Issue 30-05-2014
Featured story
Thought for the Week: Friendship
Friendship is a harmony. You relate to me and I relate to you. It is a mediation.
Top stories
Towards the Source/Tua’r Tarddiad
Borders and boundaries are often sources for reflection, but many Quakers resist clear categorisation ‘…it’s not possible to say when night becomes day, when summer becomes autumn or exactly where a river enters the sea… Nor are there boundaries between the ordinary everyday things and things of the spirit....
Commemorating our shared memory
A new exhibition has opened in the city of Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, China, to commemorate the humanitarian work of the Friends Ambulance Unit’s (FAU) China Convoy between 1941 and 1951. It is the first time that this story of Quaker-led humanitarian service provided to the people of China has been...
Meeting Houses Heritage Project launched
An exciting new heritage project was launched on 3 May at Hartington Grove Meeting House in Cambridge. Friends from Area Meetings across East Anglia heard about the The Quaker Meeting Houses Heritage Project, for which English Heritage is providing generous non-Lottery funding. The new project will provide Britain Yearly...
Election success for Quakers
Two Quaker candidates have been successful at the recent European elections. Stroud Meeting’s Molly Scott Cato has become the first Green Party MEP for the South West, while Judith Kirton-Darling, who is a member of Belgium and Luxembourg Yearly Meeting and attends Hexham Meeting, was elected Labour MEP...
Wrestling with Romans
It wasn’t advertised as having any special interest for gay Quakers; but the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre course this May on ‘Romans’ looked interesting and challenging. The tutor, Timothy Peat Ashworth, has written a challenging and well-reviewed book, Paul’s Necessary Sin: The Experience of Liberation and participants were...
All articles
Series - Conscription and conscience: Part three
On the morning of 15 June 1916 Howard Marten, thirty-one, bank clerk from Pinner, Middlesex, and a member of Harrow Quaker Meeting, was escorted to the parade ground at Henriville camp, Boulogne. Court-martialled a few days earlier and convicted of refusing to accept military service, he was about to hear his sentence,...
Sidcot students re-enact trial
History has been brought to life by students at Sidcot School in a dramatic re-enactment of the court martial of a prominent Quaker conscientious objector in world war one. At a special assembly, held to commemorate International Conscientious Objectors Day on 15 May, students were involved in the re-enactment of...
Brighthelm URC follows Quaker lead
A Brighton United Reformed church congregation has become the first in the UK to disinvest from fossil fuels. The decision by Brighthelm United Reformed Church ties in with one of the congregation’s core values, sustainability, according to its minister, Alex Mabbs.
New China Convoy exhibition
A new exhibition in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, China tells the story of the Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU) China Convoy.
Conflict prevention in Burundi
The Quaker Church in Bujumbura, capital of Burundi, has a dazzling gospel choir in sharply dressed lime and green, and a congregation of around 200. There are the same number of Quakers in Burundi, a country a tenth the size of the UK, as in the UK, and they have ambitious...
Eye - 30 May 2014
Conchies’ Road Walking boots and anoraks were donned on 10 May as around two dozen Friends in Devon strode along ‘Conchies’ Road’. On the Saturday before International Conscientious Objectors Day, Friends from Exeter and Tavistock Meetings walked ‘along a mostly dead straight, often rather rough, road that runs for about a...
Letters - 30 May 2014
European elections I have no doubt that many Friends are as shocked as I am after the results of the European elections. Having friends (and Friends) in several European countries, I am particularly depressed at the success of neo-fascist parties across the continent. Twenty years ago, I was involved in...