Issue 31-05-2013
Featured story
Thought for the Week: Britain Yearly Meeting 2013 Epistle
To all Friends everywhere, We send you our loving greetings as we come to the end of our Yearly Meeting. We have gathered as a community of Friends of all ages, in worship, reflection, and relaxation. In our opening session, we were inspired by responses from Friends throughout Britain to...
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Trust, discipline and discernment
Innovation and nostalgia were features of Yearly Meeting 2013, which was held at Friends House, London, from 24 to 27 May. The innovation was evident in the use of commissioned films and the increasing evidence of ‘tablets’ and ‘mobile phones’. There was also an unprogrammed Meeting for Worship for all ages for...
Salter Lecture: Raise the sails
This year the Salter Lecture, hosted annually by the Quaker Socialist Society, was given on Friday afternoon in the Large Meeting House by Ed Mayo, secretary general of Co-operatives UK. He began by describing the present economic system as ‘failing, lamentably, to serve the needs of society’. In...
Gerald Hewitson delivers Swarthmore Lecture
Gerald Hewitson delivered the Swarthmore Lecture, ‘Journey into life: inheriting the story of early Friends’, to a capacity audience on Saturday evening. His personal story – from a humble upbringing to becoming a convinced Quaker – was interwoven with the words of early Friends.
Penn Friends in the park
The Penn Friends (aged five to nine) sat on the steps of Gandhi’s statue in Tavistock Square on a sunny Sunday morning and heard stories of what he had done.
Britain Yearly Meeting 2013: News in Brief
Friendly fact BYM 2013 had the highest Friday night attendance (628 people) since 1985 (671 people).
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All Age Worship
Friends of all ages came together in an unprogrammed Meeting for Worship for the first time in the Large Meeting House on Sunday. Meeting began with a Friend reading God’s Quiet Things by Nancy Sweetland. Ministry in the form of stories, songs and sharing soon flowed.
Facts on film
Friends continue to embrace the benefits of new technology and to explore imaginative new ways of presenting information. The presentation of the centrally managed work of Britain Yearly Meeting was told, for the first time ever, in a short, informative, film that was projected onto a large screen on...
Canterbury Commitment Group
There were helpful presentations from Quaker Peace & Social Witness, the Quaker Council for European Affairs, the Quaker United Nations Office and Living Witness at a special interest group on Saturday. Laurie Michaelis’ final remarks raised an important issue.
Low carbon: What’s working for you?
We look on games as just fun pastimes, but increasingly games are used for serious education and training. We were reminded at the special interest group on Sunday that Monopoly was devised by a Quaker. The Minute 36 group have devised two games to help us find what actions we might...
Exploring mental health in Meetings
Many special interest groups at Yearly Meeting were full to overflowing. Those who met on Saturday to talk about mental health in Meetings filled the seats, sat on the floor and spilled out of the doorway to hear from the Quaker Life Mental Health Cluster. The room was just...
Bubbles
Bubbles were in the air at Yearly Meeting on Monday morning. In the ‘As Led’ session a Friend spoke of her concern over the ‘bubble’ of Friends associated with Woodbrooke and Friends House, who ‘have the connections’, and those who were not involved in this, seemingly exclusive, Quaker world.
Twenty years of working for peace
Rhiannon Redpath and Owen Everett invited Friends to join them in celebrating twenty years of the Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW) peaceworker scheme with an interactive workshop on Sunday evening. The two young Friends showed a short film and talked about their own experiences. Friends were challenged to...
Quaker United Nations Office
Climate change. Peacebuilding. Control of seeds. Children of prisoners. What do these issues have in common? They are all work areas at the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO). In a wide-ranging special interest group on Saturday, three staff members from QUNO’s Geneva office talked about their current priorities....
The nature of the church
A small group of Friends gathered on Saturday evening to explore how the Gospel message preached by George Fox and the early Friends is still relevant to us today. The New Foundation Fellowship (NFF) aims to share the message that Jesus is present in the world and that by...
Kindlers book launch
The Kindlers packed out their special interest group as they promoted three new publications on Saturday: Early Quaker Women by Elaine Hobby, Quakers and Christ Today by Doug Gwyn and Questioning the Peace Testimony by John Lampen.
Bath 2014
Images of refreshment and renewal, prompted by a reference to the famous Roman baths, were raised in a short presentation promoting the 2014 Yearly Meeting Gathering of Friends to be held in Bath. The gathering will be held between 2-9 August on the campus of the University of Bath and...
Meeting for Sufferings
The introduction of Saturday’s preparation group on Meeting for Sufferings focused on four specific questions. In the event, more than half the comments and questions focused on our role with the Occupied Settlements. This is a concern of many Friends. Some Friends discerned a leading for Sufferings to reconsider...