Issue 25-05-2018
Featured story
Thought for the Week: An appealing Peel
Through snow and ice we came. Many a ‘yupidee’! We were the three enthusiastic audiences, over 500 of us, at Wells-next-the-Sea’s first community play, undeterred by its two week postponement when faced with blizzard and snowdrift.
Top stories
Britain Yearly Meeting 2018: Special interest groups
A wide range of special interest groups was organised for Friends attending Yearly Meeting. They were held at lunchtime after the morning session, and then following the afternoon session. The subjects covered included everything from housing to history, mental health to membership and education to asylum seekers and refugees. They...
A dancing Meeting for Worship
Several times during Yearly Meeting ministry exhorted Friends to be guided by the Spirit, to pay attention to the inward voice, and to ‘let go of my will and make space for Thy will’. All of it had a similar purpose, that when we are using words to describe an...
A contemplative time
On a cold and rainy weekend, 15-17 April, ninety-seven Friends met for Quaker Life Representative Council at Woodbrooke in Birmingham. The gardens displayed a damper version of spring than in last April’s glorious sunshine but walks in the wet grass revealed puddles of bluebells and violets and a wonderful...
Diversity and disability
We have all been called to examine diversity amongst Quakers in Britain. We trust that the call for particular attention to race and age diversity will not preclude consideration of other axes of diversity.
Speaking out
Cap Kaylor’s take on Quakerism in the USA (23 and 30 March) certainly resonates with me. He has three strands: demographic, practice and sheer faith. I have always supposed that there were some 200,000 Friends in America, but the 2017 Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) map shows only 80,092, adding together both programmed...
All articles
Conscientious Objectors Day
Quakers up and down the country came together to mark International Conscientious Objectors Day with vigils, protests, talks and films. Friends gathered to mark the 15 May event in places including Swansea, Bradford, Cambridge, Leicester, and Sheffield. In London, Friends met in Tavistock Square for a Conscientious Objectors Day gathering organised...
Protest at BAE Systems AGM
Three Friends engaged in bold acts of protest this month as witness to their Quaker peace testimonies. Sam Walton, from South London Area Meeting, was thrown out of the BAE Systems Annual General Meeting when he stood up and said that the people in Yemen see the BAE management as â€...
QSA backs training for end-of life care
Quaker Social Action (QSA) representatives attended the University Hospitals of the North Midlands (UHNM) conference in Stoke last week in a bid to push their new in-house training for end-of-life professionals.
North London Friends host refugee play
Tottenham Quakers presented a play based on a real asylum seeker’s story as part of their commitment to welcome people needing sanctuary. The Bundle, performed by the Journeymen Theatre, is the story of one woman’s journey from persecution in her home country to the UK and through the...
Plan to ease ‘hostility’
Tim Gee, of the Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network, shared the Sanctuary Everywhere Manifesto with Christian Today magazine.
Ride for the welfare state’s most vulnerable
The group of Quakers taking part in a national cycle ride from Swarthmoor Hall to Ten Downing Street hope more Friends will join those already participating.
MEP looks to the future
Ikley Friends in Yorkshire invited Quaker Jude Kirton-Darling, the MEP for the North East of England, to address a public meeting at Ilkley Grammar School on the subject of ‘Brexit and You: Looking to the Future’.
Quaker Business Method
Peter Cheng, a Friend, talked about the Quaker Business Method on 3 May in Birmingham and explained why it may produce better and more ethical decisions.
Friends in Cambridge hold vigil for peace
Cambridge Friends held their regular monthly vigil for peace from 11am to noon outside The Guildhall on 19 May.
From the archive: Yearly Meeting 1918
On 31 May the Friend reported on the fourth wartime Yearly Meeting. There was a reduced attendance, because more and more Friends were away on war or relief service either overseas or at home, although a few of these were on furlough. Also, railway restrictions were in operation. Nevertheless, the Friend...
Letters - 25 May 2018
Words and worship My husband and I were privileged to be part of Yearly Meeting on Saturday 5 May. There was a full house in the Large Meeting House. A sight to behold! The topic of conversation was the revision of Quaker faith & practice. One brave lady sitting near the...