1/20/13 Meeting Flyer

Flyer for our meeting this Sunday! Don't forget your recycled items to make pet toys! 

Flyer Link

Tomorrow!

Don't forget your walking shoes and canned goods for tomorrrow's CROP Walk!

Here's some more things you can do and upcoming events for Hufflepuffs!

10-14-12 Flyer

Meeting this Sunday, Sept 9

Hey Enlightened Hippogriffs!

We're going to have a meeting this Sunday, Sept 9 at 1 pm, Room 7. Be there!

For our last month of Slytherin, I'm planning on the following:

• Another round of Pensieve thoughts and memories 
• A celebration of our one year anniversary as a group! Can you believe it's been a year already? Go us! We'll talk a little about what we've accomplished already and review our plans for the year ahead. I may even bring a treat, who knows?
• Preparation for volunteering in the Storm Drain Marker Program that we discussed briefly last time. In case you missed our last meeting, this program relies on volunteers to walk around their neighborhoods putting decals on storm drains that lead to rivers, reminding them not to dump in them. Before we can do this though, we'll need to take a close look at some area maps and figure out how many we're going to do. It'll be like writing our own Marauders' Map! 

See you Sunday!

~Lynne

Reminders for Sunday's Meeting

Hey there Hippos!

Here's some reminders about Sunday's meeting, to be held 1:00-2:30 in Room 7 at First UU (our usual big meeting room):

• Tom Baillieul will teach us about hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") - read up if you haven't already: http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/2012/07/fracking-fuels-energy-debate-and-controversy
• We'll be making rain barrels - ****remember to bring a suitable container and measure the size of your home's rain gutters.**** Also anyone have tools to cut these with? I think I have a few but the more we have, the easier it will be for everyone. And if you have supplies for decorating them, so much the better! Here's the instructions again: http://www.rd.com/home/how-to-make-a-mini-rain-barrel

Lucia would like to organize a squirt-gun "quidditch" match on the playground before the meeting. Anyone interested? If so, bring your squirt guns!  Um, and probably a towel. Adults, please stick around for supervision please?

By the way, our friend Erin is at LeakyCon right now! What is LeakyCon? An awesome Harry Potter conference going on this weekend in Chicago:  http://www.leakycon.com. Do you wish you were there with her? I know I do! But guess what, you can be! There's a livestream for it called Portkey right here, live right now!  http://www.livestream.com/teamportkey

See you Sunday!

Meeting Sunday, March 11 - focus on Bullying

We have a meeting scheduled this Sunday, 3/11 at 12:30 at First UU. We're going to change our plan for March a little and start focusing on Bullying for the month as our last part of Magical Acts of Kindness campaign, making way for fighting the real-life Dark Arts of racism, sexim, and homophobia in April, May, and June.

As part of this, start thinking about real life "spells" you can do to fight bullying. For instance, "Expelliarmus" in the wizarding world is a disarming spell, taking away a witch or wizard's most powerful tool, his or her wand - how can you take away a bully's power in our world? Dumbledore's Army also used Protego and Expecto Patronum, both protective spells - how can you protect yourself and your friends from bullying? Bring your ideas this Sunday - we'll be brainstorming on these in order to get ready for our next Justice Sunday on March 25, when we'll be teaching all the Sunday school kids how to do these spells, just like Harry taught the DA!

Meeting 2/12/12

Hey Hippogriffs!

Just a reminder we have a meeting coming up this weekend: Sunday, Feb 12, at 12:30 at First UU. You can RSVP on Facebook here:
http://www.facebook.com/events/186556644784285

Here's the plan for this meeting:

• Bring anything you have to donate for the UU auction - including baskets and packaging supplies, if you've got 'em! Please let me know if you'll be bringing this stuff so I don't have to go out and buy them (and use our chapter's funds.) Please also bring fair trade chocolate if you like, or any other Harry Potter goodies you think would work well. As a reminder we'll be doing one baking basket and one hot chocolate basket. And the kids get to package them up at the meeting.
• We'll also be setting up our Magical Acts of Kindness House Cups in the hallway at church and a Dobby-shaped Mitten Tree in the lobby. Feel free to bring hats, mittens, socks, or other woolens to donate and place on Dobby! Also think about acts of kindness you've already done (hint: beans for Athens counts) that you can add to the House Cup of your choice, and what other things you can do to earn your House points!
• Finally, we'll be planning our three upcoming events: Justice Sunday (2/26), First Friday (3/2), and the Read-in (3/3) - please bring your ideas! There are RSVP links for each here:
• Justice Sunday: http://www.facebook.com/events/347540225277137/
• First Friday: http://www.facebook.com/events/173087406127055/
• Read-in: http://www.facebook.com/events/222625624493386/ and also on the blog: http://hpacolumbus.blogspot.com/2012/02/read-in.html

Please feel free to share all these links with any friends and family who may be interested. The more the merrier!

See you Sunday!

~Lynne

p.s. by the way, there are a couple other events going on this weekend that you all might be interested in:

• OSU Quidditch League has a match: http://www.facebook.com/events/299851206731379/
• First UU is hosting the inter-faith celebration Freedom to Love, Freedom to Marry: http://www.facebook.com/events/352276358123671/

Next Meeting: January 8, 2012

Hey Hippogriffs!

First, just wanted to say again a big THANK YOU to everyone involved in the Yule Ball! I thought we had a great turnout and lots of fun! Also guess what? We made a little profit! This will be a great start to our new year and help us fund our activities. Thanks everyone for all your planning, hard work, and for making it such a blast!

Now on to the new year!

Our next meeting will be Sunday, January 8, 2012 at First UU, 12:30-2 pm.

Please bring some DRY BEANS to the meeting. Any kind you like (make 'em edible!) and as much as possible. We're going to channel our inner House Elves for a fun activity! You'll see!

Also let me know if you'd be interested in a field trip to the food pantry in Athens County on Martin Luther King day (Jan 16) - and let's plan a carpool down there during our Jan 8 meeting.

We're also going to go over a plan for the upcoming year at this meeting. I have lots of ideas and I'd love to spend some time brainstorming about them!

Finally, we've been invited to have email pen pals from other Harry Potter Alliance chapters. Most other chapters are made up of older students - high school and college aged - so they will be looking to mentor our younger members (parents, we can use your email addresses if you'd prefer to monitor your kids' emails.) Or those of us who are adults can also have pen pals and do our part in mentoring these young adults in return. Think about whether you'd like to do this and if interested, let me know what address to use, or sign up at our January meeting if you want.

Looking forward to an awesome year! Happy holidays!

~Lynne

Meeting tomorrow - October 9

Greetings Hippogriffs!

We're having our October meeting tomorrow, October 9, at 12:30 at First UU. Look for us in Room 7, one of the meeting rooms next to the courtyard. Remember to bring a nut-free lunch or plan to eat before or after the meeting.

Last time we met, we talked some about fair trade chocolate and brainstormed some great ideas about ways we could get involved with the "Not in Harry's Name" campaign of the HPA. One of those ideas was to have a fair trade chocolate costume party for Halloween. I love this idea, but since October is already upon us, I don't think we have enough time to plan it, but I'd like to think seriously about having a Yule Ball in December!

I've contacted the church to see about getting a date to use Fellowship Hall for a costumed dance party hosted by the Enlightened Hippogriffs. We've also got a few possibilities for the dancing and music in the works. We're also going to be the focus of a Justice Sunday at First UU in November, where we can get the sunday school kids to help us with maybe some signage or other ideas. Lets focus our discussion tomorrow on everything else we need to do to get this going.

To help organize things a bit, I'm going to randomly sort you into the four Hogwarts houses. If this works well, we can do this at every meeting, so don't despair if you don't like the house you're in tomorrow, you'll likely be in a different house next time. Each house is going to plan a different aspect of our Yule Ball:

Gryffindor (because you're brave): think of ways to promote fair trade at the ball. Some ideas: chocolate as food at the event? get everyone in attendance to sign the petition? get people to purchase fair trade chocolate, or bring a donation (canned goods etc) as their admission price?

Ravenclaw (because you're clever): come up with a plan to advertise the Yule Ball. Ideas: posters, announcements at First UU, other churches? Press release in newspapers? Flyers at schools?

Hufflepuff (because you work hard): plan the logistics for the event itself: decorations, food, dancing, music, favors?

Slytherin (because you're powerful): are there ways to partner with other groups? Maybe other HPA chapters in Ohio? Other social justice groups at First UU? School groups?

These are just a starting point for discussion. Please give all these ideas some thought and we'll try to come up with an action plan!

See you tomorrow!

~Lynne

Meeting Tomorrow - September 11, 12:30 p.m.

Hello Enlightened Hippogriffs!

As a reminder, we'll be meeting tomorrow - Sunday, September 11, after the second church service at First UU - around 12:30 p.m. We're usually going to meet in Room 7, however for this first meeting there has been a change of plans and we'll be in Room 8 instead.

I've heard from a few parents that this isn't a good time for their families. Would another day or time work better? Please let me know. This meeting time is certainly not written in stone so please don't feel you can't participate just because this time doesn't work for you.

Also, I don't want anyone to feel that they can't be a part of this group or participate in our activities just because they can't make it to a meeting. I'm hoping we will come up with lots of things we can do to help make the world a better place in the spirit of Harry Potter - and these things aren't all going to happen during meetings. They will happen with you - in your home, your school, your workplace, anywhere you go and however you are able to make it happen. Harry began fighting the dark arts as a baby in his crib! Change can happen anywhere and at any time. Please keep checking here for ways you can participate, whether you can make it our meetings or not!

That said, if you do plan to join us tomorrow, here are a few details for you:

Calling All House Elves! Pack a nut-free lunch:

Since this will be around lunchtime, please plan to bring a lunch. We don't want to turn into the Hungry, Hungry Hippogriffs! For this first meeting, lets just brown-bag it but consider whether a potluck would be easier for future meetings (assuming we keep with the currently scheduled day and time.)

First UU is also home to SYC, the School for Young Children, which in addition to being a fabulous preschool is also a nut-free facility. Since we'll be borrowing their space, please do not bring any nut products in your lunch! Please also let us know if you or your child have other allergies or dietary needs that we should be aware of (personally I'm a vegetarian so you can count on me not to bring meat to any food-related functions.)

Agenda: Please read my post from our July 10th planning meeting: Mischief Managed to get an idea of what we've discussed so far. I'm hoping tomorrow we can continue these discussions, with focus on the following:

What is the Harry Potter Alliance? Who are the Enlightented Hippogriffs? Some nuts and bolts to understand what we're all about. Hopefully we'll begin to better define our chapter structure, rules, and areas of focus. I think it's probably still too soon to elect leadership (president, vice president, etc) but we can begin defining these roles and thinking about who would like to take them on.

"Not in Harry's Name" Fair Trade Chocolate Campaign- One of our first projects can be helping with the Harry Potter Alliance's campaign for fair trade chocolate. I'll bring information and a copy of a petition to Warner Brothers to make all Potter-related chocolate merchandise fair trade. We can also write letters and partner with our friends at UU who are already working to promote fair trade coffee. And what is your favorite kind of chocolate? Is it fair trade? We'll think about how we can find out and what to do about it if it isn't. If you'd like a preview about this right now, please visit: http://thehpalliance.org/action/campaigns/deathly-hallows/horcrux-1/

Passing on the Magic- The Harry Potter Alliance is also featuring Potter-related fan art on their website, especially those that celebrate the HPA and the ideals of love and justice found in the Harry Potter stories. Perhaps we'd like to create some art together? Talk about things we can do on our own? Bring your ideas and if you like, some art supplies!

Next Steps- We'll think about things we can do between now and the next meeting. Some ideas: action related to fair trade chocolate and Passing on the Magic art, recruiting more members, thinking about whether to volunteer for a leadership position.... other ideas?

Looking forward to seeing everyone tomorrow!