Dear fellow CrossWire volunteers, It's been a really, really long time since we've had a SWORD Meet. They have always blessed me greatly, getting to meet many of you and having the chance to spend a couple days fellowshipping, brainstorming, coding, and praying together. We've had a few unofficial get-togethers, usually centered around other events we were already attending together like BibleTech, ETS, SBL, Fringe, etc...
https://crosswire.org/~scribe/pics/photo.jsp?l=/2008/2008-09-18-Scotland/&i=imgp2234_swords.jpg But it has been over 15 years since we have had regular and intentionally planned official SWORD Meets... https://crosswire.org/~scribe/pics/photo.jsp?l=/2005/2005-02-Travel/2005-02-25/&i=imgp0163_groupshot.jpg https://crosswire.org/~scribe/pics/photo.jsp?l=/2002/0409_rome/2002-04-19_austria_to_cambridge/&i=pict0018_sword_group1.jpg ... when I was much thinner. I miss the personal community closeness we had back then. I would really like to again offer 2 annual occasions for us to get together in person-- once during May/June in Europe and once in November in the U.S. U.S. - November Many of us already attend the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) annual meetings in November, which are conveniently aligned in location and time with with the technology sessions of GERT at the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL). Those meetings rotate U.S. cities each year, but are always just before Thanksgiving. I have met informally with some of you during these conferences, as well, but I would like to start scheduling a U.S. SWORD Meet around this occasion. I propose either a couple days before ETS or the Friday / Saturday between ETS and SBL, when ETS is winding down and SBL is still spinning up, and IBR has their free annual lecture-- which would be fun for those coming who officially are not attending either conference but coming just for the SWORD Meet. ETS: https://www.etsjets.org/annual_meeting_overview SBL: https://www.sbl-site.org/meetings/annualmeeting.aspx IBR: https://ibr-bbr.org/annual-meeting IBR: https://ibr-bbr.org/annual-meeting/annual-lecture Europe - Spring/Summer Our previous meetings were generously held at Daniel Glassey's apartment in Cambridge, UK. I always enjoyed Cambridge, with the opportunity to meet and be encourage by the kind staff and researcher fellows at Tyndale House research library. Daniel has been off serving with other ministries for the past decade so we probably need to find a new location for our European meetings (unless Daniel reads this and still would like to graciously offer his flat). It won't have the same opportunities to meet with world class Bible scholars that Cambridge / Tyndale House gave us, but we have talked about meeting during the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh during August, and I have informally met with some of you during this occasion over the past years. That's still an option and provides some fun around our meeting. Hostels often have a common room were we can setup and meet in the afternoons. Another option is that I can invite you to my small apartment in Siena, Italy. An advantage to this is, like Daniel's apartment in Cambridge, we can all sleep on couches and bunk beds and rollout mattresses on the floor and not have any accommodation expenses. I also have fiber internet there and can be sure to have desk space and whiteboards handy and can take us to amazing pizza and gelato. ______________________ What would be the interest for attending either event and what feedback do you have to my suggestions for time and venue? Troy _______________________________________________ sword-devel mailing list: sword-devel@crosswire.org http://crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/sword-devel Instructions to unsubscribe/change your settings at above page