Issue 13-06-2014
Featured story
Thought for the Week: Is there an elephant in the house?
This year Yearly Meeting Gathering will explore ‘What it means to be a Quaker today’. In preparation for this event, many of us will have been reviewing our own personal understandings. I am a Quaker for many reasons, not least of which is the way we carry out our discernments...
Top stories
Bees: the Friendly route
Wedmores have kept bees for hundreds of years. When I lived in north Somerset, Jane and I went to Portishead Meeting. Most of the gravestones are Wedmores. I spent a few days searching records of where Wedmores had lived. I found some places where they might, in recent memory, have...
Hanuš Hachenburg 1929-1944
In the Friend for 24 January 2014 I introduced a poem by a young woman who was murdered in Auschwitz. The poem, ‘I Would Sooner Perish’, is exceptionally strong, empty of revenge and deeply anti-militaristic. It was translated from the Czech into vivid English by Gerald Turner. I had no idea...
Sounding trumpets for Charlotte
Charlotte Stevens moved with her Cambridge professor husband, John, to Shetland in the 1980s, all because of her grandfather. Stories of his life, as a travelling Jew (later converted), had always fascinated her. Charlotte was proud of her part Jewish heritage and was, in fact, eventually buried in the same...
Meeting for Sufferings: Long term framework
Who, what, how, when and where do Quakers in Britain want to be in the next five years? These questions are at the heart of the process of developing a vision that will eventually be presented in the Long Term Framework and were a focus for Meeting for Sufferings,...
Meeting for Sufferings: Nominators nominated to review Nominations Committee
A concern over the number of younger Friends asking for early release from Central Nominations Committee (CNC) was raised at Meeting for Sufferings.
All articles
Meeting for Sufferings: New Canterbury commitment group recommended
It was proposed at Meeting for Sufferings that a new Canterbury Commitment Group be formed to take up the work of the Minute 36 (Canterbury) Commitment Group. The group, it was suggested, would take on a leadership role and provide encouragement, support and guidance to all parts of the Quaker...
Meeting for Sufferings: Britain Yearly Meeting trustees
A very positive note was sounded by Jennifer Barraclough, clerk of Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) trustees, when she spoke to Meeting for Sufferings (MfS) of the work of the group. BYM trustees, she was pleased to report, had recently ‘caught up’ with a lot of work. The review...
Meeting for Sufferings: QCEA - ‘Your Quaker voice in Europe’
The diverse work and witness of the Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA) was reported to Meeting for Sufferings. Sarah Coote, Britain Yearly Meeting representative to QCEA, spoke very lucidly and passionately about the activities of the organisation and talked about personnel changes and the current work priorities.
Meeting for Sufferings: Review group agreed for listed informal groups
Meeting for Sufferings (MfS) agreed to recommend the setting up of a small short term review group to consider the status of informal groups within Quakers in Britain. Quaker faith & practice (13.19) explains that ‘listed informal groups are independent groups through which Friends may share affirmation, or carry out...
Meeting for Sufferings: Friends welcome Ukraine initiative
Friends at Meeting for Sufferings welcomed news of a Quaker initiative on Ukraine. The situation in the country was considered at the annual meeting of Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) Europe and Middle East Section (EMES).
Quaker speaks truth to power
Quaker actor and director Mark Coleman and Glasgow Friends are marking next week’s Refugee Week with a production of Ariel Dorfman’s Speak Truth to Power. The play will be first workshopped and then performed on 21 June. Mark will direct the play and lead the workshop. ‘The...
Catholic pilgrims worship with Belfast Quakers
The Clonard Reconciliation Mission joined South Belfast Friends for a Meeting for Worship on Sunday 1 June. The group, from West Belfast’s Clonard Monastery, are known as the Unity Pilgrims and worship with a different religious congregation each Sunday. This was their second visit to South Belfast Meeting.
Former banker to speak at Adderbury
Former banker Jon Long will describe his journey into and out of the dark heart of addiction in a forthcoming talk at Adderbury Gathering 2014. Jon will also cover subjects such as ‘story-telling and relationships, military and financial systems thinking, synchronicity, addiction, recovery, redemption and the monetary system’.
New face at the Friend
Tara Craig has joined the Friend, as a part time journalist. She will be mainly responsible for writing news stories about the life, worship and activities of Quakers in Britain and is keen to receive information from Friends.
Letters - 13 June 2014
Friargate Friends I was glad to read (6 June) that Friargate Meeting is to be used for synagogue services for the York Jewish community. Edgbaston Meeting in Birmingham hired their Meeting house to the Birmingham Progressive Synagogue for nearly two years while their new synagogue was being built. Far from...
Eye - 13 June 2014
Peering into the past Bibliophiles and bookworms have a new way of unearthing Friendly treasures. A new online catalogue of Archive and Library collections has been launched by the Library at Friends House. It is the first time that descriptions of manuscript and archive material will be available...