Annual WES Memorial Weekend Camping Trip

This year the camping trip was 80 people strong over the weekend at Three Otters Eco Retreat and we had a fabulous time!

We had a lot of fun kayaking, canoeing, biking, hiking, kite flying, and playing all sorts of field games during the day for active games. We had a few board games and crafts too, but with such a gorgeous weekend, much of the time was spent outdoors.

May 24th Platform - Come Hear the Voices of Ethical Culture's Future

At this Sunday's platform we'll hear from young adult members of the Future of Ethical Societies (FES).  They'll be talking about social justice through the lens of activists, artists and humanists, in an effort "to critically examine what it means to serve, create and transform communities."

Paulo Ribeiro at WES on Founder's Day, May 17

Leader-in-Training Paulo Ribeiro will speak on a fascinating part of our history--the founding of the Free Kindergarden movement by Ethical Culture founder Felix Adler in 1877.  Adler was part of a movement deeply tied to the ideas of free thought and pluralism challenging the conservative values of the time. The efforts of the kindergarten stood in stark contrast to similar charitable efforts by New York City's traditional religious communities while being set against the backdrop of a wider national and international drama over the education of the country's youngest citizens. Music from the WES Chorus.   

Also on Sunday--join other WES members in our monthly Schmoozapaloosa lunch gathering.  Contact Molly Beiting to help out.  Or, you can take part in the WES Bookgroup's discussion of Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age, by W. Bernard Carlson.  Contact Tony Nam for more info.

Sunday School highlight - How will my garden grow - Transformation

The beginning of the month we started a new theme, Transformation.Two of our classes for children follows the monthly themes and for this week I would like to highlight one of those classes.  For the Kindergarten through 3rd grade Theme Explorations class we thought we would start with how a seed transforms into a seedling. Then, at the end of the month, we would observe how our garden transformed.

This part was actually quite fun to see. The children of this class had planted seeds of several plant varieties in  March. The children had taken some plants home to grow, but several trays of plants had been set aside for the garden at WES. They hadn't seen the plant trays since planting the seeds.  For this Sunday they saw their "seeds" again. This time as fully sprouted plants. One boy exclaimed upon seeing the trays, "I know what these are! These are the seeds we planted!"  Another boy, upon closely examining a tray of marigolds, "Hey, I planted this tray! I know it has to be my tray because I accidentally planted two tomato seeds and now I see there are two tomato plants with all these marigolds!" It was so wonderful to see their excitement and ownership of these plants.