Issue 06-11-2009
Featured story
No easy answers: appointments and oversight
When we consider, and usually appoint, a person to service in Britain Yearly Meeting, our common practice in Friends in Britain is to then leave them to get on with it. This is a practice and a cultural tradition, which I think dates back to the time when most Friends...
Top stories
Hidden Children
London Quaker Laura Wirtz has unveiled a damning report for the Children’s Society on the exploitation of vulnerable migrant children in the UK. Laura, a member of South East London Area Meeting and Quaker chaplain of Greenwich University, has researched the lives of exploited migrant children who have...
Climate battle starts at ground level
In the run-up to the Copenhagen climate change conference, leading soil scientists from across the United Kingdom have emphasised the crucial role that soil plays in preventing climate change by absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere. In September the British government published a strategy document setting out plans to halt and...
Quakers and the climate change emergency
The Climate Safety report, by the UK’s Public Interest Research Centre, paints a dark picture. It predicts that the Arctic could have an ice-free summer by 2011-2015, eighty years ahead of predictions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This, it claims, could be the first falling domino...
The story of me, us and now
When I was younger I was conscious that my family were pretty odd. My parents didn’t drive, we recycled obsessively and we were vegetarian. I rebelled when I was ten by eating meat at school, because… well, I wanted to. I liked fitting in. But when I was...
The making of modern Britain
Television: The Making of Modern Britain BBC 2. When Victoria died at the beginning of the twentieth century, ‘New Dawn’ thinking was inevitable. Great Britain was about to undergo traumatic changes. One was a shock to the empire, when it took Britain two years to defeat not very many Afrikaners in...
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Sustainability at Friends House
As regular readers of the Friend will be well aware, climate change is rapidly becoming one of the highest priorities for individual Friends and for Quaker organisations at all levels. So it was that staff from all the offices in Friends House (FH) gathered last week for a meeting on...
American Friends Service Committee has massive staff cuts
British and American Friends held simultaneous Meetings for Worship in London and Philadelphia on Monday, to hold American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in the light as they struggle with a financial crisis. AFSC, which oversees Quaker work across the US and the world, was last week forced to reduce staff...
What is a faith commitment to sustainability?
This week I was one of two Quaker representatives participating in a gathering in Windsor of global religious leaders and senior United Nations staff, including Ban Ki-Moon, the secretary-general. Faith groups will be publicly announcing the details of their plans to take immediate and progressive steps to counter the...
Changes in Israel
Earlier in the year there was much vilification of Israel in the press, following their actions in the Gaza Strip. Even the Friend had some antagonistic articles. I considered this stance to be unfair in view of the negative attitude of the Arab states against Israel, repeatedly vowing to drive...
Duplicating effort wastes resources
The article by John Lewis (30 October) chimes loudly with me; its application should be nationwide, to include the relation between national and area hard-working Friends. A particular example is the area charity registration process, which is certainly taking up a large amount of human resource in my Area Meeting ...
Letters - 6 November 2009
Two views on faith
The case for God: what religion really means by Karen Armstrong. The Bodley Head. ISBN: 978 1 847 92034 8. £20. Reason, Faith and Revolution: reflections on the God debate by Terry Eagleton. Yale University Press. ISBN: 978 030 015179 4. £18.99. As sparks continue to fly between allies and opponents of Richard Dawkins, both sides have taken a hammering in...
The making of modern Britain
Television: The Making of Modern Britain BBC 2. When Victoria died at the beginning of the twentieth century, ‘New Dawn’ thinking was inevitable. Great Britain was about to undergo traumatic changes. One was a shock to the empire, when it took Britain two years to defeat not very many Afrikaners in...
Q-eye - 6 November 2009
With a little help from our Friend The major BBC series The Making of Modern Britain has had a little help from the Rowntree Society in York. Our Friend Steven Burkeman, who chairs the Society, played host to TV crews when they wanted to see the place that Seebohm Rowntree...