Issue 17-03-2023
Featured story
After a fashion? Tony D’Souza’s awkward truth about Quaker style
It had been a long relationship. We had been through a lot together, but now it was coming to an end. I needed some space. I just knew it. I needed some time to collect my thoughts and adjust to my new reality.
Top stories
Mind your language: Imogen Wedd says we should be wary of bias
The phrase ‘Speak truth to power’ is common currency among Quakers. At its best it calls us to honesty, at whatever cost in reputation or worldly success. But the words are heavy with unspoken challenges. We can speak, but do we listen? Is it truth we speak, or fashionable...
Quakers offer ‘Loyal Address’ to the king
Quakers from Britain and Ireland visited Buckingham Palace last week after being invited to offer a ‘Loyal Address’ – a historic entitlement to address the monarch.
Blue plaque for Ada Salter
English Heritage has installed a blue plaque for the Quaker social reformer Ada Salter. The news was announced on 8 March to coincide with International Women’s Day.
Standing on ceremony: Kate MacDonald on a long-lost certificate
On 29 September 1699, two Quakers married in Bath: Thomas Rose and Mary Fry. Their marriage certificate was signed by thirty-five Friends and family who had attended the marriage, an old Quaker practice maintained to this day. Like many other historic documents ‘the certificate remain[ed] the property of the married couple...
Eye - 17 March 2023
A blank canvas After Annon-a-mouse’s idea for making notepaper from the wrapper of the Friend (10 February), Kate Hale, of Bedminster Meeting, got in touch to share how her family uses it as a springboard for creativity! She told Eye: ‘My granddaughter and I use the envelope for painting and...
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Quaker pamphlet to counter militarisation
Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has produced a pamphlet after its research found widespread targeting of schoolchildren by the armed forces and arms companies. This has been sent to hundreds of schools.
The Retreat outlines Quaker heritage plans
The Retreat has outlined its heritage plans for the Heslington Road site as the final stages of the planning approvals process approaches. The site was put up for sale in late 2022 with Friends expressing an interest in how its Quaker heritage can be preserved. The board of the Retreat set...
Meeting for Sufferings: Central committees speak on Yearly Meeting concerns
In the first afternoon session on 4 March, Friends heard reports on how central committees have been responding to Yearly Meeting (YM) concerns. In 2021, Quaker Peace & Social Witness Central Committee (QPSWCC) was asked to continue work on climate justice. Meanwhile, Quaker Life Central Committee (QLCC) was asked to consider how...
Meeting for Sufferings: QPSW
Mike Coote, co-clerk of QPSWCC, described its work supporting Quaker action at COP26 and ongoing efforts for the Make Polluters Pay campaign, as well as the Insure Our Future campaign, which is asking the insurance industry to immediately stop insuring new and expanding coal, oil and gas projects. Staff plan...
Meeting for Sufferings: QLCC
Klaus Huber, clerk of QLCC, then updated Friends on the group’s work encouraging reflection on equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI), which is sometimes run in collaboration with Woodbrooke Research and Learning. In particular, the group has been facilitating decolonisation within the centrally-managed work, he said, and supporting work with...
Meeting for Sufferings: Changes to the Book of Discipline
Friends then heard recommendations from Church Government Advisory Group (CGAG) on changes to Quaker faith & practice.
Meeting for Sufferings: Friends hear from Quaker chaplains
The day ended with Friends hearing from three Quaker chaplains. Robin Fishwick, a Quaker chaplain at the University of Leeds, said he is often asked how many Friends are at the university (‘a few’), but ‘this is not particularly relevant’. Aside from a few ‘Quaker-specific things’ – for example, a weekly...
Transitional, by Munroe Bergdorf
‘In one way or another, we all transition’ is the strapline under the title of this book. How true that is of us as individuals, and of us as a community.
Letters - 17 March 2023
Kinder ground I am feeling dismayed. It seems more and more Quakers are choosing to leave ‘kinder ground’ to embrace the more combative discourse that seems so prevalent elsewhere in society. Even in the Friend, some letters are published which take no note of the watchword at the head of...