Quakers and the Olympics

Friends prepare for the Olympic and Paralympic Games

Quakers are responding in a big way to the needs of people attending the Olympics and Paralympics in the next few weeks.  Peter Green has been appointed as a Quaker chaplain in a multi-faith team for the 2012 Games. He had been nominated as a delegate to More Than Gold (MTG) by his Area Meeting, North East Thames, but then had to apply to LOCOG (the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games) for the chaplaincy post. Peter says that he is ‘approaching this with a mixture of humility and some anxiety’ but ‘sees this as a huge opportunity for service’.

The MTG website says: ‘The [Christian] churches in the UK have a once in a lifetime opportunity thanks to the 2012 Games being awarded to London. We are here to be a one-stop-shop that helps the churches seize the moment. Our mission, put simply, is to enable the UK churches to engage with the 2012 Games.’

Although they have no ‘official’ relationship with LOCOG, MTG are setting up hospitality centres that ‘need to be very close to where visitors to the Games will pass or gather’, such as near rail and Underground links. The centres are places where visitors can rest, find a welcome and refreshments, get free water under the ‘Million Cups of Water’ scheme, access the internet and receive advice and help. The Quaker Centre is one of the official MTG hospitality centres. It will also offer talks about Quakerism.

Camden Council has listed the Quaker Centre as a ‘place of quiet contemplation’. There will be daily Meetings for Worship in addition to the usual Sunday Meeting. Meetings will take place each day at varying times. Friends are invited to attend the Meetings for Worship as a Quaker presence and to help in the Quaker Centre. For further information on times see: londonquakers.org.uk.

A box from the ‘Gift box’ scheme will be in the Friends House garden on 29 and 30 August. The Gift box website says: ‘Gift box is an innovative project created by “Stop the Traffick” and the UN Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking, which will be launched during the 2012 Olympics. Gift boxes are walk-in pieces of public art that people will encounter at street level in London that entice people inside by luring them with enticing promises. Once inside the truth will be revealed…’

Wanstead and Bethnal Green, two of the Meetings nearest the London Olympic Park, are holding extra Meetings for Worship during the weeks of the Olympic and Paralympic events.

If other Meetings in or outside London are involved, or individual Friends, please let the Friend know on editorial@thefriend.org or 020 7663 1010.

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