Events are free and held on the third Friday of each month except December. In-person events are located at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church at 700 Callahan Drive in Bremerton. Sign-in begins at 6:00, with introductions at 6:30. Zoom link now has its own page on our website with multiple options for signing in. Zoom doors open at 6:30.

August 21, 2026 – Sarah van Gelder, YES! Magazine founding editor, What Does It Mean to Be a Good Neighbor in Kitsap County?  Ms. Gelder will look at current questions affecting us here in Kitsap County, like what it means to show up for our tribal neighbors, and immigrant coworkers, friends, and business owners? To build respectful relationships with the Native peoples who have called this place home for thousands of years? To honestly reckon with the divides that have long disadvantaged Kitsap’s African American community? She’ll draw on her work as a local organizer and as a researcher and writer to explore what it means to be a good neighbor — honest about the past, and focused on what’s possible now. She’ll offer a way forward rooted in mutual respect, a shared understanding of history, and the kind of community that makes all of us more resilient. (More information at “Upcoming Speakers.”)

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September 18, 2026 – Carol J. Williams, “Dispatches from Moscow: Spies and Lies.” Carol is a retired foreign correspondent who covered the historic upheaval that ended the Cold War in an award-winning, 35-year career with Associated Press and Los Angeles Times. She chronicled the USSR’s brief era of hope for reform and the tragic consequences of its failure. She followed Eastern Europe’s euphoric rebellions that toppled Communist tyrants from Berlin to Bucharest. In Yugoslavia, she documented the rise of ethnic and religious nationalism fanned by corrupt leaders who pushed their people into devastating wars. Her dispatches from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Ukraine traced those conflicts to unresolved disputes from their days of imperial oppression. THE IRON CURTAIN CHRONICLES is a fictionalized trilogy recounting historical events of the last decade of the Cold War, told through the work of a young news agency correspondent. Join us as Carol discusses her book, Dispatches from Moscow: Spies and Lies, with Interviewer, Melody Sky Weaver, Washington State Librarian. Carol’s new book will be available for purchase. This is be in-person only.

October 16, 2026 – Bob Abel, Olympic College (Emeritus), DiRAC Institute, Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, “First Light: Early Results from the Rubin Observatory.” Join us as we hear updates of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory which officially began operations in June. Located on an Andean peak, with a huge mirror and the largest digital camera ever built, its deep, panoramic images record the entire night sky every three days, and it will repeat this process for ten years. This is by far the most ambitious sky survey ever: by the time of this talk, it will have already gathered more data than all of the telescopes in history combined. The first official data release is scheduled for mid-2028, but the observations obtained while calibrating the telescope are already providing new insights into our solar system, our galaxy, and the universe beyond.

November 20, 2026 – Joel Underwood: “Blowin’ In the Wind: Songs and Stories of Bob Dylan.” Musician and historian Joel Underwood delighted our members with stories and songs of Woody Guthrie last year. He returns, this time with a performance featuring the music and history of America’s most influential songwriter: Bob Dylan. Come sing along with a dozen Dylan favorites, such as “The Times, They Are A’Changin'”, “Blowin’ In the Wind” and yell out the eternal question, “How does it feel?”. In addition, Underwood dives into the stories of the Nobel Prize-winner’s early years in Minnesota and New York, and lays out what really happened the fateful night he “went electric” in Newport. Sometimes poignant, often funny, occasionally infuriating, Bob Dylan’s story adds depth and understanding to a unique treasury of music, and Underwood mines those narrative veins with his voice, guitar, and a master storyteller’s touch.