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Our February Person to Person promises to be lively. Rose Aikman will present historic photographs of Poland’s one-room schoolhouses and former students, Louise Roberts (Harris Hill School), Bud Jordan (School #22), and Byron Strout (White Oak Hill School), as well as others, will share memories of their experiences and escapades. We have endeavored to invite as many former scholars as we can reach to join us – and we hope that if you know anyone who attended one of the 21+ schools, you will extend your invitation as well.

Sunday, February 12 5:30 – 7:30 School Days – Remember When Bring a casserole, salad or dessert to share.

Please do join us.

The Friends of Ricker Memorial Library need volunteers like YOU to help maintain programming for our community! Join us for the next Friends meeting, on February 9 at 6:30pm at the Library, for a chance to win one of two $25.00 gas cards!

We have invited Hibo Omar, co-chair on the New Mainers Community Collaborative (NMCC) and executive director of the New Mainers Public Health Initiative, an ethnic based nonprofit organization that believes in resolving health issues of New Mainers through education, information and empowerment, to speak with us in February. Our speaker has a BA degree in natural and applied science from USM, Lewiston/Auburn College. Among her several jobs, she has recently signed on as a Home Visitor for Advocates for Children  and so we believe that she will come to us with experience and perspective of someone who is thoroughly familiar with the Somali community of Lewiston/Auburn. Hopefully, she will address questions we have about things we read and/or observe.

Wednesday, February 15 (Snow date 2/22) 12-1pm Ricker Library Community Room Hibo Omar A Conversation about the Somali Experience in L/A Bring your lunch – coffee, tea, water provided Bring a friend Check It Out!

Our evening with John Bear has been rescheduled due to the weather forecast for January 27. The event will take place at the same time on February 3, the advertised rain/snow date.

On Friday, January 27 February 3  (rescheduled due to weather) at 7PM the Friends of Ricker Memorial Library will host renowned Native American story teller, author and actor John Bear Mitchell.  He will present a program, based on his own work with PBS in helping to create the reality show, “Colonial House.” His program, “Colonial House Revisited: John Bear Reminisces” will feature a behind the scenes look at the show and all the work that went into its unique creation. In addition, he will expand upon his work as a researcher and participant in the show. Colonial House was a nationally syndicated PBS reality show set in Machias, Maine. The show followed 27 individuals for the United States and England, as they made their way back to the year 1628. It also featured members of the Passamaquoddy tribe. Over three months, colonists struggled to survive under difficult circumstances. Their day to day challenges were caught on tape and made into an eight episode series. John Bear Mitchell is a member of the Penobscot Nation on Indian Island in Maine. He presently serves as the Outreach and Student Development Coordinator for the Wabanaki Center at the University of Maine in Orono. He is also an accomplished storyteller, author, and actor. His singing and storytelling can be heard in many Maine PBS tribal-sponsored awareness videos, and other documentaries with topics on Maine’s Native People. Recently his story, “Epsun and Grandfather,” was featured in, Trickster: Native American Tales: A Graphic Collection. It was a winner of the 2011 Aesop Award and was nominated for best comic novel for the Comic-con award. John Bear is currently working on another children’s book and is also participating as an actor in the independent film, “Anatomy of Life”, which will open up later on this year at the Sundance Film Festival. For those interested in his work as an author, there will be a book signing of the book Trickster: Native American Tales: A Graphic Collection, at 6:30PM. This book is no ordinary graphic collection. It features twenty-one illustrated Native American stories. This will be a wonderful opportunity to meet John Bear before the program and to get a special signed copy of the book. We wish to thank Books N’ Things for making this possible. Books will be priced at $22.95. This is a unique event and opportunity to meet John Bear Mitchell and get a glimpse of the work that he is done not only in Maine, but on a national level. This family event is free and open to the public. It was generously sponsored by the Friends of Ricker Memorial Library. In case of bad weather, the rain/snow date for this event will be Friday February 3rd.  For more information, please call Ricker Memorial Library at 998-4390. We hope you can join us for this very special evening with John Bear Mitchell.

Our January Person to Person program will be presented by Poland resident, Ulla Hansen. Her illustrated lecture, Acadia, Maine’s National Park, will feature paintings and photographs of the picturesque bridges, the carriage road system conceived of by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, and spectacular vistas of mountains and ocean seen (or scene) in the park. Ms Hansen, artist and horsewoman, has been visiting Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park regularly since 1983 to ride and to paint. Her “show and tell” program should be very interesting. As always, the evening will begin with a potluck supper and conversation hour. Please bring a casserole, salad or dessert to share. If you wish, you may bring, also, your own plate, cup and eating utensils – though we do have plenty of paper plates and cups and plastic forks and knives to go around. We want everyone to have an enjoyable meal together, with as little “fuss” as possible.

For Your Information

We learned late last night that Kate Braestrup will not be able to join us for tonight's Person to Person program. She is chaplain for the Maine Warden Service and is heavily involved with this week's accident in Rumford. We will still hold the potluck supper and hope that you will still plan to join us for food and fellowship. We have a couple of suggestions for alternate programs and will let the group decide how we will use the second hour of the evening.

Sunday, November 13 5:30- 7:30 Ricker Library

The Friends of Ricker are pleased that Kate Braestrup, Chaplain with the Maine Warden Service, will be the guest speaker for their upcoming November Person to Person. Braestrup is the author of the New York Times best seller, Here If You Need Me, a memoir that tells of the path that led her to become a minister working with the Maine Forest Service. "Poignant," "funny," "brave," "tender hearted" are words used by reviewers of her books and essays. Other titles include Marriage and Other Acts of Charity and Beginner's Grace. Braestrup has agreed to autograph any of her books after the program. Person to Person will be held on Sunday, November 13th in the Community Room of the library. The potluck supper and conversation hour begins at 5:30pm. Guests are asked to bring a casserole, salad or dessert for the table. The program begins at 6:30. Everyone is invited. Please come and bring a friend to share in this evening of food, fun, and fellowship.

Lenny Brooks, Director of the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Museum and Library, will be our guest speaker at the October Person to Person. Mr. Brooks' address will focus on two early Shaker "families" - the Poland Hill and the Square Hill families. Shakers have been our neighbors since the 1700s and it should be interesting to learn more about their history. It is a fitting topic for a presentation to a group that goes by the name of Person to Person and promotes neighbor to neighbor conversation and fellowship, wouldn't you agree? Anyway, we hope you can join us.

October 9, 5:30 - 7:30 Ricker Library Community Room Please bring casserole. salad, or dessert to share