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  • Annual Meeting 2017 Invitation and Keynoter

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    When: Friday, November 3 and Saturday, November 4, 2017

    Where: St. Philip’s Episcopal Church,
    403 East Main Street, Durham, NC

    Holy Eucharist: The Rt. Rev. Samuel Rodman,
    Diocesan Bishop of North Carolina

    Lauren F. Winner is an ordained Episcopal priest, teacher of Spirituality at Duke Divinity School, lecturer and author of numerous books. Winner is one of those gifted teachers who slips in some wisdom along with the sweet stuff on the spoon. We take our medicine from the ancients, the Christian mystics and the scriptures while tasting the “sweetness of her narrative”, says Christian Century magazine about her book, Still, which was the winner of the Christianity Today book award for spirituality.

    Lauren grew up in North Carolina and Virginia. She was born to a Jewish father and Southern Baptist mother. She was raised Jewish before converting toChristianity. 

    Lauren writes and lectures widely on Christian practice, the history of Christianity in America, and Jewish-Christian relations. Her books include Girl Meets God, Mudhouse Sabbath, a study of household religious practice in 18th-century Virginia, A Cheerful and Comfortable Faith, Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis, and, most recently, a book on overlooked biblical tropes for God, Wearing God. She is completing a book called Characteristic Damage, which examines the effects of sin and damage on Christian practice.

    She has appeared on PBS’s Religion & Ethics Newsweekly and has served as a commentator on NPR’s “All Things Considered.” She has written for The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post Book World, Publishers Weekly, Books and Culture, and Christianity Today, and her essays have been included in several volumes of The Best Christian Writing.

    Dr. Winner’s aim is to foster a real encounter between each woman present and her deepest, truest self. She does not want to give people a “Spiritual To-do List” to take with them, but to create a space for encounter with the Holy during our time together.

    Dr. Winner, an Episcopal priest, is vicar of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Louisburg, NC.

    Pledging To Make It All Possible

    The constitution and by-laws of the ECW of North Carolina state, “To have voting privileges (at the Annual Meeting) a Church must have paid a pledge to the Diocesan Church Women’s budget for the current year.” These funds help to carry out the work of women’s ministries throughout the Anglican Communion, our country, our province and our diocese.

    While our yearly gathering is open to all, those churches current with their pledge are entitled to send up to five voting delegates to Annual Meeting. Anyone belonging to a church that does not have an ECW and who would like to participate in the Annual Meeting as a voting member can pay $10.00 in the name of their church and be entitled to voting delegate status.

    The diocesan ECW treasurer, Mary Hawkins, has mailed statements to current pledging churches. Contact her at treasurer@ecw-nc.org or (919) 682-4647 if you didn’t receive your statement or have questions about it.

    Going Green in 2018! Communication with churches will be via electronic format. Requests for printed statements and/or documents will be available for $10.00 per year, beginning Wednesday January 31, 2018

  • Blessed and Botswana Bound

    Blessed and Botswana Bound

    \"\"In Botswana, Juli Hauser found a place big enough to accommodate her dream.

    It was in 2007 that Juli, a retired teacher and member of Church of the Holy Comforter in Burlington, heard about Duduza (“comfort”) dolls. It seems women in the Diocese of Vermont had organized a project where knitters were invited to use a pattern to create the dolls, which were then distributed to children affected by HIV/AIDS in Rwanda, Namibia and South Africa.

    Captivated by the idea of children receiving these “bridges of love,” Juli, a self-described novice knitter, took the idea to idea to Holy Comforter’s St. Martha’s Guild, a group within the Episcopal Church Women of the parish that had experience knitting prayer shawls and the like.

    A few women signed on for the initial effort, and though they grew more proficient in the making of the comfort dolls, distribution remained limited. Then came word through the ECW of the Diocese of North Carolina’s relationship with the Anglican Diocese of Botswana, and the role women’s ministries would play in the new companion link. It was, says Juli, an answer to prayers that the dolls would find a home with children who really needed and wanted them.

    In November of 2008, while at the Annual Meeting of the ECW of the diocese, Juli spoke with the event’s special guests: Florence Bogopa, president of the Anglican Women’s Fellowship in Botswana, and Colleen Segokgo, president of the Diocese of Botswana’s Mother’s Union. That conversation confirmed the dolls would be welcome in Botswana. A few weeks later, 50 Duduza dolls were on their way to a center run by the Mother’s Union for AIDS orphans and other vulnerable children.

    More people joined in the doll-making, often using yarn donated to St. Martha’s Guild. It takes, on average, about two and a half to three hours to knit one doll. “I do this at home white watching TV,” explains Juli. She and others also pray for the children who’ll be receiving a doll.

    The knitting and praying can’t happen fast enough. To date this year, 25 comfort dolls have been made for children in the Diocese of Renk in Sudan, where until recently, the Rev. Lauren Stanley, an Episcopal missionary supported by the ECW of the Winston-Salem Convocation, was based. Juli’s daughter, a physician’s assistant and lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard stationed at Balad Air Base in Iraq in the first half of 2009, asked her to send dolls for the children brought to the hospital with grievous injuries suffered as a result of the war. And then there were the 100 dolls for St. Peter’s Day Care Centre in Botswana.

    Located just outside the capital city, Gaborone, St. Peter’s is for AIDS orphans as well as street kids and other vulnerable children. On the last Sunday in May, while at Holy Comforter for a festive morning of baptisms and confirmations, Bishop Michael Curry also blessed a number of gifts to and from the church, including an array of dolls, each as unique as the child to whom it would be given. He prayed:

    O Lord, you have given us the gift of talents and artistry to make beautiful and functional things with our hands and our heart. May these Duduza dolls made by the loving hands of people of St. Martha’s Guild become likenesses of your love and comfort for the frightened, lost, and needy children of Botswana through Jesus Christ our Lord.

    Soon thereafter, in a shipment again coordinated by the diocesan ECW, the dolls were boxed up and bound for Botswana, and the women of Holy Comforter returned to their knitting.

  • By Word & Example Guidelines

    Guidelines for Sharing
    a “By Word & Example” Sketch

    Women have always played a significant role in the life of the Episcopal Church. For nearly two hundred years women have devoted their time, energies, and talents to benefit their churches: donating land or money for buildings, raising money by the efforts of their own hands, organizing bazaars and events for the work of the Church, celebrating through fellowship and hospitality the life of the parish, and much more. They were called “the ladies of the congregation,” or the Woman’s Auxiliary, Guild, Episcopal Churchwomen, ECW, Altar Guild, the “ladies in the kitchen,” and until the 1970’s, named with a husband’s name as Mrs. —. These women have cared for us, taught us, and inspired us all.

    The goal of BY WORD & EXAMPLE is to celebrate the women of the Church … and to “name the names!” When we tell their stories we are also celebrating the unique role of women in the history of the Episcopal Diocese in North Carolina.

    Every woman has a story. Women who have served the church “not only with their lips, but in their lives” have been all around us on Sunday morning and times in between. It is their stories we are looking for – as servants and leaders, as pie bakers or dish-washers, bazaar volunteers or Sunday school teachers, as singers or senior wardens.

    Please help write the biographical sketches that will become a part of the history of our church women as we approach the Bicentennial of the Diocese of NC in 2017. These guidelines will help:

    1. Look around you – who are the women who love their church? Include their full names (first, middle, maiden and married) and complete dates of their birth (and death as needed). Write about how they have served. History can come from “back in the day” or yesterday.
    2. Write about any Episcopal woman, past or present. Both men and women are invited to write these stories. For each sketch include the writer’s full name, parish affiliation, and the date.
    3. Look in church and family records, newsletters or bulletins, scrapbooks, local history collections, and newspaper files for story details.
    4. Limit the text portion of each sketch to 500 words maximum. Sample sketches are shown on this web site. The ECW Archivist/Historian may edit sketches as needed and will return a copy of the edited version to you.
    5. Include a picture whenever possible!
    6. Submit as many sketches as you like – all women can be included. By January 1, 2017, we hope to have a comprehensive record in the ECW Archives of as many women as possible to document the invaluable service women have offered to the Episcopal Church. Sketches are now being published on the ECW website and will become a permanent collection in the Diocesan and ECW Archives as part of the 2017 Bicentennial Celebration.
    7. Most importantly, save a copy of your sketch for your own parish records and history.

    Please submit sketches and direct any inquiries to:
    Lynn Hoke, ECW Archivist/Historian
    Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina
    200 W. Morgan, #300   Raleigh, NC 27601
    archives^ecw-nc#org    919-602-4305

  • Annual Meeting 2017 Neighbors in Need

    Be a Part of Helping Neighbors in Need…

    Each participant at the ECW Annual Meeting is invited to bring any of the items listed below to be contributed to Urban Ministries of Durham that offers Food, Shelter, and A Future to Neighbors in Need (located across the street from St. Philip’s Episcopal Church). They serve approximately 500 households each month. Look for the donation box at the registration table.

    Donation items: Shaving cream, deodorant, coffee, tea, rice, canned meat, toilet paper, laundry detergent or pods, powdered or shelf stable milk, canned pasta, pasta sauce, canned tomatoes, canned corn and NEW underwear for men, women and children.

  • Annual Meeting 2016 – History Focus

    THIS YEAR’S HISTORY FOCUS

    “Bridges of Hope:
    Churchwomen At Work in the Mill Mission Era” 

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    Between 1895 and 1930 more than 30 “mill missions” were added to the list of Episcopal churches in North Carolina. An important feature of the successful missions was the presence of paid (not much!) women workers, from both North Carolina and beyond. Many were deployed and paid by the United Offering, as it was known until 1920. In addition to the official United Offering Workers, others were recruited and paid by the local diocese or sponsoring parish. These workers identified closely with this era’s settlement work movement which sought to improve all aspects of life among newly displaced groups: education, recreation, hygiene, personal development, and religious training. Their work was complimented by the dedicated spiritual, physical and financial support offered by many Woman’s Auxiliary groups throughout the state.

    In addition to a short introduction by Lynn Hoke, ECW Archivist/Historian, we will also have an exhibit documenting the history of several mill missions. And – you will hardly be able to miss seeing a multitude of table cards, as seen below, each with a short description of how a different woman or group was engaged in “bridge building” during this era of dislocation, disorientation, and sometimes despair.

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    “A Great Deal of Social Service Work is Done”

    At All Saints’ Church in Roanoke Rapids the women are organized into four circles of the Woman’s Auxiliary and a branch of the Ladies’ Guild. The first circle, the regular parish auxiliary, meets every week. The first week in the month is given over to study. A great deal of social service work is done and great enthusiasm is shown in the study classes. Weekly study classes are held in Lent. The second circle is composed of young business women, who are busy in the banks and mill offices all day and do their Church work at night. They do a good work in supplying the clothing for an orphan at the Thompson Orphanage. Their parish worker reads The Spirit of Missions at every meeting. The two circles of the women who work in the cotton mills are purely missionary in character.

    The Rev. Lewis N. Taylor, “A busy Parish Among the Cotton Mills of the South” Spirit of Missions, March 1925, p. 171

  • Annual Meeting 2015 – Book of Remembrance

    Annual Meeting 2015 – Book of Remembrance

    In Remembrance

    Reading from The Book of Remembrance is a cherished tradition at the annual meetings of the Episcopal Church Women of the Diocese of North Carolina.

    All ECW branches are invited to submit a list of members who have died since the previous Annual Meeting for inclusion in The Book of Remembrance.

    If you have a name or names you want enrolled in the book, the requests may be brought to the Annual Meeting on November 7th.

    A Book of Remembrance enrollment form can be downloaded below. You may submit multiple names, but please put only one name on a form.

    While they will not be read at the meeting forms for inclusion in the book can also be mailed to:

    Gertrude Murchison
    3025 Airport Road
    Winston-Salem, NC 27105-4058

    Questions? Contact Gertrude at (336) 767-4635

    Download the form in Adobe PDF format

    Download the form in Microsoft Word format

  • Annual Meeting 2010 – Lodging and Directions

    Annual Meeting 2010 – Lodging and Directions

    Lodging: Each person is responsible for securing their lodging. A block of rooms has been reserved for the ECW on Thursday, November 11th (for those who want a more leisurely arrival) and Friday, November 12th at the Marriott in downtown Greensboro. The hotel is located at 305 N. Greene St.

    The rate for both single and double rooms is $92; with taxes the total comes to $104.65. When making a reservation, make sure to say you are with the Episcopal Church Women. The deadline for the special group rate is Friday, October 29th. Reservations: direct at (336) 379-8000 or toll free (800) 228-9290. The website for the hotel is here.

    Food: Lunch is on your own on Friday, November 12th. Remember, registration and exhibits open at 12:30 pm. The meeting begins at 1:15 pm.

    Dinner menu for Friday evening: Chicken in champagne cream sauce, wild rice mix, French-style green beans with almonds, wheat roll, mixed green salad with mandarin orange slices and raspberry vinaigrette, lemon tart. Please check the box on the registration form if you would prefer a vegetarian alternative.

    A Continental breakfast will be offered at the church on Saturday, November 13th.

    An optional boxed sandwich lunch will be available on Saturday. The offerings include turkey and cheese on croissant or a veggie croissant—please indicate your choice on the registration form.

    Directions to Holy Trinity:

    Holy Trinity is located in downtown Greensboro, 607 N. Greene Street. The meeting will be held in the Parish Hall, also located on Greene Street to the left of the sanctuary.

    From the East I-40 or I-85: Take 29N (towards Reidsville) to Wendover Ave West. At the third traffic light, Cridland St., get in left hand lane and turn left (there is an Exxon and Dunkin Donuts on the corner). Continue straight on Cridland for two blocks ending at Fisher Park Circle. Take a right onto Fisher Park and continue going driving by the park on the left. At the large Presbyterian Church, the street name changes to Greene St. Holy Trinity is on the right in the block after the Presbyterian Church on the left.

    Park across the street from the Parish Hall in the Hanes Lineberry Funeral Home parking lot. There is also parking behind the church, entrance off of Fisher Ave.

    From the West: take I-40 to Greensboro and exit at 214B – Wendover Ave East. Continue for about 5 miles to Cridland on your right. Follow directions above.

    From the North: take Hwy 29 south and exit at Wendover Ave West. Or From North 220, enter Greensboro on 220/Battleground Ave. Continue to downtown where it turns into Smith Street. Holy Trinity is on the corner of Smith St. and Greene St. The church property is on the left, turn left on Greene St.

  • Annual Meeting 2009 – Workshops

    Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread:
    Fighting Hunger in Our Own Backyard

    Workshops

    Each workshop will last 45 minutes. All four will be held concurrently. You will attend one workshop during the first session on Saturday and another workshop during the second session.

    When registering for Annual Meeting + Harris-Evans Conference, please indicate your first, second and third choice of a workshop. Every effort will be made to place you in your top choices, but understand the workshop organizers may have to assign workshops based on space constraints. Your workshops will be announced at Annual Meeting.

    Here are the how-to workshops, whose information is designed for sharing with your fellow parishioners. The size of a congregation doesn’t matter; all communities have hunger.

    Backpack Buddies: Backpack Buddies is focused on school children who depend on the school breakfast and lunch programs for the majority of their food during the school week. This program involves filling backpacks with healthy foods and taking them to a school, where they are given to the children so they’ll have nutritious meals for the weekend. Linda Dohme, member of the ECW branch at St. Michael’s Church in Raleigh, will lead this workshop. She has helped organize and run Backpack Buddies at St. Michael’s for over a year.

    Community Gardening: Participants will explore the various types of community gardens, and the benefits and the challenges associated with each. The presenters will be Wren Blessing and John Hughes from Anathoth Garden in Cedar Grove, NC. This community garden is a faith-based garden devoted to restoring peace to a community and good food to those who need it. It is a church-supported, member-based garden that encourages the development of community ties, the production of food and an understanding of the “theology of eating.”

    How to Set Up a Food Pantry: Staff members of the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle will explain how to establish or expand a food pantry all the while keeping community needs and municipal laws in mind. Staffing with volunteers and stocking a pantry with must-haves will be covered.

    Nutritious Meals on a Budget: Inter-Faith Food Shuttle staffers will also lead this group in the particulars of their organization’s newest initiative. Called Operation Frontline, it involves helping people lead healthier lives by sponsoring classes about nutritious meals and snacks for families with limited incomes. Topics covered include budgeting, menu planning, shopping and tasty, creative cooking.

  • Annual Meeting 2018 Lodging

    Lodging

    Hotel reservations must be made by Thursday, October 4, 2018, 5:00 pm
    to get the ECW group rate. (Hotel deadline)

    Each person is responsible for securing their own lodging. A block of rooms has been reserved for the ECW on Thursday, November 1 (for those who want a more leisurely arrival) and Friday, November 2 at the Fairfield Inn & Suites Raleigh Crabtree Valley, 2201 Summit Park Lane, Raleigh, NC 27612. (See directions below.)

    The rate is the same for a single or double room: $133.64, which includes all taxes, free parking, and hot breakfast. There can be up to 4 persons per room for this rate.

    NOTE: The deadline for the special group rate is Thursday, October 4, 2018.

    For Online Reservations: Use the link below to book your room. You will need to enable the link.

    Book your group rate for Episcopal Church Women Diocese of North Carolina

    For Phone Reservations: Call Fairfield Inn and Suites Raleigh Crabtree Valley: 919-881-9800 and ask for the Episcopal Church Women Diocese of North Carolina Special Rate.

    Directions from points west of Raleigh to Fairfield Inn

    1. From I-40, after passing the RDU airport, take exit 289 onto Wade Avenue toward I-440/US 1 N.

    2. Travel 3 miles.

    3. Merge onto I-440/US 1 N toward Rocky Mount/Wake Forest.

    4. Merge onto Glenwood Avenue/US 70 W using exit 7 toward Crabtree Valley Mall.

    5. Travel .5 miles.

    6. Turn left onto Blue Ridge Road.

    7. Turn left onto Summit Park Lane.

    8. The hotel is on the right.

    Directions from points east of Raleigh to Fairfield Inn

    1. From US 64 W/US 264 W, merge onto I-440 W using exit 419 toward Wake Forest/US 1.

    2. Travel 7 miles.

    3. Merge onto Glenwood Avenue/US 70 W using exit 7 toward Crabtree Valley Mall.

    4. Travel .5 miles.

    5. Turn left onto Blue Ridge Road.

    6. Turn left onto Summit Park Lane.

    7. The hotel is on the right.

  • Remembering Lex Mathews

    Remembering Lex Mathews and His Decade as
    Director of Christian Social Ministries, 1975-1985

    A Day of Diocesan Story-telling and Celebration

    Saturday, April 5, 2014      10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
    The Church of the Good Shepherd
    121 Hillsborough Street, Raleigh

     

    \"\"Few individuals have had a greater positive impact upon the life of our diocese than Lex Mathews, who served as Director of Christian Social Ministries from 1975 until his untimely death in 1985. During that decade, Lex revolutionized the way we thought about and did Social Ministry. He inspired many to become leaders, and during his tenure, many projects were initiated that continue to thrive today.

    On Saturday, April 5, we will gather to tell the story of Lex and his legacy through the testimony of those who knew him and were inspired by him.

    Among the morning panelists who will share their stories of Lex will be four bishops: Michael Curry, Gary Gloster, and Anne Hodges-Copple of this diocese, along with the Provisional Bishop of East Carolina, Peter Lee. Bishop Lee began working with Lex in 1971, when he became Rector of the Chapel of the Cross and Lex was serving as Chaplain at UNC-Chapel Hill. Bishop Curry encountered Lex in 1979, when he came to serve as Rector of St. Stephen’s, Winston-Salem. During that three-year tenure, he joined the Social Ministries Committee, and he and his parishioners worked closely with Lex to establish a summer camp program for black children.

    In 1980, Gary Gloster got to know Lex when he came to Christ Church, Charlotte, to serve under the Rector, Frank Vest. Gary and Lex became close friends and camping buddies. A few years later, a meeting between Lex and a young woman thinking about her vocation led Anne Hodges-Copple to enter the ordination process. Also sharing a story of Lex’s power to transform lives and ministries will be Scott Evans Hughes, who was newly installed as President of the Diocesan Episcopal Church Women at the time Lex began his tenure. Scott found Lex’s support for women’s issues invaluable in her own efforts, and she traces her leadership in land stewardship and environmental issues to his powers of persuasion.

    In the afternoon, we will turn our attention to the number of programs and institutions that Lex helped to initiate. Soup kitchens and food banks in Raleigh, Charlotte, Durham, and Rocky Mount, Episcopal migrant and farmworker ministries, the establishment of the first hospice programs in North Carolina, and the Lex Mathews scholarships for the educational empowerment of women – all these continue today and are directly attributable to the work that took place under Lex’s leadership and guidance.

    For those who didn’t have the privilege of knowing and working directly with Lex, this will be a chance to learn about an important time in the recent life of our church. For those who did, this will be a chance to remember and re-tell stories. There will be time during the morning and afternoon sessions for folk with stories to tell to get those recorded, along with the stories of our designated panelists. And any others willing to write their own “Lex stories” are encouraged to send them to our diocesan Archivist, Lynn Hoke. We would love to have them.

    For estimating the lunch order number we ask that those planning to attend call or e-mail Lynn Hoke: 919-602-4305 or lynn.hoke^episdionc#org.

    Brooks Graebner, Historiographer