New Local Sunstone Community Coming to a City Near You!
Sunstone Folks,
Based on requests from many of you, we are starting up a few local, city-based Sunstone communities. The idea is:
- Provide the means for Sunstone-type folks within a specific region to communicate via email, and maybe even get together occasionally (or regularly) in the city where you live.
- This will involve, at minimum, an email group for folks to communicate. This email list will be confidential, moderated by a local Sunstone person and myself, and will require approval for membership.
- We don’t envision these lists to be used for doctrinal/theological/historical discussions (ie No Spam!!!) — but rather for things like, “Who is interested in a play group?” “Who wants to get together next weekend?” “Let’s start a book club!” “Let’s organize a super sweet Sunstone symposium this year! Who can we bring to speak?” , etc.
- Once this gets going, we are looking to potentially provide the content for a monthly “house party” where Sunstone-type folks can get together and listen to, watch, and discuss interesting Mormon-related content (we would supply the content).
- Each of these local communities will become (if they aren’t already) the nucleus for future regional Sunstone Symposiums that we wish to have in said city.
The cities/areas we have set up for starters include: Salt Lake City, Utah Valley, Ogden, Cache Valley, BYU, University of Utah, Los Angeles/Orange County Area, San Diego, San Francisco/Bay Area, Sacramento, Chicago, Washington DC, New York City, Boston, Phoenix, Houston, Seattle, Portland (OR), Las Vegas, Raleigh N.C., Atlanta, Kansas City, Alaska, Montreal and the UK.
If you are interested in joining any of these communities, please do sign up! We would LOVE to have folks vounteer to help run/moderate these lists.
Also, if you would like to have a new Sunstone community set up in your area, please let us know! We’re more than happy to oblidge.
September 3rd, 2007 at 9:40 pm
I am here in Anchorage. Alaska has about 25,000 members of the Church. There must be at least 10 who are of the Sunstone variety.
Sign me up!
Jamie Trwth
September 4th, 2007 at 3:55 am
I’m interested in joining something like this, but I live in Raleigh NC, which is a little far to gather for a book club. Not sure if I can meaningfully participate in the Washington DC group or not, but if so feel free to sign me up.
September 4th, 2007 at 7:59 am
This is a great idea.
I registered as a friend of Sunstone and look forward to the Sunstone events in my area.
September 4th, 2007 at 10:09 am
I would like to point out, if it is at all helpful, that the LDS Church has grown quite a bit in the southeast, yet the only ’southernish’ places on this list are Houston and DC. Perhaps you envision a southeastern location in the second wave? I might recommend either Atlanta or perhaps Orlando. Florida has a rather well-sized LDS population. When I moved here in 2003/4, I was quite surprised by the number of wards in my town.
September 4th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Just a plug for the Kansas City area
September 4th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
Bob, I’m in Durham, NC, so that’s two of us in the area. There have got to be a few more.
September 4th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
I will second the Kansas City area, even though I’m in Nebraska. I’d settle for anything Midwest.
September 5th, 2007 at 6:30 am
I’m in Raleigh. So that makes three!
September 5th, 2007 at 8:21 am
Hey, I just moved to Nebraska! I’d love to get together in NE or Kansas City!
September 5th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
OK…Kansas City, Raleigh and Atlanta are all created. Links included above.
Someone tell me what Florida city to start with, and I”ll do that too.
And feel free to add more!!!!! Happy to accommodate.
September 6th, 2007 at 8:10 am
Just signed up from ATL. Will see if I can convince some others . . . .
September 6th, 2007 at 10:52 am
I don’t know whether there is enough interest in my part of the country, but I do notice a sizeable area with no representation. I’m thinking of the general Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania area. I live in central Pennsylvania. The closest to me would be NYC and DC, each of which are about 4 hours away. What about Pittsburgh or Philadelphia? Or somewhere in OH?
September 6th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
NYC is representin’ !
September 6th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
John, I think Orlando as Trevor suggests would be a good place to start. People in FL are accustomed to Orlando being thought of as the center of the state.
September 7th, 2007 at 8:45 pm
How does one sign up?
- Krys Corbett (Bay Area)
September 7th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
I live in Eastern WA, 3 1/2 hours from Seattle and Portland. An Eastern WA, Northern OR group would suite me fine.
September 8th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
Krys, click on the name of the group you want to belong to and you’ll be taken to the sign up page.
September 8th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
I’ll join the Chicago list, but that’s a bit far from the Twin Cities. Still, if time permits I might travel to Chicago for the day for a good program. Nice to see some stuff for those of us who don’t live near large LDS centers.
September 11th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
I joinned the Atlanta, GA list, but it is very far. Would it be possible to start a list in Knoxville, TN? I think this is a great idea!
October 15th, 2007 at 8:33 am
I had an informal “Sunstone” style group of friends in Pennsylvania (although all didn’t subscribe) but haven’t found a similar group here in Columbia, So. Carolina since moving here a few months ago. I’ll be surprised if more than a handful “Sunstoners” live in/near Columbia but it’s worth a shot…
October 15th, 2007 at 9:32 am
One more thought: It would be nice for Sunstone to publish (online or in the magazine or both) some stats on how many “Sunstoners” there are per state. Are there 5, 50, or 500 in a particular state? This would be helpful information for starting up local communities — and just helpful to know, in general.