Photo: Rob Fairmichael
News in brief
Piece by piece, working for peace
Quaker House Belfast Meting for Worship A special Meeting for Worship to lay down and celebrate the work of Quaker House, Belfast, was held at Frederick Street Meeting House on Saturday 5 June. People associated with the project came from all over Britain and Ireland to worship and to share memories.
The Peace Testimony today
Friends across Britain are being urged to ask themselves ‘What does the peace testimony mean today?’ A year of events to explore the question has been launched ahead of the 350th anniversary of the first formal declaration of the Quaker peace testimony.
The project is run by Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW) and will culminate at Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) 2011, which will possibly involve a fresh declaration of the peace testimony.
Friends made their first written statement on peace in January 1661. Twelve leading Quakers signed a letter asserting that ‘the spirit of Christ, which leads us into all Truth, will never move us to fight and war against any man with outward weapons’. It stated: ‘this is our testimony to the whole world’.
QPSW are keen to point out that ‘the declaration is not the same as the peace testimony’ as ‘Quaker testimony is not a set of words’ but a way of living that testifies to experience.
An interactive workshop has been designed for use in Meetings. The materials are contained in the ‘Peace 350 pack’, so that ‘a Friend, in membership or an attender, can use it to run the workshop’. They stress that no expert knowledge of Quaker history is required.
The emphasis on ‘350 years’ has already caused some confusion, as the declaration is dated ‘Eleventh Month, 1660’. But as the year used to begin in March, we will have to wait until January 2011 to celebrate the anniversary.
Symon Hill
Paying a fair share
An interesting initiative will be introduced for the first time at the sixth World Conference of Friends to be held in Kabarak University in Kenya from 21 to 28 August 2012.
‘Everyone who comes will pay a fair share’, said Nancy Irving, general secretary of Friends World Committee for Consultation, at a special interest group at Britain Yearly Meeting. ‘We are implementing a tiered structure of registration and accommodation fees for the first time.’
There will be five tiers and people will pay according to the country they come from. Their fee will be calculated using a formula that involves the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Personal Purchasing Power (PPP) of the country.
‘We are following what the Mennonites and Anglicans have been doing for the past fifteen years. The tiered payments range from £20, for countries such as Peru and India, to £550, for countries such as America or Sweden.’
‘We were prompted by the Testimony for Equality,’ Nancy adds. ‘The concept of fair share and a sense of fair contribution is very important.’
Bursaries are useful but they often create a sense of ‘haves and have nots. We will still be raising funds to cover travel costs for participants from countries in the lowest tiers.’
It is hoped that representatives from countries such as Peru and Bolivia will bring products to sell. The first £20 of proceeds from their sale will go to paying their fee and the rest can be used to help their own Yearly Meeting.
One thousand Friends from all over the world will gather on the campus of Kabarak University. They will consider the theme: ‘Being salt and light: Friends living the Kingdom of God in a broken world’.
New logo introduced at BYM
The new logo for Yearly Meeting Gathering at the University of Canterbury from 30 July to 6 August 2011 was shown at Britain Yearly Meeting last weekend.
