Letters - 30 June 2017
From building links with students to recycling and balloons
Building links with students
Dundee has two universities, yet our Meeting has not been successful in building links with the student community.
We would like this situation to change. As our elders and overseers sat pondering this question it dawned on us that there are many towns and cities in the UK that have both universities and Quaker Meetings.
Please share with us through the columns of the Friend: how has your Meeting engaged successfully with your local student population?
Andrew Phin
Equality and education
In recent weeks there has been a lot of discussion in the Friend, following the news that Walden School, formerly Friends’ School Saffron Walden (FSSW), plans to close and an article from Quakers in Yorkshire entitled ‘Equality and education’ (19 May).
There were three letters, one of which, from Robert Campbell (16 June), was about the closure of Great Ayton Friends’ School twenty years ago. It seems that the problems Great Ayton faced then are very similar to those of FSSW now.
While I appreciate that times have changed, and Friends’ attitudes have also changed, I wish to express my deep sorrow at the closure of FSSW, of which I was a pupil from 1944 to 1951.
The innuendo that Quaker schools are only for the rich, and ape the grandest public schools, is absurd.
I am, of course, biased. My family were extremely lucky to be able to come to the UK in 1935, years before the worst atrocities of the Nazi regime had started.
FSSW accepted dozens of children, orphaned or not, from many countries, including Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Italy.
I am ashamed that I had thought this concern related only to Nazi-occupied nations. The same response occurred in the 1930s with Spanish children who were victims of the civil war then raging.
Friends should be proud, not ashamed, of their contribution to education.
Paul Honigmann
Names
I was greatly saddened, as an old pupil of Friends’ School Saffron Walden (FSSW), to hear of plans for its closure (19 May).
Last year FSSW changed its name to Walden School, thus seeming to try to water down its identity as a Quaker establishment.
Now I am extremely shocked and angry to find that the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre is dropping the word ‘Quaker’ from its title as part of a ‘rebranding’ exercise (19 May). I sincerely hope that this does not mean it will be closing next year (for one thing, I am in the middle of a fantastic course and I hope to attend many more).
What on earth is going on? Are Friends ashamed of the word ‘Quaker’? Do we feel it puts others off? But isn’t it vital to hang on to it? If we try to play our identity down, presumably in order to attract non-Quakers, are we not in danger of losing it altogether?
We should promote ‘Quaker’ proudly and be using it as a key branding ingredient. It should serve as an important element of outreach, to draw others in.
Joanna Godfrey Wood
Woodbrooke
I have been interested to read the correspondence about Woodbrooke and wonder when the title ‘Quaker Study Centre’ was added?
I was a resident at ‘Woodbrooke’ as it was then known, for the academic year 1954-5, while in my last year at Birmingham University (there was only one then).
There were several of us who were there for a year; some doing courses at Woodbrooke itself or at other Selly Oak colleges.
A number of us enjoyed the experience of being resident there; studying elsewhere but able to join in the life of Woodbrooke – Meeting for Worship, the International Forum and lively country dancing sessions. Others were there for a term. It was an international community with about seventeen nationalities that year and valuable opportunities existed for understanding between those from different backgrounds. There were resident staff, too, who provided a continuous presence in the community.
I think that sense of community was an essential part of Woodbrooke then. I wonder whether that sense of community has been lost now that most people are only there for a few days.
I appreciate that changes were needed. Friends and others were no longer able to stay for a whole year or even a term, and it became necessary to market Woodbrooke and its courses, which led to the name ‘Quaker Study Centre’.
While I am happy for it to be known as ‘Woodbrooke’ or the ‘Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre’, I do not like the logo, which does not mean anything to me.
Sheila G Fox
Religion on television
There is cause for concern following the decision of the BBC earlier this year to outsource Songs of Praise, which, I fear, will effectively dismantle its religious television department and group of specialist staff. Whilst religion is well represented on BBC radio, the coverage on BBC television, and other channels, has never been less.
In April, under the new Royal Charter, Ofcom assumed responsibility to ensure that the BBC fulfils its public service obligations. It must set an operating licence and may assess the BBC’s performance in fulfilling its public service responsibilities.
The final few weeks of the current Ofcom consultation are upon us. It would be most helpful were your readers to complete the Ofcom questionnaire by showing that support exists for more thorough coverage of religion on television.
In its consultation paper Ofcom becomes the first statutory body to acknowledge the steep decline in religious television coverage over recent years.
Ofcom acknowledges that: ‘Arts, music and religious programming are in decline across all public service broadcaster channels and… we propose increasing existing targets on television for the BBC in these genres and are proposing some new peak-time obligations for arts, music and religious programming on BBC One and Two. This will help ensure that the largest possible audience can learn by engaging with new and stimulating ideas and perspectives.’
The deadline for responses to the consultation is 17 July and the relevant website is: http://bit.ly/OfcomBBC
Nigel Holmes
Fracking
I like a good debate – just ask anyone who knows me. I have enjoyed the dialogue in the Friend over fracking. This leads me to ask several questions:
- What did Friends say about coalmining?
- What did Friends say about drilling under the sea for gas?
- Did Friends use these products – or other products manufactured in factories powered by coal, gas or oil?
Mark
Polytunnels
I am not a vegetarian, although I regularly eat and enjoy vegetarian food. The meat I buy from my local butcher is from animals that I believe to have been reared responsibly, not factory farmed.
The area in which I live has acres of polytunnels and I fear that if we were all vegetarians, all our beautiful pastureland would disappear and England would be covered in plastic.
Maggie Jeays
Recycling and balloons
Our Children’s Meeting wanted me to send you this following our session on Sunday. We are a small, very rural Herefordshire Meeting with an active Children’s Meeting once a month, with up to nine young Friends. This is what they want to say:
‘In May we were using Journeys in the Spirit and talked about the use of balloons, plastic straws and other non-recyclable items. We took this very seriously with lots of discussion afterwards.
‘One young Friend then suggested that next time we should make origami balloons. We had a lot of fun doing this and were so proud to show the rest of Meeting.
‘We were delighted to see a Quaker table at the Hay Festival, but surprised to see children with green non-recyclable balloons.
‘We are sure that the children enjoyed these balloons but wondered if, next year, it would be possible to use more eco-friendly balloons or to provide children with a kit to make their own “green” green balloon.
‘From the Young Friends of Almeley Wootton Quaker Meeting.’
Kate Binney
Children and young people’s coordinator, Almeley Wootton Meeting
