Issue 16-10-2015
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Thought for the Week: Thankfulness
Thankfulness is a recurrent theme when, Sunday by Sunday, I come into Meeting for Worship: thankfulness for the friendship of my partner in life, for my parents, family and friends, for a reasonable level of health, for the comfort in which we live, for enjoyment of music, art and the...
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A green revolution in Freiburg
‘Truth, Transformation and Living Sustainably’ was the title for an illuminating and inspiring Quaker Voluntary Action working retreat held recently in the German town of Freiburg. Eleven of us, ten from the United Kingdom, arrived by train at the Black Forest Hostel, Freiburg, and were first welcomed by Freiburg Friends...
Educating for peace
Two years ago Mid Wales Area Meeting adopted peace education as a major concern. A discussion, which began in response to the government’s proposals to commemorate the first world war, broadened to include a concern about child soldiers, increasing militarisation in education, the glorification of violence in the media...
A visit to the Spirit in prison
Sarah Blackborow, who died in 1665, was a prominent Quaker minister in London during the 1650s and 1660s. She helped to establish a Meeting at Hammersmith and was probably influential in the development of separate women’s Business Meetings. She wrote and published the tract A Visit to the Spirit in...
Opportunities and challenges
On Saturday 26 September around sixty Friends from Area Meetings around the country met for a one-day conference at Friends House in London. It was organised by the Quaker Committee for Christian and Interfaith Relations (QCCIR) with Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW). Our theme was interfaith peacebuilding. The day brought...
Friends House visitors share A-bomb experiences
Atomic bombing survivors (hibakusha) Masashi Ieshima and Kuniko Kimura visited Friends House on 12 October, as part of a tour of Europe. Paul Parker, recording clerk of Britain Yearly Meeting, welcomed the visitors to Friends House. He said: ‘It is important to us as Quakers that the events of 1945 are never...
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Peace groups gather in Brussels
The Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA) was among thirty-seven peacebuilding organisations who met in Brussels on 7-8 October. The organisations gathered for the European Peacebuilding Liaison Office (EPLO) General Assembly. They hoped to agree strategies for persuading European governments to invest in peacebuilding as the most effective response to...
Friends live adventurously for Quaker Week
The theme for Quaker Week 2015 was ‘Live adventurously’, and a number of Meetings across Britain took up the challenge. More than one hundred people took part in events organised by Harrogate Meeting. Six Meetings for Worship took place, including several outdoors. The Meeting’s children, when asked to interpret living...
Manchester vigils
Quakers took part in seven vigils during the Conservative party conference in Manchester as a witness against the growing inequality in British society. Most vigils were on the steps of Mount Street Meeting House.
Success for Quaker school librarian
Leighton Park School librarian Chris Routh is on the honour list for the 2015 SLA (School Library Association) School Librarian of the Year award. Chris has worked at the Quaker school, in Reading, Berkshire, since 2003. Among the work that saw her make the SLA honour list was a 2014 project that focused...
Ethical investment options highlighted
Good Money Week 2015 takes place from 18 to 24 October. The week-long campaign to raise awareness of sustainable, responsible and ethical finance was formerly known as National Ethical Investment Week (NEIW). It was rebranded in 2014.
Reading ‘the red book’
The Book of Discipline Revision Preparation Group is inviting all Friends to join with us in reading and getting to know our current Book of Discipline. We hope that it will be a nurturing experience which supports our spiritual lives by challenging and inspiring us, as well as leaving us...
Letters – 16 October 2015
Legalised theft? Like other Quakers, our family studiously avoided any encouragement of the huge waste of public funds by the Thatcher government on subsidised sell-offs of publicly owned assets during the 1980s. While Norway built a sovereign wealth fund that today supports its social and other services, the UK exhausted...