Issue 10-06-2022
Featured story
‘Perceiving the Temperature of the Water’: the Swarthmore Lecture, 2022
Before getting to her title, Helen Minnis, a professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Glasgow, wanted to get something off her chest: ‘I’ll be honest, my response to being asked to do the Swarthmore lecture was mixed… Despite having written more than 100 scientific papers on...
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Yearly Meeting special interest sessions 1
Before Yearly Meeting (YM) began in earnest, Friends joined various online sessions of preparation or special interest. After a time of technical practice for Zoom users, Woodbrooke ran Supporting online discernment: Centring down and upholding from home. More than fifty Friends joined as Woodbrooke tutor Rhiannon Grant offered help on...
Yearly Meeting special interest sessions 4
Hosted by Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW), the How schools can teach climate justice session opened with a poem by Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner. Ellis Brooks, from QPSW’s peace education team, who led the session, said that the poem was a good example of an ‘uplifting voice’ in climate education,...
Yearly Meeting special interest sessions 5
Quaker World Relations Committee (QWRC) provided four opportunities for those attending Yearly Meeting to worship with Friends from around the world. Each half hour blended Meeting for Worship was led by a different section of Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC).
‘Truth and Integrity in Public Life’: the 2022 Salter Lecture
The Quaker Socialist Society’s annual Salter Lecture, named after Ada and Alfred Salter, was delivered this year by Ruth Cadbury MP.
Friends ‘work creatively to heal our fractured world’
Eighty Friends came together last month to discuss ‘From Crisis to Connection: working creatively to heal our fractured world’.
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Quakers to make reparation for slave trade and colonialism
Quakers will make practical reparations for the transatlantic slave trade, colonialism and economic exploitation.
WCC faces more pressure
The World Council of Churches (WCC) has faced renewed calls to distance itself from any members which support the invasion of Ukraine.
Quaker MP highlights health inequality
A Quaker MP has highlighted the issue of rising health inequality. Catherine West, Labour MP for Hornsey and Wood Green, said: ‘Over the past decade, we’ve seen the health gap between wealthy and deprived areas grow and life expectancy fall.’
Scottish Friends donate to Quaker-built Kenyan school
North Scotland Area Meeting has donated £500 towards a Quaker-built school on a Kenyan island.
Peace campaigner Paul Oestreicher awarded jubilee honour
The Quaker and Anglican peace campaigner Paul Oestreicher has been awarded an OBE in the jubilee birthday honours. The ninety-year-old priest and vice-president of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) was recognised ‘for services to Peace, Human Rights and Reconciliation’.
Yearly Meeting special interest sessions 2
Over 100 Friends attended a session about the Quaker study centre in Birmingham, Woodbrooke’s future.
Yearly Meeting special interest sessions 3
The Groups Fair was a chance for Friends to meet members of various Quaker groups. Members of the Black, Brown and People of Colour Fellowship spoke of the group’s ability to nurture those who were otherwise feeling isolated in their Meetings. It was a safe space, a place for...
Yearly Meeting special interest sessions 6
Quaker Social Action (QSA) offered a session asking How do Quaker faith and values inform social action? More than forty participants heard from QSA director Judith Moran, Giles Robinson, communications manager, and trustee Caroline Humphries. The session started with a short video about QSA’s work and the impact of...
Yearly Meeting special interest sessions 7
Forty-nine people heard a panel of five Quaker agencies speak on Making change in the world: A global perspective. Leading figures from FWCC, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), QUNO, Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) and QPSW explained their work and how they support diversity and inclusion.
Yearly Meeting special interest sessions 8
In a session co-hosted by Quaker Life and QPSW’s Conciliation Group, seventy-seven Friends explored The strange paradox of Quaker conciliation.
Letters - 10 June 2022
A gigantic amount of hope I attended some of the Yearly Meeting (YM) sessions on Zoom, as our Quaker community thought about ‘learning uncomfortable lessons and how to take our witness forward’. I feel drawn to say something outside the comfort zone of many, swimming into the cold waters mentioned...