Western Half-Yearly Meeting Spring 2012

Our rental car outside Spes Bona

Maria and I spent the Victoria Day weekend (May 18 to May 21) in Sorrento, BC attending the Spring 2012 session of Western Half-Yearly Meeting. This is a meeting of Western Canadian Quakers that has been occuring twice yearly (in Sorrento every May, and alternating in Water Valley, AB and Saskatoon, SK in October) for over 30 years. I've been attending the Sorrento meeting every year for the past seven years, and Maria has accompanied me the last five times. It's a long drive 6-hour drive from Calgary to Sorrento, on the shores of Shuswap Lake, and landslides in Glacier National Park occasionally cause long waits or long detours, but we both like visiting BC, and at this time of year everything is in blossom in Sorrento, some two weeks ahead of Calgary.

Singing on Sunday night

A significant part of the WHYM program is dedicated to our business meetings, but time is also put aside for Special Interest Groups, Worship Sharing groups, Sunday Meeting for Worship and recreation. A program item that gives us great pleasure is the singing that happens every evening in the Spes Bona lounge, and everyone enjoys Family Night, when many Friends present their talents in singing and acting: my storyteller wife (Maria) always presents both a song and a story - I've uploaded both to YouTube this year.

There is a program for the children (this year coordinated by Maria) and the teens and young adults create a program of their own, many of them spending the nights tonight in teen cabanas. Maria and I usually take a simple cabana for ourselves, but because this year the Quakers shared Sorrento Centre with a group of Anglican youth, we got bumped up to a furnished (and heated!) appartment.