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Autumn 2012
1963-2013
50
Guess who’s turning 50?
Sorrento Conference and Retreat Centre is
excited about reaching the ripe old age of 50 and plans to celebrate during 2013!
First on the calendar are parties throughout Alberta and British Columbia, all hosted on January 25.
Victoria, Vancouver (in two locations) and Calgaryhave already stepped up to the plate and organizers
are hoping more will follow suit.
Please consider hosting a partyin your area. It could be a crazy
celebration or simply a small gathering. Prizes, a slide show
presentation and some suggestions about gathering
memories are available. We hope each location will have on hand
past youth staff, board members, associates, and newcomers.
Everyone is invited to participate in this golden moment to reminisce or
to learn more about Sorrento Centre. Please save the date!
Tickets will be available from your parish contact soon.
If you don’t know who that is or would like more information, please contact one of the anniversary committee members:
Danielle Wahl at [email protected]; Ivan Baharally at [email protected] or
Kathie MacDuff at [email protected].
Yours,
Kathie MacDuffChair of the Sorrento Centre Board of Directors
Dear Associates,
Sorrento Centre’s fall fundraiser is now underway. This is an online auction and it runs
from Monday, October 29 until Friday, November 30. Go to the website here (www.sorrento-centre.bc.ca/auction) and bid on one of the dozens of fabulous gifts. Do some early Christmas shopping or treat yourself to something special.
We’re calling the event “An Electrifying Idea.” Our goal is to raise $10,000 to upgrade the electrical service in Richardson Lodge. This will
provide counter-height electrical outlets in all the Richardson lodge rooms and bathrooms.
Once this is completed, you will no longer have to squat down beside the beds to plug in your hair dryer or computer or other electrical device.
If you don’t want to bid on an auction item but want to support this project, it is also possible to make a donation. You can mail us a cheque, phone in with your credit card or make a donation online at www.sorrento-centre.bc.ca/admin-donate.html.
Last year, we raised enough money to buy 10 new beds for the two lodges and 28 mattresses for the cabanas. The year before, we raised enough money to buy a tractor for the farm.
Please help us continue to improve Sorrento Centre by plugging into this Electrifying Idea!
Yours in faith,
Christopher LindExecutive Director
A Message fromthe Chair of the
Board of Directors
A Message from the Executive Director
A Newsletter for the Associates of Sorrento CentreScenariothe
New Position Announced
Associates’ Thanksgiving Weekend 2012
Quilt Auction
2 The Scenario • Autumn 2012 Sorrento Centre • 1159 Passchendaele Road, PO Box 99, Sorrento, BC V0E 2W0
Around 60 Associates and family members (ranging from three-and-a-half-weeks old on up!) gathered together for a wonderful weekend of work, fun, and fellowship this past Thanksgiving weekend. We had the traditional pig roast on Saturday and turkey dinner on Sunday. We enjoyed plenty of fresh produce from the farm at every meal.Gardening, construction, plumbing,
Longtime Associate and volunteer Jean Wood, who runs the Kinghorn Cappuccino Bar in the summer, created this wonderful music-themed quilt which was auctioned off as a fundraiser for the Centre. The auction brought in over $1000. Thanks to everyone who participated and special thanks to Jean! The winner of the quilt is Mavis Smith of Sorrento.
Executive Director Christopher Lind is pleased to announce that Melissa Green has accepted the new fulltime position of Program Director at Sorrento Centre. Melissa has been providing leadership to the Summer Youth Staff for the last five years. In this new role, Melissa will be expanding her responsibilities to include all Sorrento-sponsored programs. Congratulations Melissa!
painting, kitchen prep, apple picking and cider making, and a fabulous pumpkin-carving extravaganza kept everyone on their toes. We wound up with over 40 gallons of apple juiced pressed from Sorrento Centre orchard apples!
Thanks to everyone who came and also to Quentin Sarafinchan for taking this great group photo!
Jean Wood and her musical quilt with bluegrass mandolin virtuoso John Reischman
3Phone: 250-675-2421 • Toll-free: 1-866-694-2409 • Fax: 250-675-3032 • [email protected] • www.sorrento-centre.bc.ca
Summer Youth Staff Updateby Melissa Green
This summer, 15 young people made their way to Sorrento Centre from across western Canada to gather together as the Summer Youth Staff team. They quickly formed an intentional community. During staff training, the group decided that four of the most important characteristics of our community were respect, creativity, trust, and teamwork. Over the course of our two months in community, the group held these characteristics as the base of our work and time together.
There was a lot of laughter, a lot of stories, many new experiences, and even some pranking here and there. Staff worked in the kitchen, housekeeping, grounds, maintenance, farm, and children and
youth programming. The team worked hard to make sure guests of every age felt welcome during their stay.
The Children and Youth Programming team had 149 children and youth join us during our summer programming weeks this year! Our youngest group of children, the 0-4 program group, journeyed through a “Symphony of the Senses”. Our 5-13 group encountered the “Magic of the Bible.” Our Generation Next (teen group) looked at rights of all sorts in “Mission Possible: Yeah Rights!” Each group had lots of fun with many mini-adventures every day. Each week our Generation Next group painted one of the portable doors… next time you are here come up and take a peak!
Working with the Summer Youth Staff Team were Cameron Gutjahr, Children and Youth Program Coordinator, and Amanda Millar,Youth Camp Coordinator, who arrived in May to plan and develop the program. I worked closely with Cameron and Amanda and together the three of us supported, mentored, challenged, and equipped the staff team. All in all, it was an amazing summer with a beyond-amazing Summer Youth Staff team. I am pleased to say that Cameron and Amanda have agreed to return to Sorrento Centre in 2013 as co-leaders of the summer youth staff team.
A huge thank you to everyone who joined us at Sorrento Centre this summer!
summer youth
summer youth staff
youth leadership team
Notes from the Farmby David Wides (aka “Farmer Dave”)
4 The Scenario • Autumn 2012 Sorrento Centre • 1159 Passchendaele Road, PO Box 99, Sorrento, BC V0E 2W0
As the trees turn colour and the temperatures drop, we bring another abundant and successful growing season to a close. This third growing season of Sorrento Centre Farm has been rewarding both in crops and in educational opportunities for our community. In addition, we have shared the fruits of our ministry with many people who are most in need in our community.
The season provided a cool spring and a dry fall. Things got off to a bit of a slow start in the spring but as the season turned, our gardens grew in lush abundance. Some of our most popular crops from the garden this season included our purple dragon carrots, our garlic braids, the spaghetti squash, sugar snap peas, eggplants, giant lettuce heads, jack-o’-lantern pumpkins, and of course, our sun sugar orange cherry tomatoes. The season has been both colourful and tasty!
The farm education programs have been running with great success throughout the season. We have had an opportunity to
engage and connect with our diverse intergenerational communities in a number of formats and venues this season. Some of the highlights of our education program include farm tours, Monday night roundtable discussions, the Summer Youth program “Creation Integration, Sharing the Abundance”, Associates weekend, outreach with local churches, and farm days with local school classes. All of this outreach and education work has raised the profile of the Sorrento Farm in our community and has connected hundreds of families with Creation in our garden.
We have had many opportunities to share the abundance with our community this season. This has included our weekly food box donation program for local low-income families. In addition to our charity ministry, we have continued to share the bulk of our abundance with our guests and community in the Sorrento Centre dining room. Chef Norm and our kitchen staff have found new
ways to squirrel away produce for the winter season as well. This includes carrots, potatoes, beets, winter squash, honey, dried herbs, frozen cider, frozen berries, and canned jam. We look forward to serving this stored abundance to guests throughout our busy winter and spring seasons.
The fall is a time of slowing down and putting the garden to rest. But it is also a time for preparing the fields for next year. We have already planted our garlic for next season’s harvest in the freshly tilled soil. We planted 2500 cloves of garlic, which is an increase of 35 percent over last year. We have planted more garlic because it has turned out to be incredibly popular amongst our guests! In fact we completely sold out of garlic during a pilot program where we sold garlic braids during the month of August. We anticipate an abundant 50th Anniversary season in the garden as we begin our fourth season growing on the farm. We are planning a fun year – we invite you to join in and support our efforts!
Raspberry fingers!
The Farm produce booth
Dave Lettuce Head
Winter Office Hours
During the Associates’ Week last spring, it became apparent that our venerable dishwashing machine, known to generations of Sorrento staff, volunteers, and guests simply as “Hobart”, was coming to the end of its long life.
5Phone: 250-675-2421 • Toll-free: 1-866-694-2409 • Fax: 250-675-3032 • [email protected] • www.sorrento-centre.bc.ca
Kitchen Dishpit Renovation Complete
Starting from Monday, November 4, after daylight savings time ended and we “fell back” an hour, Sorrento Centre office hours are from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm (Pacific Standard Time) Monday to Friday.
On Monday, March 11, 2013, after daylight savings time begins and we “spring ahead,” Sorrento Centre office hours will return to 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. In the summer, the office is open 7 days a week.
The office will be closed for Christmas holidays from December 19 and reopen January 2, 2013.
We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!
The Centre purchased Hobart – second hand, of course – in 1971. It provided exceptional service for over four decades but was beginning to show its age. Critical repairs were needed in order for us to meet food safety requirements, upkeep was proving costly, and parts were becoming difficult or impossible to obtain.
Thanks to the generous gift from an anonymous donor during the Associates’ Week, we were able to purchase a brand new dishwasher – this time a Champion brand. The new dishwasher is environmentally friendly, using substantially less energy and water than conventional models. It is also ventless, which means that it is self-cooling and does not produce the heat and steam that Hobart was infamous for.
Installation day was very exciting and hectic. Two plumbers, three electricians, a detergent hook-up technician, and our Head of Maintenance, David Teece, all worked diligently to remove Hobart and install the Champion.
In addition, new stainless steel counters, shelves, a deep sink, and a grease trap are all now installed and functioning.
Come and have a look on your next visit to Sorrento Centre. If you’re lucky we might even let you do a load or two of dishes!
Champion, thenew venerable
Hobart, the old venerable
We are living through times of great upheaval. Many ‘certainties’ are crumbling, and faith is not immune to this disintegration. For many who would describe themselves as people of faith, there are more questions than answers.
The traditional approach regarding faith as assent to intellectual propositions or doctrines and undertaking to comply with the strictures of the faith is no longer working for many who are nevertheless genuinely seeking to discover and nourish the spiritual bedrock of their lives. So what does it mean to be a person of faith in today’s world? Is it, in the words of Alice on Wonderland, about ‘believing six impossible things before breakfast’? Or is it rather more about trusting the mystery in whom we live and move and have our being means well with us and is striving to empower us to become the very best we can be, both individually and collectively? Can ‘faith’ take us beyond ‘religion’, to a radical following of one who shows us what it means to be ‘a human being fully alive’?
6
What does that following mean for us in our world, both personally and globally? What questions does the challenge of faith bring up for us? Should we really be looking for answers? We will look at some of the big questions: Who is ‘God’ for us? Who is Jesus? Where is our life centred? Does our life really have any meaning? How does faith reveal itself in action, and become transformative energy? How can we be in relationship with this mystery?
The retreat begins with supper on Friday, November 23 and ends with lunch on Sunday, November 25. Cost is $300 inclusive based on shared occupancy.
MARGARET SILF travels widely as a retreat director and speaker on Ignatian spirituality. Her latest book, Just Call Me Lopez: Getting to the Heart of Ignatius Loyola, will be available in July 2012. Her other books include The Other Side of Chaos, Simple Faith, Compass Points, Inner Compass, Close to the Heart and Going on Retreat (Loyola Press) and The Gift of Prayer: Embracing the Sacred in the Everyday (Bluebridge). She lives in Scotland.
Thursday evening introduces the theme of finding the sacred in all of life. Friday and Saturday, the pattern will be morning as an experiential time – a presentation of ideas (what is meant by seeing the Sacred in all things, how do we open ourselves to this way of living, why this is important to our well being...) as well as discussion and offering different practices for staying connected to the Holy (Breath Prayer, Lectio Divina, walking meditations, the labyrinth, mindfulness...). Afternoon will be a time of reflection through various media (journaling, creative expression) to help in processing the morning as well to try out the spiritual practices. There will be opportunity to meet with Rick for spiritual direction to assist in processing the weekend’s experience. After supper, we will have a time of silence to explore inner stillness. We begin and end each day with prayer/worship time.
Thursday, November 15 at 5:50pm (supper together) to Sunday, November 18 at 1pm (after lunch). Cost of $465 includes tuition, all meals, and 3 days’ accommodation.
Finding the Sacred in All of LifeA RETREAT WITH RICK McCORRISTER
Cultivating Inner StillnessA GUIDED SILENT RETREAT WITH RICK McCORRISTER
FALL RETREATS 2012 AT SORRENTO CENTRE
Simple Faith: A retreat with Margaret Silf
Sorrento Centre • Phone: 250-675-2421 • Toll-free: 1-866-694-2409 • [email protected] • www.sorrento-centre.bc.ca
Explore inner stillness and all it has to teach us for the journey. Sunday begins with an orientation to the retreat time. Monday to Wednesday we will be in silence, with prayer times to give structure and with daily opportunity for each participant to meet with Rick for a spiritual check-in (or spiritual direction session). Meals will also be in silence.
Thursday Morning Prayer is our coming out of silence ritual. We debrief the experience of practising inner stillness and reflect on the transition from this silent retreat into our regular lives beyond Sorrento.
Sunday, November 18 at 5:30pm (supper) to Thursday, November 22 at 1pm (lunch together). Cost of $548 includes tuition, all meals, and 4 days’ accommodation.
RICK McCORRISTER serves as a United Church minister with the Spirit Hills Pastoral Charge in Saskatchewan. A graduate of the Pacific Jubilee Program in Spiritual Formation and Spiritual Direction, he is currently a staff member of the Prairie Jubilee Program in Spiritual Formation and Spiritual Direction.
Come to a Quilting Retreat on the beautiful Shuswap Lake! Register for one of the magical workshops with fabulous teachers! Lynn Knox: Trail to Sorrento • Dianne Jansson: Salute to Scrap Quilts • Kathy Kinsella: Botanical Art Quilt: Surface Design.Call Sorrento Centre or see the website for details.
Quilt Week!April 19 – 25, 2013
