Freetime Activities and Barnesville Area

Olney Friends School

Olney Friends School is an independent co-educational Quaker boarding school. It has a large campus that includes a gym with basketball courts, spacious lawns, woods, volleyball nets & spacious soccer fields. There is a swimmable pond if you are willing to wade thru a bit of muck on the pond edge. For more information on the school including directions, go to Olneyfriends.org.

Meeting spaces

Stillwater Meetinghouse and Olney Friends School offer ample spaces for meetings for worship and small workshops and interest groups of all kinds. Our morning meetings for worship and plenary sessions each evening will be held in the historical Stillwater Meetinghouse. This meetinghouse was built in 1878 in the classic traditional meetinghouse style and is the location of Ohio Yearly Meeting (see below).

The Stillwater Meetinghouse is filled with a powerful sense of the presence of well over a century of powerful spirit-led vocal ministry. Our meetings for worship during last year's Quakercamp had a similar powerful sense of being led by the Holy Spirit / living spirit of Christ.

Meeting in Barnesville provides a wonderful opportunity to worship with and learn about the beliefs and practices of Conservative Friends.

Barnesville Area

Olney Friends School is located on the edge of Barnesville, Ohio. The town has lots of supermarkets, restaurants, icecream stores, and a movie theater. There is a mall about 1/2 hour away to the east.

There are wonderful state parks with swimming 30-40 minutes drive away. There are 2 Quaker-owned apple orchards located within 10 minutes of the campus. Another much smaller historic Friends Meeting (The Ridge) is located in one of these orchards.

There is a pioneering intentional community devoted to innovative sustainable home construction methods at Raven Rocks about 45 minutes away.

Free-time Activities

Soccer, basketball, volleyball, and ultimate frisbee. The school library has ready internet access. Singing.

There will be many opportunities for getting together in small groups for clearness committees, Bible study, special interest groups, or deepening sharing on subjects that have come up in plenary sessions. Last year groups met to develop queries related to the issue of the use of confidentiality among Friends and on faithfulness in intimate relationships. Meetings for healing were held last year with two experienced Reiki practitioners among the camp participants.

There will be dedicated time each afternoon for naps and unprogrammed fun / family activities.