[sword-devel] SWORD Meet 2021

Mon Mar 29 08:09:45 EDT 2021

Thanks everyone for the venue suggestions and kind offers of accommodation.

Firstly to record my interest.

My daughter and her family now live in Tennessee, and I’ve yet to plan a first visit to their new home, once international travel restrictions are lifted. Contemplating the further possibility to use the Nashville area as a return base for internal flights to visit several of my friends in the USA.

Secondly to suggest Greater Manchester as another potential venue for a European meet-up. My house is now less than twenty minutes from Manchester Airport by a recently extended dual carriageway. I can readily offer to accommodate a number of visitors. It’s within easy distance of many beauty spots in Cheshire and Derbyshire, with the Peak District a favourite for walkers and outstanding scenery.
Manchester University also has the John Rylands Library. North Wales is only just over an hour away by road, and in two hours or so you can be in Snowdonia or on the promenade at Llandudno. Hawarden in Flintshire is the location of Gladstone’s Library, which will not be reopening after Covid until September. It’s the only residential library in Great Britain.

Thirdly to mention two more bigger conference opportunities.

The annual EMDC conference has occasionally been used as a time to have the pre-conference Digital Bible Summit. I attended the one in Germany during April 2012 and met a lot of folk from other Bible agencies and missions. It was during the 2012 Summit that the Digital Bible Library was in the progress of being officially launched and expanded. EMDC = Eurasian Media Distribution Conference. And to remind everyone, CrossWire is now a member of the DBL. Three of us had some online training sessions twelve months ago.

The annual conference called ICCM has met in a number of different venues in both America, Europe and Asia.
ICCM = International Conference on Computers and Missions. I attended one in the Netherlands in 2010.

I’m also reserving a date in mid-September to revisit Cambridge for an Annual Gathering of alumni at Trinity College.
It’s a long while since I last attended one, and this year covers my matriculation year as well as the ones before and after.
I too have friends at Tyndale House, that would be good to take the opportunity to visit.

Best regards,

David

Sent from ProtonMail for iOS

On Sun, Mar 28, 2021 at 22:53, Peter von Kaehne <refdoc at gmx.net> wrote:

> Post Covid frency to meet up :-)
>
> 1) I will be part of it if at all possible
> 2) I am very happily offering our house as a place to meet in Europe. 1
> hr from Edinburgh. close to Glasgow airport, in the Scottish Highlands.
> Beautiful, but not as summer like as Sienna. Admittedly. But I would
> fly to Siena too.
>
> Peter
>
> On Sun, 2021-03-28 at 15:25 -0500, Greg Hellings wrote:
>> I've been wanting to be part of one of these for years! I joined the
>> community shortly after the last one in 2005. I would be eager to
>> attend if possible.
>>
>> On Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 14:30 Troy A. Griffitts <scribe at crosswire.org>
>> wrote:
>> > 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
>>
>> I feel lucky, here. I'm located physically in between ETS (Fort
>> Worth, about 40 minutes north) and SBL (San Antonio, 4 hours south).
>> I'm not free to carte blanche offer to host as I'll hopefully be
>> married by then. But I would love to engage with folks, even if it's
>> just getting lunch as you drive past my house between the two.
>>
>> I don't know how much time my upcoming nuptials will permit me away
>> from work, but count me in for at least some part of a US meet during
>> that time frame.
>>
>> --Greg
>>
>> >
>> >
>> > 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
>> > _______________________________________________
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