Issue 16-07-2021
Featured story
Thought for the Week: Joseph Jones on good sports
Apologies: if you’re sick of the football you probably won’t enjoy seeing it on the cover of the Friend. But even the most competition-resistant Quaker can’t have failed to notice the headlines this week: another tough defeat for England.
Top stories
Change of heart: The transformation of Zachary Macaulay, by Barbara Henderson
As a society, we are finally beginning to address our collective guilt about the British treatment of black African people. But some individuals involved in enslavement had to confront their guilt while the trade was ongoing. One of these men, Zachary Macaulay, had been an assistant manager on a sugar...
Push to withdraw arms-linked pensions
Lancaster City councillors are calling on the Lancashire County Pension Fund to withdraw £8 million of investments made in companies that ork in areas of Palestine illegally occupied by the Israeli government. The move follows demonstrations last month when hundreds of protestors – including Quakers – descended on BAE Systems in Lancashire criticising...
Crash course: An epistle produced by a group of Friends working with Jackie Carpenter at Woodbrooke
The subject of climate collapse, or societal collapse in a time of climate breakdown, is overwhelmingly important. But our understandings of it are diverse. Some of us feel that collapse is now inevitable, with a real possibility of the end of life, at least for human beings and many other...
Play your part: Martin Wimbush takes the stage
As a professional actor, I’ve been thinking about how my Quaker beliefs have affected me in so many ways, both on and off the stage.
What White People Can Do Next: From allyship to coalition, by Emma Dabiri
After Derek Chauvin’s sentencing for the murder of George Floyd, Floyd’s sister, Bridgett, said: ‘The sentence… shows that matters of police brutality are finally being taken seriously. However, we have a long way to go… before black and brown people finally feel like they are being treated fairly...
All articles
Local authorities failing bereaved
A major report by Quaker Social Action (QSA) into public health funerals reveals that bereaved people are being pushed into unmanageable debt due to councils abdicating their legal duty and responsibilities.
Scottish Quakers welcome new MSPs
Friends across Scotland have been sending postcards to their newly elected MSPs highlighting their hopes for the future as Quakers.
Alastair McIntosh on climate threat
The Quaker writer and activist Alastair McIntosh highlighted the urgency of the climate threat at an annual talk last month. The Quaker academic spoke at the annual Adderbury Gathering of Banbury & Evesham Area Meeting, held online for the second year in a row, rather than its usual setting at...
Meeting for Sufferings: Welcome
July’s Meeting for Sufferings (MfS) – still online via Zoom – opened with the welcome sight of two clerks sat alongside each other. They were sharing a table at the new Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) hub in Leeds. It was part of how MfS is ‘continuing to innovate’, said Margaret Bryan,...
Meeting for Sufferings: Meeting dates
Early business was processed quickly and a consideration on Meeting dates was reached sooner than expected. Representatives will meet in person in October, with a residential in 2022. Other Meetings will remain online. But some Friends were concerned that there weren’t enough Meetings for the proper discernment of all matters....
Meeting for Sufferings: Young Friends at MfS
In this most recent triennium, MfS reserved four places for adult Friends under the age of thirty-five. Naomi Major, the Engaging Young Adult Quakers project manager, had consulted with young Friends on this experiment and reported back. Feedback was positive, she said, though a buddy system would have improved the...
Meeting for Sufferings: Trustees reports
Introducing her report, clerk to BYM trustees Caroline Nursey said that they had replaced their July weekend away with six online sessions. Trustees had felt upheld despite these constraints she said, thanking Friends. Becoming a Society that resisted racism had been one of the main matters, she went on, which...
Meeting for Sufferings: Simplification
Carolyn Hayman and Ellie Harding offered an interim report on five simplification workshops held during April and May. The workshops had summarised the thinking so far, with discussions on what brought people joy in their service. There was also an opportunity for Friends to suggest solutions for a simpler, more...
Rebelling for Life, by Sue Hampton
This is a short book: a collection of poetry, short stories and other prose dating from 2019 and 2020. Sue starts with a heart-rending wail at the climate crisis. The first poem, written in a police cell after arrest during the London arms fair, takes us through: her physical sensations; the Meeting...
Letters - 16 July 2021
Uranium mining I am sure Friends will be have been shocked at the revelations about the abuse that children of the First Nation in Canada have suffered. And that it is part of British colonial history too. However, there is other abuse of indigenous peoples that still continues. This is...