 42.42333°N 73.57361°W Coordinates: 42°25′24″N73°34′25″W / 42.42333°N 73.57361°W |
| Campus | 57 acres (230,000 m2) |
| Website | www |
 | |
Powell House, named after Elsie K. Powell Sr., is the Quaker conference and retreat center of the New York Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, located in Old Chatham, New York. [1]
Powell House is used primarily for religious conferences and similar gatherings of members and attenders of meetings belonging to New York Yearly Meeting. It is also used for meetings of Yearly Meeting committees or conferences sponsored by them. The programs include a wide variety of educational, inspirational, and organizational activities for youth and adults related to the religious, benevolent, and social concerns of the Religious Society of Friends. The facilities are available for use by affiliated Friends’ organizations and other religious or educational groups having interests compatible with those of Friends. Short-term sojourners are sometimes accommodated.
In 1960, Elsie Powell donated residential property to New York Yearly Meeting. [2] The yearly meeting decided to establish a retreat center on the property.
Powell House held a 40th anniversary celebration in 2000.
During 2008 and 2009 the Anna Curtis Center underwent renovation. [3] The renovation included several energy-saving improvements such as the installation of solar panels and a radiant floor heating system. It made more space for conference activities and increased the sleeping capacity of the facility. It also made the facility handicapped accessible.
Powell House's campus now consists of Pitt Hall, the Anna Curtis Center, a director’s residence, a youth directors’ residence, and fifty-seven acres of land with a campground and two wildlife ponds. [2]
Pitt Hall is where the majority of the adult conferences are held.
The Anna Curtis Center, also known as the Youth Center, is where youth conferences are usually held.
The youth program has conferences designed for several age groups. There are conferences for 4th and 5th graders, 6th through 8th, and 9th through 12th graders. Most youth conferences run from Friday dinner to Sunday lunch and have around 40 attenders.
WinterSong and EarthSong are special youth conferences for which both buildings are required because there are nearly double the usual number of attendees. Earthsong celebrates the spring and the seniors who are graduating from the program. Wintersong celebrates warmth, community, and light in winter. Youth from 7th to 12th grades are invited to these conferences.
Typical conferences consist of the following elements:
At most youth conferences there are only two adult leaders (the directors) and one adult presence (AP). Because most of the youth want to be there and enjoy the program immensely there is very little need for authoritative figures, however several Junior Councilors (JCs) are chosen for every 4th and 5th grade and 6th through 8th grade conference.
JCs are youth slightly older than the youth attending the conference, who also attend conferences themselves. Once a year there is a JC training conference (JCT) during which attenders learn leadership and mediation skills. JCs lead small group discussions, work projects, games, meal and snack crews, and workshops. They are also expected to set an example for the other youth and help maintain the community's safety and order.
Friends General Conference (FGC) is a North American Quaker association of 15 Quaker yearly and 12 monthly meetings in the United States and Canada that choose to be members. FGC was founded in 1900.
Friends United Meeting (FUM) is an association of twenty-six yearly meetings of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in North America, Africa, and the Caribbean. Its home pages states that it is "a collection of Christ-centered Quakers, embracing 34 yearly meetings and associations, thousands of local gatherings and hundreds of thousands of individuals." In addition there are several individual Monthly meetings and organizations that are members of FUM. FUM's headquarters is in Richmond, Indiana, and has offices in Kisumu, Kenya. Friends United Meeting is a member of the National Council of Churches in the United States of America.
The views of Quakers around the world towards homosexuality encompass a range from complete celebration and the practice of same-sex marriage, to the view that homosexuality is sinfully deviant and contrary to God's intentions for sexual expression. The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) is a historically Christian religious movement founded in 17th-century England; it has around 350,000 members. In Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, many Quakers are supportive of homosexual relationships, while views are divided among U.S. meetings. The majority (52%) of Quakers live in Africa, and though views may differ, the Kenyan Church of Friends does not support homosexual relationships.
The Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain, also known as the Britain Yearly Meeting, is a Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in England, Scotland, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. It is the national organisation of Quakers living in Britain. Britain Yearly Meeting refers to both the religious gathering and the organisation. "Yearly Meeting", or "Yearly Meeting Gathering" are usually the names given to the annual gathering of British Quakers. Quakers in Britain is the name the organisation is commonly known by.
George School is a private Quaker boarding and day high school located on a rural campus in Middletown Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. It was founded at its present site in 1893, and has grown from a single building to over 20 academic, athletic, and residential buildings. Besides the usual college preparatory courses, including an International Baccalaureate program, the school features several distinct programs deriving from its Quaker heritage. These include community service requirements, an emphasis on social justice and environmental concerns, required arts courses, and community-based decision making.
Charles Eugene Fager, known as Chuck Fager, is an American activist, author, editor, publisher and an outspoken and prominent member of the Religious Society of Friends or Quakers. He is known for his work in both the Civil Rights Movement and in the Peace movement. His written works include religious and political essays, humor, adult fiction, and juvenile fiction, and he is best known for his 1974 book Selma 1965: The March That Changed the South, his in-depth history of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights Movement which led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act.
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, or simply Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, or PYM, is the central organizing body for Quaker meetings in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, area, including parts of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey.
Latin America contains approximately 17.5% of the world's Quakers. Latin American Friends are concentrated in Bolivia and Central America. Most of these Friends are evangelical and are affiliated with Evangelical Friends Church International. Friends World Committee for Consultation organizes among them through the Comité de Amigos Latinoamericanos CoAL del Comité Mundial de Consulta de Los Amigos CMCA FWCC.
Yearly Meeting is a term used by members of the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, to refer to an organization composed of constituent meetings or churches within a geographical area. The constituent meetings are called Monthly Meetings in most of the world; in England, local congregations are now called Area Meetings, in Australia Monthly Meetings are called Regional Meetings. "Monthly" and "Yearly" refer to how often the body meets to make decisions. Monthly Meetings may be local congregations that hold regular Meetings for Worship, or may comprise a number of Worship Groups. Depending on the Yearly Meeting organization, there may also be Quarterly Meetings, Half-Yearly Meetings, or Regional Meetings, where a number of local Monthly Meetings come together within a Yearly Meeting.
Sandy Spring Friends School (SSFS) is a progressive, coeducational, college preparatory Quaker school serving students from preschool through 12th grade. SSFS offers an optional 5- and 7- day boarding program in the Middle School and Upper School. 59% of its student body identifies as students of color, and 19 countries are represented in its boarding program. Founded in 1961, its motto is "Let Your Lives Speak" an old Quaker adage which expresses the school's philosophy of "educating all aspects of a person so that their life—in all of its facets—can reveal the unique strengths within." SSFS sits on a pastoral 140-acre campus in the heart of Montgomery County, Maryland, approximately midway between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore. SSFS is under the care of the Sandy Spring Monthly Meeting and the Baltimore Yearly Meeting.
In the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), a monthly meeting or area meeting is the basic governing body, a congregation which holds regular meetings for business for Quakers in a given area. The monthly meeting is responsible for the administration of its congregants, including membership and marriages, and for the meeting's property. A monthly meeting can be a grouping of multiple smaller meetings, usually called preparative meetings, coming together for administrative purposes, while for others it is a single institution. In most countries, multiple monthly meetings form a quarterly meeting, which in turn form yearly meetings. Programmed Quakers may refer to their congregation as a church.
Junior Yearly Meeting (JYM) is a gathering for young Quakers. There are various JYM groups worldwide, which cover the same geographical boundaries as their respective Yearly meeting. Most countries have one Yearly meeting which corresponds to national borders, but in the United States there are Yearly Meetings on regional, state and city level, and this is reflected in their JYMs. The frequency and age range of gatherings varies between JYMs.
Friends School of Baltimore is a private Quaker school in Baltimore, serving students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. One of the prestigious Roland Park 5 Preparatory Schools, Friends has been described by author Judy Colbert as "a challenging college preparatory program in an environment where individual differences and perspectives are respected and encouraged".
Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements are generally united by a belief in each human's ability to experience the light within or see "that of God in every one". Some profess a priesthood of all believers inspired by the First Epistle of Peter. They include those with evangelical, holiness, liberal, and traditional Quaker understandings of Christianity. There are also Nontheist Quakers, whose spiritual practice does not rely on the existence of God. To differing extents, the Friends avoid creeds and hierarchical structures. In 2007, there were about 359,000 adult Quakers worldwide. In 2017, there were 377,557 adult Quakers, 49 per cent of them in Africa.
The Quaker movement began in England in the Seventeenth Century. Small Quaker groups were planted in various places across Europe during this early period. Quakers in Europe outside Britain and Ireland are not now very numerous although new groups have started in the former Soviet Union and satellite countries. By far the largest national grouping of Quakers in Europe is in Britain.
Friends Academy is a Quaker, coeducational, independent, college preparatory school serving students from nursery school through the twelfth grade, located in Locust Valley, New York, United States. The school was founded in 1876 by 78-year-old Gideon Frost for "The children of Friends and those similarly sentimented". The school was originally named Friends College. The campus covers 65 acres (26 ha). The school is organized around a lush, grassy quad with buildings surrounding it. Recent additions to the school include the Helen A. Dolan Center (2000), the Kumar-Wang Library (2000), the renovation of the Upper School (2004), the renovation of the Lower School (2010), the construction of the gym and field house (2007), and the renovation of the Middle School (2016).
New York Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, or simply New York Yearly Meeting or NYYM, is the central organizing body for Quaker meetings and worship groups in New York State, northern and central New Jersey, and southwestern Connecticut.
Wilson Marcy Powell Sr. was a prominent Harvard lawyer, president of New York Hospital and vice-president of the Bar Association of the City of New York.
The Leaveners are a performing arts organisation consisting of members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).