Regina Renee Nyégbeh  is a public library director,  and a former public school teacher. She is passionate about social justice, intellectual freedom, literacy, and labyrinths. Her work with Friends and racial healing was born out of necessity as she navigates life as both a woman of African descent and a Friend. Regina Renee is a a volunteer for Friends General Conference and a member of Ujima Friends Meeting. She identifies as a Christian Friend and her favorite book in the Bible is James. Her life verse is Micah 6:8.

For over twenty years Melanie Gifford has been active at Adelphi Friends Meeting and in Baltimore Yearly Meeting. As a nontheist in a religious community, she has learned not to resist the occasional discomfort of being an anomaly and in her spiritual life, she has found more common ground with theist Friends than differences. This has been a great joy and it led her to facilitate Adelphi’s Spiritual Formation program for some years, and to serve on the Ministry committees of both Adelphi and BYM. She participated in the Nurturing Faithfulness Program led by Marcelle Martin and Hilary Burgin, a transformative experience that brought a leading to open moments of quiet space where unexpected insights can grow, both as an individual and in community.

Cai Quirk (they/them or ey/em pronouns) is a lifelong Quaker with passions for Witness, personal discernment, and diverse methods of spiritual deepening. With a gender that transcends binaries, Cai is practiced at deeply questioning societal expectations and norms, and in shifting towards roots of individual and group integrity. Spiritual deepening, Witness, and integrity are expanded in Cai’s ministry through photography, writing, music, and workshops. Cai has facilitated hundreds of talks and workshops, including for FGC and Quaker organizations such as Pendle Hill, Powell House, Beacon Hill Friends House, QEW, FCNL, FLGBTQC, FQA, QuakerSpeak, and various yearly, quarterly, and monthly meetings. You can learn more about Cai and their ministry at caiquirk.com. 

nova sturrup is a dreamer, wonderer, and poet with a deep interest in the Hebrew Bible and the ways faith informs imaginings and realities with regards to community, belonging, and inclusion. nova’s eyes light up in conversation about the pedagogical impact of technology in classrooms, liberation theologies, black literature as sacred text, and ritual and spiritual practice. You might find nova lounging in a Brooklyn café having a cup of herbal tea, singing to a tree in their backyard, or dreaming about the world they hope to co-create with all of you.

Michael Levi is a member of Adelphi Friends Meeting in Maryland. For many years he has taught “An Introduction to Quakerism” to members and attenders of his Meeting and to parents of a Friends school.  In addition, Michael has led many sessions, especially on Friends history and practices, under the care of Adelphi’s Continuing Quaker Education committee.  Michael’s leading is to help provide a framework in which the guidance of the Spirit can resonate and be better understood, so that we all emerge better equipped to answer that of God.

Anne Pomeroy is a long standing member of New Paltz Monthly Meeting, NYYM. Anne is a spiritual director with years of experience facilitating workshops and retreats. Retreat topics have included continuing revelation, deep listening, Spiritual deepening, addressing conflict, listening, life cycles of meetings and eldership.  Anne carries a concern for the vitality of the Religious Society of Friends and is exploring transformation of Quaker culture. Anne is an avid quilter and has led retreats on creativity and spirituality. Anne supports individuals and meetings in their journey to deeper faithfulness.

Pete Schwartz has been a practitioner of centering prayer since 1995.  He has participated in and coordinated numerous retreats and programs on centering prayer.  He has attended centering prayer events hosted by Thomas Keating and William Meninger.  While maintaining an appreciation and connection to his catholic faith tradition, his continued practice of silent contemplation led him to become a convinced Quaker in 2017.  He is currently a member of the Oak Park Friends Meeting in Oak Park, Illinois.  He recently retired from a lifelong career in business.

Barbara Birch is a member of Strawberry Creek Meeting in Berkeley CA and board member at Ben Lomond Quaker Center in Santa Cruz. She is offering a workshop on Embodied Spirituality and Food at the Friends General Conference Gathering. She is the author of Lectio Divina: Revelation and Prophecy, forthcoming in the Quaker Quicks series, John Hunt Publishing. She enjoys walking, biking, and especially spending time with her family.

Albert Bellg is a retired psychologist, a writer, and a member of Winnebago Worship Group in NE Wisconsin.  He facilitates a monthly online Experiment with Light, a weekly spiritual nurture group, and Circle of Trust retreats.  He wrote a book about his lifelong experience of following his inner wisdom, Living the Deepest Truth You Know.

Learn how the Earth Quaker Action Team has embraced worship and continuing revelation through their actions for environmental and economic justice, and join in an experiential learning community to explore how groups and individuals can listen to leadings and be in faithful discernment as a community in action together.  Lina Blount will share stories of her introduction to Quakerism during a sit-in in a PNC Bank lobby, and why she still considers EQAT her primary spiritual community.

Natalie Ramsland is a Member of Multnomah Friends Meeting in Portland, Oregon, and has a Quaker zine project called Fold In The Light. Her creative practices have ranged from building bicycle frames to knitting, from ukulele playing to cartography. Her first zine, covering dining hall culture in college, was called Stick a Fork in It.

Stanford Searl is a Quaker poet and scholar, a member of the Santa Monica Friends Meeting in California. In 2020, he was the Carroll Research Scholar at Pendle Hill and completed fifty-five interviews with other Friends about the Gathered Meeting. He published a poetry chapbook in 2019, Mary Dyer’s Hymn and other Quaker Poems and currently, he’s writing a memoir.

Marty Grundy, a long time member of Cleveland Meeting is now a member of Wellesley Meeting in New England. As a teen she was intrigued by the difference between her meeting in Philadelphia YM and the early Friends meetings she read about. In an effort to better understand early Friends she studied their language (Bible), deciphered the handwriting of early minutes, and read a lot. She has also served Friends as clerk and recording clerk, facilitated retreats and study groups, and has done a fair amount of writing including A Call to Friends: Faithful Living in Desperate Times, Pendle Hill Pamphlet #347 Tall Poppies: Supporting Gifts of Ministry and Eldering in the Monthly Meeting, and edited the Memoirs of David Ferris.

Steven Davison is a member of Central Philadelphia Meeting. A Friend since 1986, he is an avid, longtime student of the Quaker Tradition and the Bible. He holds a degree in Studies in Religion from Rutgers University and has been enriched by the School of the Spirit’s course on The Prophetic Tradition and by study at Pendle Hill. He is the author of The Gathered Meeting, Pendle Hill Pamphlet #444.

Join Guelmy Neris (Montclair Monthly Meeting), a STEM educator specializing in VR/AR, for an immersive encounter of Quaker worship and community in the digital realm. Discover how technology can enrich our spiritual connections as we bridge traditional Quaker values with cutting-edge virtual reality.

The only equipment needed is the computer or phone (with a screen) that you joined the workshop with. This workshop is for people of all ages and technical abilities… Guelmy will help guide you through these explorations of Quakerism in virtual reality. We will use ‘Frame VR’ (A 3D Website) with a space Guelmy has been developing for Quaker events in particular.

In the film Rustin, Quaker activist Bayard Rustin faces racism and homophobia as he helps change the course of Civil Rights history by orchestrating the 1963 March on Washington.

Watch Rustin on Netflix or join us for a streaming viewing on Saturday during the retreat. Rashid Darden will be facilitating a discussion of the themes of the film and the reality of Bayard Rustin’s life.

Join us for a film watch party during the Workshop A time on Saturday.

Rashid Darden is a novelist specializing in stories about the contemporary Black LGBT experience, both realistic and fantastic. He is a member of Friends Meeting of Washington and is FGC’s Associate Secretary for Communications and Outreach. He looks forward to moderating this discussion about one of his heroes.

Kasper Ransom Ronning (He/Him) is a 30-year-old with 25 years of atheism and 5ish years of Christocentric Quakerism under his belt. A second generation Norwegian immigrant and first generation high school graduate, he has come to embrace a number of identities, particularly those of queer, transgender, and person with various acquired disabilities. He enjoys deepening his familiarity with Christianity through Bible study, having frank discussions of how the Religious Society of Friends can learn to effectively communicate across socio-economic and educational attainment lines, and partaking in horrifying food combinations (marshmallow fluff with red curry paste, anyone?).