25 September 2009
Featured story
Woolgathering: having no goal in mind
Stop what you’re doing, now. Put this magazine down, turn off the radio or television and just sit comfortably. You don’t have to sit in any particular way though the straighter your back the easier it is to breathe deeply. However, there is no particular way to breathe...
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Friends at the forefront of City of Sanctuary movement
City of Sanctuary is a grassroots movement that brings together local organisations to make their town or city a recognised place of welcome and safety for people claiming sanctuary in the UK. When I started to explore the idea of Sheffield as a City of Sanctuary in 2005, Sheffield Friends...
Three special places
Not so far from my home in Stafford are three special places. Special because they give genuine worth and dignity to the lives of particular individuals, and in so doing give meaning to all our lives. Cannock Chase’s German War Cemetery, Commonwealth Cemetery and Katyn Memorial are all to...
Alternative economies?
At the very beginning of this year, the Friend dedicated an entire issue to looking at ‘human economics’ or, in the words of the BBC’s Robert Peston, ‘the new capitalism’: that is, different attempts to experiment with ways in which economics operate on a human level. These attempts are...
For better, for worse
When I went to Christies’ Contemporary Arts to choose a couple of pictures as the gift from my firm for having worked for them twenty–five years, the young woman at the counter told me that she was shortly getting married. This prompted from me the following observation. If the...
A new landscape
Being not long after York Yearly Meeting, the timing seemed apt for Quakers to be hosting what had been a pre-planned gathering in a gay bar on Manchester’s Canal Street to explore attitudes to spirituality and sexuality. It was part of the week-long Gay Pride celebrations.
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Q-eye
Talk and tango
Talk Together, a new initiative, met for its inaugural conference this August in Oxford. Aimed at teaching students conflict resolution skills and providing a forum for students from either side of a conflict to come together, I was lucky enough to attend as a ‘neutral’ student. As a group of...
Letters 25 Sept 2009
Friends Provident
Steven Burkeman and Andrew Gunn wrote telling letters (11 September) about Friends Provident (FP). I echo their concerns and sadness. I quote from a letter in the Friend (12 May 2000) written by eight former directors of Friends Provident – of which I was one – who were seven Quakers and one attender: ‘If...
Mayors and morals
Early years curriculum exemption refused
The first parental exemption request to the compulsory Learning and Development Requirements of the English Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum has been refused. Frances Laing, a member of Wirral and Chester Meeting, received a letter from her child’s state-funded school saying: ‘The school feels… it would not...
Bournville connections celebrated at Rugby Meeting House centenary
On 19 October 1909, the Rugby Advertiser reported that, a ‘Mrs WM Darby, of Birmingham, formally opened a new Friends’ Meeting house, which will be available for Adult School purposes’. The paper liked the new building. ‘The new Meeting house is of a pleasing design, and reflects much credit upon the architect,...
Saving the bees – an update
Despite an international campaign on their behalf, the plight of the world’s bees remains critical. Apart from producing honey, these industrious insects play a vital role in pollinating food plants and an estimated one-third of our human diet depends on their efforts. As reported in the Friend (19 June)...