December 20th Meeting of the WPA Chesterton Society

Greetings WPA Friends of G.K.Chesterton,

Please join us the month as we keep our December tradition of preparing for Christmas by reflecting on the birth if Christ through a Chestertonian lens.

Some of our group are planning to meet for dinner at a local restaurant before the meeting. We will then join with anyone who chooses to attend only the meeting at the Community center at 7:30 for a Chesterton sized portion of festivity.

The evening's agenda this year will include reading excerpts from Chesterton's writings reflecting on the person of the Virgin Mary and her role in the Incarnation, along with selections of Christmas poetry written by both Gilbert and Frances.

**I will bring a limited number of copies of the reading selections to the meeting, but would ask that if you know you will be attending, (and have access to a printer beforehand,) please email me a request for the pdf. documents so you can print them out for yourself ahead of time.**

Please bring contributions to the festivities. Any snacks, desserts, pastries, fruits, cheeses, charcuterie, savories, or festive beverage contributions will be greatly appreciated. Coffee, teas and paper products/tableware will be provided.

The meeting will wrap up sometime around 10:00 pm.

Please email me as soon as possible (wpachesterton@gmail.com) if you plan to come to the meeting only. This will allow me to forward you further pertinent details.
 
As usual...Our meetings are held in the Village of Middle Lancaster, at the Lancaster Township Community Center located on Kings Alley and Community Center Drive, in Butler County PA. To enter an address into your GPS, plug in 113 Kings Alley, Harmony, PA 16037. 
Kings Ally is off of Rt. 19 approx. 4.5 miles north of Zelienople, and just north of the Zion Lutheran Church and just south of East Lancaster Road. (The Community Center is a former one room school house, adjacent to the ball fields at Bauder Park.)

...and as always, feel free to email me at wpachesterton@gmail.com if you have any questions or comments.

November 15 Meeting

Greetings fellow WPA Friends of Chesterton,

The WPA Chesterton Society will meet this Friday evening, November 15 for our next installment of The Four Faultless Felons. We will discuss the six chapters that comprise the section titled, "The Ecstatic Thief".
Pre-reading the selection is warmly recommended.

Heading into the winter months, please note that weather related cancellations or location changes will be posted by 3:00PM on meeting days. Check your email inbox or this blogspot before leaving home during the winter months. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me.

As usual our WPACS meeting will be held in the Village of Middle Lancaster, at the Lancaster Township Community Center located on Kings Alley and Community Center Drive, in Butler County PA. Kings Ally is a right turn off of Rt. 19N, approx. 4.5 miles north of Zelienople, just past the Zion Lutheran Church. (The Community Center is a former one room school house, adjacent to the ball fields at Bauder Park.) 
The doors will open at 7:00 pm for our usual potluck of refreshments, with the discussion beginning at 7:30. The meeting will wrap up sometime around 9:30 pm. 
Any questions or comments, please feel free to email me at wpachesterton@gmail.com

October 18 Meeting of the WPA Chesterton Society

Greetings Fellow Chestertonians,

At our October meeting we will continue our Autumnal reading of The Four Faultless Felons. This book can be purchased from the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton, and is available from a variety of internet sources, both new and used.
We’ll be discussing this book throughout the fall months. In September we discussed the sections “The Prologue of the Pressman” and the six chapters for “The Moderate Murderer”. 
For this Friday's meeting, we will discuss the next "felon", "The Honest Quack". Reading the selections ahead of the meeting is warmly recommended.

*For those who missed last month's meeting, please note: Recently, astute group member Grettelyn Darkey, pointed out that there were a large number of "spoilers" in the introduction of the particular edition of 4FF that she had purchased. I pass this information along to serve as an ALERT. You do not need to read the introduction... in fact, if you have the edition with a lengthy introduction by Martin Gardener, I would strongly recommend against reading the introduction! If you would like a warmup before jumping onto the stories, this short overview from Dale Ahlquist is a nice alternative, and it offers insights... certainly not anything that would spoil the reading of Chesterton. Otherwise, skip the intro and dive right into Chesterton's Prologue of the Pressman.

As usual our WPACS meeting will be held in the Village of Middle Lancaster, at the Lancaster Township Community Center located on Kings Alley and Community Center Drive, in Butler County PA. Kings Ally is a right turn off of Rt. 19N, approx. 4.5 miles north of Zelienople, just past the Zion Lutheran Church. (The Community Center is a former one room school house, adjacent to the ball fields at Bauder Park.) 
The doors will open at 7:00 pm for our usual potluck of refreshments, with the discussion beginning at 7:30. The meeting will wrap up sometime around 9:30 pm. 
Any questions or comments, please feel free to email me at wpachesterton@gmail.com

September 20th Meeting of the WPA Chesterton Society

Greetings Fellow Chestertonians,
At our September meeting we will begin our Autumnal reading of The Four Faultless Felons. This book can be purchased from the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton and is available from a variety of internet sources, both new and used.
We’ll be discussing this book throughout the fall months. In September we will discuss the sections “The Prologue of the Pressman” and the six chapters for “The Moderate Murderer”. Reading the selections ahead of the meeting is warmly recommended.
Please note: Recently, astute group member Grettelyn Darkey, pointed out that there were a large number of "spoilers" in the introduction of the particular edition of 4FF that she had purchased. I pass this information along to serve as an ALERT. You do not need to read the introduction... in fact, if you have the edition with a lengthy introduction by Martin Gardener, I would strongly recommend against reading the introduction! If you would like a warmup before jumping onto the stories, this short overview from Dale Ahlquist is a nice alternative, and it offers insights... certainly not anything that would spoil the reading of Chesterton. Otherwise, skip the intro and dive right into Chesterton's Prologue of the Pressman. 
Speaking of Chesterton's Detective fiction, the last weekend in September marks the annual Chesterton Conference in Rochester, NY hosted by the Rochester Chesterton Society. This is a one day conference held this year on Saturday, September 29 on the campus of St. John Fischer College. The speaker line up looks excellent, as usual. Email me for more information, or if you are interested in ride-sharing. This year the the especially fun sounding theme is:

whodunnit?  
GK Chesterton and the origins of detective fiction

ROCHESTER NY CHESTERTON SOCIETY
16TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE
SPEAKERS: ~Joseph Pearce, Author~Dale Ahlquist, Society of GK Chesterton~
~Kevin O’Brien, Theatre of the Word, Inc. ~The Flying Inn Players, Reader’s
Theatre at its finest~
Saturday, September 28th, 2019

As usual our WPACS meeting will be held in the Village of Middle Lancaster, at the Lancaster Township Community Center located on Kings Alley and Community Center Drive, in Butler County PA. Kings Ally is a right turn off of Rt. 19N, approx. 4.5 miles north of Zelienople, just past the Zion Lutheran Church. (The Community Center is a former one room school house, adjacent to the ball fields at Bauder Park.) 
The doors will open at 7:00 pm for our usual potluck of refreshments, with the discussion beginning at 7:30. The meeting will wrap up sometime around 9:30 pm. 
Any questions or comments, please feel free to email me at wpachesterton@gmail.com

August 16 Meeting of the WPA Chesterton Soceity

Greetings WPA Friends of G.K Chesterton,

On August 16th, next Friday, we will gather at the Community Center in the Village of Middle Lancaster. I will give you a report of the recent Chesterton Conference in Kansas City, we will discuss the latest news about the cause for Chesterton's sainthood, and we will read and discuss two Fr. Brown mysteries; the first Fr. Brown story Chesterton published, and the official last Fr. Brown story. 

We will read The Blue Cross, and The Insoluble Problem.  

Both of these stories are available in a number of formats on the internet, and are printed in the Penguin Book edition titled The Complete Father Brown, and can be viewed/read on Martin Ward's website linked above.
  
In September we will begin our Autumnal reading of The Four Faultless Felons. This book can be purchased from the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton and is available from a variety of internet sources, both new and used.

 *Please note: In appreciation to the municipality for allowing us to meet there free of charge, our group is running a little fund raiser to donate a baby-changing station to the Lancaster Township Community Center. There will be a small collections box at the meeting for any contributions you feel inclined to deposit there. Please consider participating in this "pro-life" expression of Chestertonian gratitude. I have gotten some generous contributions so far, and we are better than half way to the goal. (We need about $200.) I am hoping that we can collect enough to accomplish this by September. If you want to participate in this effort, please bring your contributions to the August meeting on the 16th.

As usual our meeting will be held in the Village of Middle Lancaster, at the Lancaster Township Community Center located on Kings Alley and Community Center Drive, in Butler County PA. Kings Ally is a right turn off of Rt. 19N, approx. 4.5 miles north of Zelienople, just past the Zion Lutheran Church. (The Community Center is a former one room school house, adjacent to the ball fields at Bauder Park.)  

The doors will open at 7:00 pm for our usual potluck of refreshments, with the discussion beginning at 7:30. The meeting will wrap up sometime around 9:30 pm.
If the weather next Friday should become extremely warm, I will pursue an alternative meeting place with air-conditioning. Check here and on Facebook for updates, or make sure I have your email if you want last minute updates coming to your inbox. 

Any questions or comments, please feel free to email me at wpachesterton@gmail.com

July 19th Meeting of the WPA Chesterton Society

Greetings Chestertonians,

After a hiatus of posting the meeting information on this website (thankfully, not a hiatus of our meetings), I am hopeful that going forward you will find all the pertinent information about our upcoming meetings conveniently located here. Unfortunately, Facebook has been less than helpful, as it will no longer allow links from our page to this site. I can continue to post limited meeting information there, but this "blogspot" webpage will be the place for comprehensive meeting information for the time being.

We will meet this Friday evening for the completion of Knight of the Holy Ghost. This book has proven to be a very readable overview of Chesterton's life and his writings. Please join us for the conclusion, even if you haven't been able to be a part of the discussion so far. I have copies of this book available for $13 if you know someone who needs one.

In August on the 16th, we will read and discuss two Fr. Brown mysteries; the first Fr. Brown story and the official last Fr. Brown story. We will read The Blue Cross, and The Insoluble Problem. Both of these stories are available in a number of formats, and are printed in the Penguin Book edition titled The Complete Father Brown, and can be viewed/read on Martin Ward's website linked above.

In September we will begin our Autumnal reading of The Four Faultless Felons. This book can be purchased from the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton and is available from a variety of internet sources, both new and used.

As usual our meeting will be held in the Village of Middle Lancaster, at the Lancaster Township Community Center located on Kings Alley and Community Center Drive, in Butler County PA. Kings Ally is a right turn off of Rt. 19N, approx. 4.5 miles north of Zelienople, just past the Zion Lutheran Church. (The Community Center is a former one room school house, adjacent to the ball fields at Bauder Park.)  
The doors will open at 7:00 pm for our potluck of refreshments, with the discussion beginning at 7:30. The meeting will wrap up sometime around 9:30 pm.

 *Please note: In appreciation to the municipality for allowing us to meet there free of charge, our group is running a little fund raiser to donate a baby-changing station to the Lancaster Township Community Center. There will be a small collections box at the meeting for any contributions you feel inclined to deposit there. Please consider participating in this "pro-life" expression of Chestertonian gratitude.
 
Any questions or comments, please feel free to email me at wpachesterton@gmail.com

Feb 15 Meeting of the WPA Chesterton Society

Feb 15 Meeting of the WPA Chesterton Society

Greetings  Friends,

We will complete our discussion of the Scrappy Evangelist at the February meeting. We will read most of the “Conclusions“ sections at the end of chapters 4 & 5 at the meeting. I encourage everyone to make note of any particular sections of the book that you want to discuss before we wrap it up. Please try to read as much as you can before the meeting.

Winter Weather Reminder: Since the main entrance to the Community Center is undergoing reconstruction, we will be exclusively using the handicap ramp until the project is completed later in the year. Unfortunately, in icy or snowy conditions, the ramp may be impassable. I will monitor this carefully during the winter and early spring. If a change to the meeting time or place is necessary due to weather, I will post the information here on this blogspot page, and on Facebook by 5:00PM the day of the meeting. I will also attempt to email or text those who have let me know that they plan to attend. It might be a good idea to check your inbox before leaving home these Western PA winter months...!
 
As usual...Our meetings are held in the Village of Middle Lancaster, at the Lancaster Township Community Center located on Kings Alley and Community Center Drive, in Butler County PA. To enter an address into your GPS, plug in 113 Kings Alley, Harmony, PA 16037. Kings Ally is off of Rt. 19 approx. 4.5 miles north of Zelienople, and just north of the Zion Lutheran Church and just south of East Lancaster Road. (The Community Center is a former one room school house, adjacent to the ball fields at Bauder Park.) 

The Handicap Entrance doors on the east side of the building will open at 7:00 PM for our usual smorgasboard of potluck refreshments. The meeting will wrap up sometime around 9:45 pm. 
 
...and as always, feel free to email me at wpachesterton@gmail.com if you have any questions or comments.

January 18 Meeting of the WPA Chesterton Society

Greetings  Friends,

We will begin the New Year 2019 by resuming the discussion of The Scrappy Evangelist by Fr. Paul Rowan. We will read the Concluding Remarks for Chapter 3 (found starting on page 284), and then we will discuss approximately the first 50 pages of Chapter 4 (pages 297-348). We will not read more than sections and passages of these 50 pages. As time permits, we will read together the Concluding Remarks section of Chapter 4. Please try to read as much of Chapter 4 as you can (especially the first half) before the meeting.

Winter Weather Reminder: Since the main entrance to the Community Center is undergoing reconstruction, we will be exclusively using the handicap ramp until the project is completed later in the year. Unfortunately, in icy or snowy conditions, the ramp may be impassable. I will monitor this carefully during the winter and early spring. If a change to the meeting time or place is necessary due to weather, I will post the information here on this blogspot page, and on Facebook by 5:00PM the day of the meeting. I will also attempt to email or text those who have let me know that they plan to attend. It might be a good idea to check your inbox before leaving home these Western Pa winter months...!
 
As usual...Our meetings are held in the Village of Middle Lancaster, at the Lancaster Township Community Center located on Kings Alley and Community Center Drive, in Butler County PA. To enter an address into your GPS, plug in 113 Kings Alley, Harmony, PA 16037. Kings Ally is off of Rt. 19 approx. 4.5 miles north of Zelienople, and just north of the Zion Lutheran Church and just south of East Lancaster Road. (The Community Center is a former one room school house, adjacent to the ball fields at Bauder Park.) 

The Handicap Entrance doors on the east side of the building will open at 7:00 PM for our usual smorgasboard of potluck refreshments. The meeting will wrap up sometime around 9:45 pm. 
 
...and as always, feel free to email me at wpachesterton@gmail.com if you have any questions or comments.