The Gathering
A key program of FGC is the annual Gathering of Friends held at a different college campus every July. The event usually attracts 1,200 to 1,500 attenders from around the world, but most participants come from the United States and Canada. The event features 40–60 workshop and a slate of plenary speakers. Topics covered include Quaker faith and practice, arts and crafts, multigenerational programming, and political activism. The Gathering hosts both Quaker and non-Quaker speakers focusing on messages of interest to Quakers. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. offered a Plenary presentation in 1958. More recently, the Gathering hosted Lester Brown, Shane Claiborne, and Ben Pink Dandelion.
In addition to workshops and plenary sessions, the gathering often features special events such as concerts. Folk legend Pete Seeger performed a concert in 1997. Evalyn Parry, older sister of FGC attender Richard Parry - of the Arcade Fire, has also performed several times at FGC, including in 2002 and 2011.
Read more about this topic: Friends General Conference
Famous quotes containing the word gathering:
“But gathering as we stray, a sense
Of Life, so lovely and intense,
It lingers when we wander hence,
That those who follow feel behind
Their backs, when all before is blind,
Our joy, a rampart to the mind.”
—John Masefield (1878–1967)
“This wild night, gathering the washing as if it were flowers
animal vines twisting over the line and
slapping my face lightly, soundless merriment
in the gesticulations of shirtsleeves ...”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)