Issue 15-08-2014
Featured story
Thought for the Week: My arm round you
Joan Armatrading at St George’s Hall, and we are in front stalls with the fans (having sneaked downstairs in the interval). Joan takes the mike in eloquent dark hands, begins her first song, cool, restrained. Guitars, percussion, keyboards ride along with her. The songs change: some are sweet, some...
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Epistle
To all Friends everywhere, We send our loving greetings from Yearly Meeting Gathering. Over 2,000 of us have come together as a community of all ages, “to see one another’s faces and open our hearts one to another”. Our theme of ‘Commitment and Belonging’ was the culmination of a three-year...
Friends join scarf protest
Several hundred protesters were on hand last Saturday, 9 August, for the unfurling of an enormous pink scarf along the seven miles of road between the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) sites at Aldermaston and Burghfield. The protest was intended to show the scale of opposition to Trident replacement in the UK...
Quakers call for action on Gaza
Against a backdrop of broken ceasefires and with almost 2,000 people dead, Quakers in Britain have released a statement calling for urgent action on Gaza. The Religious Society of Friends in Britain has urged the UK government to recognise Palestine as a nation state, stressing that 134 countries have already recognised the...
Being a Quaker: membership
‘What it means to be a Quaker today: commitment and belonging’ was the theme of the 2014 Yearly Meeting Gathering. The spiritual basis of trusteeship and of service had been explored in the past two years. At Bath the focus on commitment and belonging included an exploration of what membership means...
Britain Yearly Meeting trustees
The report of Britain Yearly Meeting trustees at Yearly Meeting Gathering (YMG) was enhanced by the imaginative use of a commissioned film. The film took a geographic area – the North-East of England – and conveyed how a group of Friends there engaged with centrally managed departments. It was clear, engaging, storytelling...
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Special interest groups
White feathers Friends attending the all-age Meeting for Worship in commemoration of the start of the first world war on 4 August were asked to write their thoughts on peace on white feathers, which were then made into a dove that hung in the Big Top.
Voices of young people
I like all the fun things there are to do here – everything that has been organised by Quakers. It’s my first time here. I’m with my mum, dad, sisters and brother. I would definitely come back. I’ve enjoyed the food in the Sports Café. James Brindle, 10
The quiet witness of the powerless
Further news of the continuing conflict in Gaza brought into sharp focus the work of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). It was one of the ‘Journeys’ available to Friends at Yearly Meeting Gathering. Of all the quiet forms of engagement in which Friends are involved, this...
From the archive: An active Friend
In a time of war what can one person do? Many Friends in 1914 responded vigorously in finding ways of service. When the war began E Harold Marsh was in Denmark visiting summer schools. I stayed two days at Hilleród at a Summer School for school teachers in Lutheran schools;...
Letters - 15 August 2014
Courage to save the earth The twenty-first International Climate Conference will be held in Paris in November 2015. Its target is universal, legally binding, CO2 emissions reduction. If we reduce CO2 emissions immediately this should limit warming to 2˚C. Humans and many animals can adapt to that. Delay cutting carbon emissions...