Issue 10-10-2014
Featured story
Thought for the Week: The Blue Marble
Top stories
Are you a woolly Quaker?
I have been following with interest our concern as Friends over what is termed our ‘carbon footprint’ and our need to reduce it as much as we can and to promote ‘a low carbon society’. Concern is voiced over using carbon as fuel and also in extracting and refining oil....
‘It’s those unseen things that bind us’
General Meeting for Scotland met in Inverness on Saturday 13 September, just five days before the Independence Referendum. During opening worship, the poem ‘The Morning After, Scotland, 19th September 2014’ by Edinburgh Makar (poet laureate) Christine de Luca was read to us, including these lines: …We aim for more equality; and for...
Be prepared
Nobody quite knows what an assistant clerk does, or should do. It’s the one question that always comes up on the Woodbrooke courses for new clerks and, of course, the answer is that it can be absolutely anything – or nothing – if the clerk is independent-minded and self-sufficient. So much...
Curtailing the Convention
The UK helped to negotiate the European Convention on Human Rights and was a pioneering signatory in 1950. But now, over sixty years later, the Conservatives have promised to curtail the Convention or leave it altogether. This would damage the protection of human rights at home and may already be undermining...
Meeting for Sufferings: ‘A visionary and prophetic body’
Representatives of Meeting for Sufferings (MfS), who had travelled to London from every corner of Britain to meet in the George Fox Room at Friends House on Saturday 4 October, were able to take a rare opportunity to look in a mirror. The main question on the agenda was: What is...
All articles
Meeting for Sufferings: Contributions significantly down
There has been a dramatic fall in contributions this year of some sixteen per cent from individuals and Meetings towards the work of Britain Yearly Meeting. Peter Ullathorne, BYM treasurer, spoke to Sufferings about the state of the finances of Britain Yearly Meeting. He said that the finances were in...
Meeting for Sufferings: ‘Courage to Save the Planet’
Devon Area Meeting sent a minute to Meeting for Sufferings for adoption and publicising among Friends. Minute 55/2014: ‘Courage to Save the Planet’ suggests that Friends are asked to hold politicians in the Light for a minute each evening at 9.00pm, ‘seeking to influence them to have the courage and leadership...
Meeting for Sufferings: BYM trustees’ report
Jennifer Barraclough, clerk of Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) trustees, reported to Meeting for Sufferings on the trustees’ meeting that had taken place the previous day. She highlighted three main areas. The first of these concerned risk awareness. An important part of a trustee’s role, she told Friends, was ‘not...
Meeting for Sufferings: Lobbying Act
As part of the BYM trustees’ report, Jennifer Barraclough spoke to Friends about the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014, known as the Lobbying Act. While the ultimate decision over whether to register rests with trustees, she wanted to put it to Meeting for Sufferings for...
Words: Minister
According to the Quaker Jargon Buster online, ministry is what a person gives when he or she is led to stand up and speaks during Meeting for Worship. Thankfully, it adds the sentence ‘ministry is inspired by the Spirit’. The sad thing is that it restricts ministry to the spoken...
Quakers remembered
A unique piece of community theatre, Quakers in the first world war: A commemoration, was given two performances on Saturday 13 September at Jordans Meeting House in Buckinghamshire. The performances coincided with the one hundredth anniversary of the establishment of the Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU), whose first training camp was at...
Eye - 10 October 2014
Revolutions A cranky quote inspired some quirky wordplay from Philip Jacob, of Monkstown Meeting in Dublin: ‘In the Friend (29 August) Esme Weeks mentions having heard Jeremy Paxman describe conscientious objectors as “cranks”. A crank is a device that creates revolutions. ‘nuff said!’
Letters - 10 October 2014
Two-state solution debate On the 13 October the House of Commons will debate the motion that the new Palestinian state ought to be recognised by the UK. The backbench debate is entitled ‘The Future of the Two-State Solution in Israel and Palestine’. The coalition government opposes the motion on the grounds...