Issue 13-08-2021
Featured story
We have no time but this present time: Britain Yearly Meeting Epistle, 2021
Friends in Britain have gathered online at this time of great upheaval, amid the pandemic, climate and environmental breakdown, and increasing social inequality and division. We are grateful for technology, and the hard work of BYM staff, Agenda and Arrangements Committees, the Woodbrooke team, and others in bringing us together.
Top stories
Yearly Meeting Gathering (YMG), 2021
Session Six More than 300 Friends gathered for Session Six of Yearly Meeting on Friday 6 August, in which adult Friends welcomed younger ones from the under-nineteens programmes. It had been more difficult this year to operate as an all-age gathering, said Madeleine Harding, who led the session, so it was good...
Woodbrooke announces 2022 Swarthmore lecturer
The academic Helen Minnis is the Swarthmore lecturer for 2022. The Glasgow Meeting elder will speak from her experience as a scientist and a Quaker, addressing white privilege within both communities. The lecture has been selected to be part of the ongoing Quaker conversation about becoming an anti-racist church.
Yearly Meeting Gathering (YMG), 2021: Fringe and preparatory events
How to Draw a Labyrinth One fringe event aimed to provide Friends with something light-hearted and playful. How to Draw a Labyrinth, led by Barbara Childs, was held a number of times throughout YMG. Barbara opened the session with an introduction to labyrinths, beginning with how they differ from mazes....
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Church report praises Quaker partnership
A Church of England report into the UK’s housing crisis has highlighted a partly Quaker-funded housing initiative in its pledge to build affordable homes on church land.
QSA decides not to run winter shelter
Quaker Social Action (QSA) has said that it will not run a winter shelter in 2021, or in the future, due to the risks. ‘We acknowledge all that was achieved by QHA [Quaker Housing Action] in running Quaker Open Christmas up until 2019 – providing a warm, non-bureaucratic and dignified experience… Yet running...
Village honours green Friend
A Northumberland village has paid tribute to a Quaker who helped foster community relations. Local people planted a flower bed in Shilbottle in honour of Mike McPhun, who lived in the village. Judy Kirby, from Alnwick Meeting, told the Friend that the late Quaker, who died in 2015, founded Blooming Shilbottle...
BYM drops term ‘net-zero’
Quakers in Britain no longer use the term ‘net zero’ in advocacy and campaigning work, a staff member has said.
Quaker role in racism report
Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA) and Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) have contributed to a new United Nations report into systemic racism.
Letters - 13 August 2021
Stance against racism Tony Stoller (July 30) complains that Quakers were largely silent when shouts of ‘Kill the Jews, rape their daughters’ were heard and also maybe ‘some Quakers feel that Jews in Britain deserve what they are getting’. I find this a shocking and totally untrue statement. It seems to...