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Please see the following reminder about an important opportunity coming up
for all 8th grade parents:


*Tuesday, October 14, Workshop for Parents on Decision Making Practices in
Friends Schools*

All parents of Sidwell Friends students are encouraged to learn about the
decision-making process at school at a special event on *Tuesday, October
14 from 6-9:00 pm, Robert Smith Meeting House.*
Arthur Larrabee will lead us in a workshop and discussion of Quaker
decision making in Friends schools, a process which the Parents Association
and the entire Sidwell Friends community seeks to emulate. All parents can
use the concepts and tools from Arthur Larabee's workshop to peacefully
benefit the school community, as well as to improve decision making in
their personal and professional lives. A light supper and materials will be
provided.

Please RSVP to Kathi Webb at webbk@sidwell.edu. All attendees welcomed on
the evening of the event. For more information on Arthur Larrabee, see
below.

-- Your 8th grade reps

*Arthur Larrabee*

Arthur Larrabee is a lifelong Quaker. He graduated from Westtown School in
1960, from Yale
University in 1967 and from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in
1970. From 1963-65
he worked as a volunteer with the American Friends Service Community doing
rural
community-development work in Tanzania. From 1970-1993 he practiced law in
Philadelphia,
becoming a founding partner in the firm Larrabee, Cunningham and McGowan.
From 1993-
2007 he had a career as a consultant, workshop leader, speaker, author and
volunteer. As a
workshop leader, he has facilitated more than one hundred workshops for
Quaker meetings
and schools on Quaker decision-making and clerking. [taken from Caln
Quarterly, Spring 2010]

One does not become the General Secretary of the Philadelphia Yearly
Meeting without having
considerable experience clerking committees and boards and meetings. Arthur
served as a
member and clerk of the Committee in Charge of the Westtown School
(1971-2010), as a
trustee of the University of Pennsylvania (1972-75) and as president of the
Pennsylvania Opera
Theater (1979-1983). He also served as clerk of the Philadelphia Yearly
Meeting (1992-95), the
Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting (2001-2005), and the Interim Meeting
of Philadelphia
Yearly Meeting (2006-07).

We are told that Arthur has natural gifts for clerking a meeting, but he is
working with us as a
recognized expert in Friends’ decision making because he took time to
analyze his own efforts;
reflect on what worked, what didn’t and why; and develop an articulate
theory and practical
guidelines for those who would like to better understand Friends decision
making, whether
they are a participant in a meeting or clerk of that meeting. Arthur has
authored dozens of
pamphlets used by Friends around the world. For the 2007 Walton Lecture,
Arthur Larrabee
provided an insightful appraisal of the state of contemporary Quakerism's
fear of leadership.
His reassuring and enlightening lecture entitled Leadership and Authority
in the Religious
Society of Friends, offers solutions for attitude change