Issue 21-09-2012

Featured story

Thought for the Week: Silent day

FREE 20 Sep 2012 | by Jenny Wallace

It was a Saturday in May. There were about fourteen of us. The venue was the old Meeting house at Wandsworth in London. At the end of long, not-very-creaky wooden benches were copies of Quaker faith & practice and the Bible.

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Top stories

The Quakers of Hartshill

FREE 20 Sep 2012 | by Rae Ritchie and Clare Barnett

Hartshill Friends working on their tapestry panel | Photo: Photo courtesy of Hartshill Meeting

In 1624, George Fox was born in the small Leicestershire village of Drayton-in-the-Clay (now known as Fenny Drayton). As a young man, he tended sheep in the nearby village of Hartshill. Later in life, he returned to Hartshill and met with Nathaniel Newton, one of the first generation of Quakers.

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The golden anniversary of sex

20 Sep 2012 | by Stephen Cox

‘Sexual morality is an area of challenge and opportunity for living our testimonies to truth, nonviolence, equality, integrity and love.’  Quaker faith & practice, 22.11   ‘We think it our duty, not to stand on a peak of perfectionism, asking for an impossible conformity while the tide of human life...

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The Fire and the Hammer

20 Sep 2012 | by Rebecca Leuchak

John Sheldon conducting. | Photo: Photo: Skip Schiel.

The Fire and the Hammer is an epic work – with readers, chorus, soloists, piano and percussion – that recounts the story of young George Fox and the founding of Quakerism. It was composed by Tony Biggin and has a libretto by Alec Davison.

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Call to name and shame tax dodgers

20 Sep 2012 | by The Friend Newsdesk

A leading political columnist has called for tax dodgers to be named and shamed.  Peter Oborne, a journalist with the Daily Telegraph, was speaking at a debate organised by Christian Aid and chaired by Giles Fraser. It was held at Christ Church, Spitalfields, in London.

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Quaker appointed to European peace post

FREE 20 Sep 2012 | by The Friend Newsdesk

Davorka Lovrekovic | Photo: Photo courtesy Church and Peac.

The new general secretary of Church and Peace, the ecumenical peace church in Europe, is Hamburg Quaker Davorka Lovrekovic.

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All articles

New appointment at QHA

20 Sep 2012 | by The Friend Newsdesk

Quaker Homeless Action (QHA) has appointed Siobhan Grimes as its new London-based part-time administrator.

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Bruce Kent talks peace at Bootham

20 Sep 2012 | by The Friend Newsdesk

Bruce Kent, honorary vice-president of the Campaign For Nuclear Disarmament, will speak at Bootham School in October.

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Youth work conference

20 Sep 2012 | by The Friend Newsdesk

The role of children in Quakerism is one of the topics to be addressed in the forthcoming Quaker Youth Work conference at Woodbrooke in Birmingham.

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Winchmore Hill

20 Sep 2012 | by The Friend Newsdesk

Winchmore Hill Meeting House is participating in Open City, (London Open House), 22 to 23 September, the annual event that encourages visits to sites of architectural and historic interest. ‘We’re hoping to see hundreds of people this weekend who just didn’t know this treasure is here’, said spokesperson Stephen Cox. 

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Dying to live

20 Sep 2012 | by Michael Wright

Being familiar with the gospels can lead us into thinking that we know Jesus and his teaching very well. Then, when you read a book by a writer who has steeped himself in the text, and the context in which the author was writing, new perspectives dawn. John Churcher is...

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Memorandum of a passage to England

20 Sep 2012 | by R A McRoy

My beloved friend Samuel having taken a cabin For himself in the ship called Mary and Elizabeth (James Sparks the master), wept when I spake to him, I feeling a prompting in my heart to travel steerage

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Eye - 21 September 2012

20 Sep 2012 | by Eye

Victorian discoveries Did Quakers make a splash in Victorian literature?  Rosalind Kaye, Colchester Meeting, consulted Valentine Cunningham’s Everywhere spoken against: dissent in the Victorian novel – to illuminate Eye.

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Letters - 21 September 2012

20 Sep 2012 | by The Friend Newsdesk

Time for change David Holmes (7 September) alleges that we are going to the dogs since (inter alia) the recording clerk has become a chief executive, so can no longer be a servant. Nonsense. Every recording clerk has always been a chief executive, whether responsible for three or 300 others. And every...

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