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Take a Class
Memoir Group (ongoing)
at the Library with JoEllen Moldoff
Tuesdays | 1:00 - 3:00 P.M.
This is an on-going, informal group which meets on the 4th Tuesday of each month for conversation, writing, and reading works-in-progress. All are welcome!
Writer's Roundtable (ongoing)
at the Library with JoEllen Moldoff
Saturdays | 1:00 - 3:00 P.M.
This is an on-going, informal group which meets on the 2nd Saturday of each month for conversation, writing, and reading works-in-progress. All are welcome!
Compassionate Communication
at the Library with Rena Patty
Mondays | 6:00 — 8:00 P.M. | September 13, 20; October 4, 18; November 1, 8, 15, 29
Nonviolent Communication (NVC), also called Compassionate Communication, is based on historical principles of nonviolence -- the natural state of compassion when no violence is present in the heart. With NVC we learn to hear our own deeper needs and those of others. Through its emphasis on deep listening - to ourselves as well as others - NVC helps us discover the depth of our own compassion. NVC can be seen as both a spiritual practice that helps us see our common humanity, using our power in a way that honors everyone's needs, and a concrete set of skills which help us create life-serving families and communities. NVC creates a path for healing and reconciliation in its many applications, ranging from intimate relationships, work settings, health care, and social services.
This Compassionate Communication eight-week course will cover the basics of Nonviolent Communication (NVC), including learning to clarify what we are observing, what emotions we are feeling, what values we want to live by, and what we want to ask of ourselves and others. The course will be highly interactive, with opportunity throughout each class for personal engagement and integration of new skills; optional homework with feedback will provide opportunity each week to integrate new skills into life outside of class.
There is a $70 course fee (no one turned away for lack of funds).
Rena Patty is a certified trainer with the Center For Nonviolent Communication (CNVC). CNVC's mission is to contribute to more sustainable, compassionate, and "life-serving" human relations in the realms of both personal relationship and social systems and structures, such as business/economics, education, justice, healthcare, and peace-keeping. Rena has worked for two years as an assistant trainer for a San Francisco Bay Area NVC Leadership Program, and has volunteered annually over the past five years as an assistant trainer at NVC and Diversity retreats and NVC Family Camps. In addition, she is currently serving as a volunteer for the Freedom Project, teaching NVC at the Washington State Reformatory in Monroe.
Registration and information about class dates is available at the Library, 376-4985; to inquire about the course fee or the content of the course call Rena at 376-6864.
"My Back Pages"
Getting started in Genealogy and Family History
at the Library with Kathi Ciskowski
Wednesdays | 11:00 A.M. — 12:30 P.M. | September 22 & 29
The study of genealogy and family history allows us all to be time travelers. Although we are all truly individuals, our lives are shaped by those who came before us and by the times in which they lived.
Kathi Ciskowski will lead this 2-session course that will focus on a few simple ways to get started in the search for your ancestors. In this course we will focus on free, easily available resources and organizational techniques in order to get started on this very interesting pursuit, including the Library's database: ancestry.com.
Please bring a laptop computer if you have one, your Orcas Island Library card, and the full name of a United States relative living between 1910 and 1930 for research purposes.
Class size is limited to 12 students.
$15 enrollment fee covers both sessions.
"Antony and Cleopatra" by William Shakespeare
Experience and Explore Shakespeare's Plays
at the Library with Jane Alden
Mondays | 1:00 P.M. — 2:30 P.M. | September 27 — November 1
We will use the time each week to EXPLORE the play together, focusing on it the way directors and actors do, in order to EXPERIENCE the play from the inside and bring it to external life. The goal of a director is to turn what is on the page into a living entity, one that affects and touches an audience. That is my goal for this workshop. I want to direct our exploration in such a way as to allow us to come away with a personal, emotional experience of having been immersed in the world of this play. To be able to say that, for a time, we've lived in this world
The workshop will cost $60.00 for the 6 weeks
Workshop will be limited to 10 participants.
Class Requirement: Each workshop participant will need to have a play script; these can be ordered through Darvill's.
Intermediate Birding | Over-wintering Birds
at the Library with Kim Middleton
Fridays | 10:00 A.M. — 1:00 P.M. | October 1 — November 5
Discover the importance of over-wintering areas and why the Salish Sea is so important. You will learn which birds live here in the winter and why there are so many more species here than on the East Coast.
Ornithologist/Wildlife Artist Kim Middleton will focus on the winter birds of our area by discussing bird survival strategies, species identification, and where to find them.
Six-week course for only $75.