21 june 2013 £1.70 the friend · they were delivered to the enough food for everyone if event in...

discover the contemporary quaker waythe Friend

21 June 2013 £1.70

A Balkan story

2

the Friend independent quaker Journalism since 1843

Cover image: Daisies in the spring.Photo: Daz Smith / flickr CC.

Contents VoL 171 no 25

3 Thought for the Week: Discernment and trust Roland Carn

4-5 News

6 A significant moment Kelvin Beer-Jones

7 Surprises and delights Marisa Johnson

8-9 Letters

10-11 A Balkan story John Corsellis

12 Getting around Faith Kenrick

13 Hope in troubled times Marigold Bentley

14 Spiritual healing and Quakers Andrew Backhouse

15 Poem: In the Large Meeting House Lesley Morris

16 q-eye: a look at the Quaker world

17 Friends & Meetings

the Friend, 21 June 2013

EditorialEditor:

Ian Kirk-Smith

Articles, images, correspondence should be emailed to [email protected]

or sent to the address below.

The Friend SubscriptionsUK £76 per year by all payment

types including annual direct debit;monthly payment by direct debit

£6.50; online only £48 per year. For details of other rates, contact Penny Dunn on

020 7663 1178 or [email protected]

the Friend 173 euston Road, London nW1 2BJ tel: 020 7663 1010 Fax: 020 7663 1182 www.thefriend.orgEditor: Ian Kirk-smith [email protected] • Sub-editor: trish Carn [email protected] • Production editor: elinor smallman production@

thefriend.org • Arts editor: Rowena Loverance [email protected] • Environment editor: Laurie Michaelis [email protected] • Subscriptions

officer: Penny Dunn [email protected] Tel: 020 7663 1178 • Advertisement manager: George Penaluna, Ad department, 54a Main street,

Cononley, Keighley BD20 8LL Tel: 01535 630230 [email protected] • Clerk of the trustees: Janet Scott • ISSN: 0016-1268

The Friend Publications Limited is a registered charity, number 211649 • Printed by Headley Bros Ltd, Queens Road, Ashford, Kent TN24 8HH

AdvertisingAdvertisement manager:

George [email protected]

Tel/fax 01535 63023054a Main Street, Cononley

Keighley BD20 8LL

Pho

to: M

iche

le E

vens

tar.

Laura Conyngham holding spinning flowers made by the children’s class at Exeter Meeting.

They were delivered to the Enough Food for Everyone IF event in Hyde Park on Saturday 8 June.

See page 5.

the Friend, 21 June 2013 3

Thought for the Week

It is Yearly Meeting in session. Six hundred Friends are in the Large Meeting House taking part in all age worship. A three year-old bursts, joyfully and

spontaneously, into song – ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’.A coherent, recognisable, picture of our values, our

testimonies, what we take for granted, our relationships and our practices – what we do – is what we mean by Being Quaker. We spend a lot of time and energy worrying about our values and testimonies. Perhaps it’s time to turn more of our attention to what we take for granted and our relationships. The external, observable things that we do have been part of Quakerism from the earliest times and they are what the outside world associates with Quakers. They are the bottom-line of our beliefs and values and the root of our testimonies.

The most obvious thing that we do as Quakers is meet for worship in silence. My Yearly Meeting began with a study of what I do in Meeting for Worship and the comforting revelation that, while we sit in silence, we are all spiritually active in much the same way – but we choose different words to describe it. In Meeting, as in my daily life and in Meeting for Business, I seek to discern what is right, to reach right decisions and to find the right actions to move my life forward.

A decision comes before even the simplest action. There are many ways of making decisions. Quaker discernment is appropriate for decisions where the moral or spiritual part of an action is important.

Discernment is mystical, but it worries me when Friends act as if somehow sitting in silence with a blank mind will cause the right idea to pop into it as if by magic. The right way does not come signposted as God’s way. It is for me to discover it through my own efforts. I converse with God in my heart and in everyday actions: a way opens when the time is right. When I talk – with God, with other people or even with myself – it is a two-way process: I listen and I speak. I act and observe the response.

In ministry at Yearly Meeting a Friend described the anguish of feeling excluded by committees acting on his behalf. Struggling with this angel, he was wounded, seeing that his criticism should be directed to himself. He said he found this a transforming and empowering experience. This, for me, is one of the ways in which our Quaker practice is richer than that of other methods.

In discernment we trust that those present in a Meeting for Business in session are, indeed, gathered in worship and that through the worship they reach the right decision for the time, that they are truly led into unity with the Spirit and that the clerk is empowered to rightly discern this unity. Through discernment we live in the light that takes away the occasion for all doubts and opinionated contention.

Tenderness, caring, mindfulness and support go along with empowering and enabling. Those holding to account are as responsible as those held to account. God trusts us. He trusts us with his creation and with each other. I found this comforting when all around me talked of ‘us and them’, needing to trust trustees, needing to trust those working in our name and needing to trust our processes.

Trust and its flipside, risk and vulnerability, are at the root of our relationships. A Quaker God loves, allows, empowers and guides, without abandoning. A good parent repays a child’s trust with trust; allowing the child to explore, test and make mistakes. Mistakes are an opportunity to grow a relationship. When the clerk presents us with a draft minute, this is a time for learning and improvement.

Tough love and wrestling with the angel may be required of us. Patience, self discipline and persistence will be required of us. Being Quaker is about maturing in service, as well as in spirit.

Roland CarnNorth West London Area Meeting

Discernment and trust

4 the Friend, 21 June 2013

News

FrIEnDS In MuSWELL HILL Meeting in London are among local faith groups offering support in the wake of the recent burning down of the Somali Bravanese Welfare Centre.

Muswell Hill Meeting is a member of the local Churches Forum that coordinated an immediate response to the fire. The Meeting also sent a separate letter and some members and attenders were present at a vigil at the Centre.

Muswell Hill Friend Louise rendle told the Friend: ‘The chairman of the Bravanese Centre said they had spent thirteen years fundraising to have the centre and have now lost almost everything in the fire, including their archives, records and computers.

‘He explained that the Centre is a focus for the

Bravanese community, with many after-school and holiday activities for children, and was also used as a mosque. He said that many of the children are very distressed, no longer feel safe and say they feel they have lost their “second home”.’

She added: ‘Many of us at the meetings felt and affirmed that, terrible though the fire was, the aftermath has brought us closer with a determination to work together and support each other.’

Friends support somali community in Muswell Hill

Quaker Tapestry Museum reopensThe Quaker Tapestry Museum in Kendal Meeting house has re-opened its doors to the public and been given a new look.

The museum was closed for five months for refurbishment after major damp problems were discovered in the building.

A special event, which highlights some of the significant contributions that Quakers have made to society, will be held at the museum on Saturday 22 June.

Visitors are invited to come and listen to talks and activities throughout the day. They will provide a rare behind the scenes insight into museum life and some of the Quakers who have shaped history.

A feature of the day will be a talk by guest curator Julian Abraham. He will discuss the ‘Barrett Friendship Quilt’, one of the artefacts in the Quaker Tapestry collection, which has connections to the Victorian art world and William Morris.

Pho

to: P

aul W

ood

/ FR

Pix

.

THE nEW MuLTI-PurPoSE meeting room at the Glenthorne Quaker Centre in the Lake District has been completed.

The design uses a ‘visual grammar’ of white walls, Lakeland slate roofs and green bargeboards of the main house to create a simple, attractive, structure that fits harmoniously into its rural setting.

For architects Mason Gillibrand it was ‘a perfect opportunity to explore how communal living could be improved in the well loved Quaker guest house.

‘The design allows communal activities, including Meeting for Worship, to occur in a space which embraces the surrounding landscape of the Lake District.’

New development at Glenthorne

Pho

to c

ourt

esy

Mas

on G

illib

rand

Arc

hite

cts.

Glenthorne’s new multi-purpose room.


[email protected]

MorE THAn two hundred charities are supporting the Enough Food for Everyone IF campaign. It urges world leaders, who gathered in Enniskillen, northern Ireland, this week for the G8 conference, to tackle the problem of global hunger.

Friends travelled from all over Britain to attend the Big IF event in Hyde Park in London on Saturday 8 June and, in northern Ireland, Quakers were among the eight thousand people at an event in Belfast’s Botanic Gardens organised by the IF campaign last weekend.

Gerald Conyngham, of Exeter Meeting, was one of many Quakers at the huge gathering in Hyde Park.

He said: ‘Two months ago Exeter Quaker Meeting signed up to support the campaign, which focuses on tackling tax evasion, increasing development aid and stopping land grabs in developing countries.

‘Four of us went up from Exeter Meeting and, whilst on the march from Westminster to Hyde Park and then at the rally, we were approached by Quakers from eight other Meetings.’

The IF campaign asks: If the world produces enough food for everyone, why are children still dying needlessly of hunger? The campaign is the largest coalition of its kind in the uK since Make Poverty History in 2005, when Britain last held the G8 presidency. This time the organisers are pushing for more radical change.

Although the main focus is on hunger and malnutrition, the campaign focuses more on addressing the underlying causes of hunger, such as ‘land grabs’, tax avoidance and a lack of transparency over investments in poor countries.

Today, despite huge strides in reducing poverty and hunger over the past ten years, one in eight people still go to bed hungry every night, and each year 2.3 million children die from malnutrition.

In a report published to coincide with the launch, Enough Food for Everyone If, campaigners estimate that twenty-eight per cent of children in developing countries are underweight or stunted.

Friends support IF campaign

From left to right, Clare Scott (Leicester) Laura Conyngham, Bridget Oliver, Michele Evenstar and Gerald Conyngham, (Exeter). Clare spotted their Exeter Quakers banner and joined them between Westminster and Hyde Park.

ALMoST ForTY Meeting houses have expressed an interest in taking part in a green energy initiative being developed by Friends in Huddersfield.

Meetings have been encouraged to jointly purchase renewable energy to help support the Quaker commitment to taking action on climate change.

The idea for the renewable Energy Purchasing Consortium came out of a finance and premises

committee meeting at Huddersfield Meeting.

Chayley Collis, convenor of the committee, is trying to spread the word nationally. She said: ‘The more Meeting houses we can get on board the greater the discounts available and the greater the impact and support for renewable energy’.

The consortium is not available for individual Quakers – only Quaker Meeting houses and buildings.

‘To take the idea forward’, Chayley explained, ‘we now need as many Meeting houses as possible to get a joint, no obligation, quotation for Good Energy electricity – and gas if desired – using a group purchasing organisation called 2Buy2, which also works with other churches. Friends can contact me for further information on 01484 850246 or [email protected]. Forms need to be submitted by the end of July.’

Huddersfield Friends seek green light

Pho

to: Z

enith

.


My partner Clive and I sat and watched on television the entire second and third readings of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples)

Bill as it passed through the House of Commons. The following week we watched the second reading in the House of Lords. We were deeply impressed by the quality and tone of the speeches made in both Houses.

The tenor of the debates recognised that this was a deeply significant and tender moment and one that will, almost certainly, become an important moment in our history.

Speaking in the House of Lords, the Tory peer Guy Black said: ‘I am a passionate supporter of the Bill. I support it because I believe in the institution of marriage, which is the bedrock of society and should be open to all. I support it because I believe in the values of the family, and the Bill will, in my view, strengthen them. I support it because I am a Conservative. respect for individual liberty is at the core of my being and this is a Bill that will add to the sum of human freedom. I support it because I am a Christian and I believe we are all equal in the eyes of God, and should be so under man’s laws… I am in a civil partnership with somebody with whom I have been together for nearly a quarter of a century. I love him very much and nothing would give me greater pride than to marry him. I hope noble lords will forgive that personal pronouncement, but it seems to me that my experience goes to the heart of this debate.’

Earlier, on 21 May, in the Commons, Yvette Cooper, Labour shadow home secretary and shadow minister for women and equalities, said: ‘rarely is legislation so personal. rarely does this House have the chance strongly to reaffirm the equal respect we have for every human being, regardless of their sexuality, and the equal respect we have for their loving, long term relationships. We have heard strong objections to the Bill in the course of these debates. In this House we show respect for each other’s views, even though

we disagree with them… It is also important to remember that many people with strong faith, of all faiths, strongly support this Bill. We should not see it as something that promotes a secular-faith divide, because it does not. I am pleased, too, that Quakers, unitarians and reform Judaism have said that they want to be able to celebrate same sex marriages. I am pleased that they will be able to do so as a result of this Bill. I hope that other faiths will change their minds over time, because that is freedom of religion too.’

As I listened to the debate it seemed to me that I had heard this debate made, in quite this way, somewhere before. Each speaker dealt with the other members present with tenderness, each tried to speak inclusively and, time after time, speakers would speak from experience rather than ‘position’. Indeed, it seemed that only the opponents of the Bill resorted to doctrine and dogma as a sole justification of their position. The supporters responded, rather, to an inner voice and a sense of right over tradition.

At Yearly Meeting Gathering in York in 2009 British Quakers made the decision in much the same sort of mood and with a remarkably similar process. Perhaps a distinctive form of business method is something that, over the years, Quakers have gifted to parliament – to be used when matters of conscience are to be decided?

on Tuesday 21 May and Monday 3 June 2013 the British parliament may, possibly, not have done the popular thing, but they certainly did the right thing. I would like to congratulate all MPs, peers and everyone who gave evidence at the committee stages in both Houses, whatever their leadings and views, whether they moved for or against the Bill, for their considerateness and understanding, and, especially, the prime minister, David Cameron, for showing statesmanship and overcoming doubt.

Kelvin is a member of Rugby Meeting.

Opinion

A significant moment

Kelvin Beer-Jones reflects on the recent debate in the Houses of Commons and Lords on the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill


Thank you for publishing a range of reflections on Yearly Meeting in the last couple of issues. It has made me ponder how widely we differ

in our expectations of the event. I always have hopes as I arrive at the Yearly Meeting each year that at some point something unexpected might surprise and delight me. I am happy to say that I am rarely disappointed – albeit that such moments may not necessarily occur during formal sessions (though they do that too). This year was no exception.

I also come knowing that there will be times when I will feel bored and frustrated, that some of the decisions we make may differ from my preferred outcome, that some deep concern of my own may not be heard or taken up. I accept all of this and do not judge how ‘good’ a Yearly Meeting has been on the basis of my own experience of it – for a start, could it be that any discomfort is alerting me to something in my own life that I need to attend to, rather than indicating that there is anything lacking in the event itself?

In spite of the many grand claims that we make for it, a Yearly Meeting is a human construct and, therefore, it cannot ever be ‘perfect’. It is an imperfect instrument that we can continue to fine tune and strive to play better and, almost miraculously, from time to time it enables us to channel something of great beauty and value. As with most human relationships, the earth is not going to move every time we connect and there is a lot of maintenance involved, but those occasional ecstasies are worth all the time spent in mundane chores.

‘Yearly Meeting’ does not denote just the annual event. It is what we call our community. We go on interacting with each other and the world between annual encounters. We go on being a community and we go on discerning. We can continue to thresh, mull over, grow, engage and serve each day, week and month. Yearly Meeting is a special moment in our calendar, yet every day is Yearly Meeting.

There were many memorable moments for me in this Yearly Meeting – from the Swarthmore Lecture, with its searing honesty and deep grounding in our tradition, to the enthusiastic video looking forward to

our Yearly Meeting Gathering in Bath next year. The discipline of our discernment sessions is truly awesome, as is our acceptance of the randomness of the harvest that ensues. For me, personally, it was also a joy to be there with my son and receive a gentle ‘eldering’ from him when my body language

betrayed my impatience. There is a special grace in being ministered to by one’s own child.

I hope we shall continue to experiment with ways of doing things differently, knowing that some will work, at least for some of us, and some will not. I hope we can be patient and let our witness unfold, measuring progress over decades and not just from one year to the next. I hope we can ask what we can change in ourselves before we find fault with others, or the community as a whole.

Marisa is a member of Cambridgeshire Area Meeting.

Opinion

Surprises and delights

Marisa Johnson reflects on her Yearly Meeting

…occasional ecstasies are worth

all the time spent in mundane chores.


Letters All views expressed are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the Friend

‘What is truth?’recently I had a discussion with a member of Meeting who calls herself both a Christian and an atheist – she admires the teachings of Jesus but claims that there is no god. I told her I was not a theist, nontheist nor atheist – because I was not an ‘ist’. I do not define myself through, and my identity is not based on, a theory or on a position.

I have recently been on (a sort of) pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, which I found an overwhelming, awe-inspiring experience. The position of a pilgrim is important, but a walker is defined by the walk, a direction, not by having a position.

Paul of Tarsus talks of trust, hope and love. These are what the Lord, the Way, the Call of things, requires. We do not need the word or an ‘ism’ to define us – the word, after all, comes alive in flesh and flesh has to work out the implications of communion in daily living.

I call myself Quaker as a call to discipline, a vulnerability and form of commitment. What really defines me, however, is that I am a human being seeking communion with other beings on a finite earth, walking on this beautiful and vulnerable planet. So, perhaps our search for a definition of ‘truth’ should not be an intellectual one. Micah asks, ‘What does the Lord require of thee?’ and he responds: ‘To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God’.

Truth is not a theory, nor a fact, more a call to an authentic way of walking.

Harvey GillmanBrighton Meeting, East Sussex

I think that the terms ‘truth’ and ‘the Truth’ have different but closely related meanings. I would like to raise a question that this correspondence has led me to think about again.

As a Quaker, I can opt to affirm rather than to swear an oath where one is required. But the words used are the same, I would still have to say that I will tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. How could I be certain that what I believe to be true is fully so? And who can tell what the ‘whole’ truth is? As Dorothy Searle said (14 June) none of us sees all of the truth. ‘If we could all see all of it, there would be no need for discussion.’

on the one occasion I have been called upon to witness, to give testimony, in a magistrate’s court I felt it was important to let the case proceed without delay and not to risk losing the chance to speak so I went along with the expected procedure. I said what I believed to be true. It cannot have been the whole truth, that was hidden from me.

But it has bothered me since. I feel increasingly uncomfortable with it. I am wondering if it is time for Quakers to revisit the question of affirming as a

satisfactory alternative to oath taking.What does ‘the Truth’ demand of us here? Audrey UrryBridport Meeting, Dorset

A message from Bissel Friends in KenyaGreetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are happy since we learned that the Quakers in the uK were praying for us during the recent past elections.

Just remind the English Quakers that, due to their prayers, this time it was all peaceful. I particularly went to western Kenya under Change Agents for Peace International (CAPI) as an observer. It was peaceful.

Please inform the Quakers in England that the time they took to pray for us Kenyans brought peace in our country. We didn’t know it could happen. As Ben Pink Dandelion wrote: ‘I would like to remind you that the silence of worship was not just an absence of noise, or even an outward stilling of physical, surely Friends it was a journey within, a going inside to a deeply felt but easily reached place of holy relationship’.

David Muniafu, pastorBissel Friends Meeting, KenyaForwarded by Judi Brill

Food banks are not enoughFood banks are popping up across east Kent, and indeed nationwide, as people become so financially strapped and are having to look for help. While making sure that people have enough food to eat makes food banks laudable, it fails to come to the nub of the issue, which is why they are necessary in the first place.

I take food every day to a homeless person as I leave my workplace and, every day, I ask myself why our society reduces people to a homeless state.

My own act of charity and food banks, while commendable in themselves, are in the wider sense nothing more than putting a plaster on a weeping sore.

Gerard [email protected]

SolidarityAfter Meeting for Worship, Friends at Hall Green Meeting (Central England Area Meeting) signed the following letter, which was sent to twenty-three mosques in our local area:

‘We are a group of Quakers, who meet together each week in Hall Green to worship God. We believe that all people are equal in the sight of God. We are strongly committed to peace, justice and equality.

‘We are upset and saddened by the recent attacks on Muslims and on mosques. Such actions are criminal and are opposed by most people. They have no place in British society.

9

[email protected]


The Friend welcomes your views. Please keep letters short (about 250 words) and include your full postal address, even when sending emails. Please specify whether you wish for your postal or email address or Meeting name to be used with your name, otherwise we will print your post address or email address. Letters are published at the editor’s discretion and may be edited. Write to: the Friend, 173 Euston Road, London NW1 2BJ or email [email protected] if you are online that you can also comment on all articles at www.thefriend.org

In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty,

in all things charity.

‘We are writing this letter to say that we stand in friendship and solidarity with our Muslim neighbours and friends.’

Friends wishing to do something similar may find the website www.mosquedirectory.co.uk helpful; it allows searching by area or keyword.

Betty Hagglund [email protected]

Large Meeting HouseMay I just say that Moragh Bradshaw speaks my mind.

Should we not be spending all that money on more of the wonderful community projects that are going on in London, rather than remodelling our historic Meeting house?

Heather BrayshawSussex West Area Meeting

The propensity for lovingThe epistle from the 2013 Yearly Meeting (YM) seems to feature repeatedly the theme of ‘God’s love for us’. Isn’t this, though, somewhat at variance with the concepts of most Friends today, who have grown out of belief in ‘Almighty-God-out-there’ and conceive rather of an in-dwelling entity ‘that of God in everyone’. It seems as if YM was harking back a millennium or two? What is the point of that? We cannot turn the clock back or unlearn what we now know.

The concept of an ‘almighty god out there’ (in the sky) is primitive; the assertion of a monotheism is a hubris. Both are very dangerous, potentially destructive concepts, as we too often see.

Concepts of deity are, in essence, anthropomorphic projections.

If by postulating a loving Providence we are, in effect, imbuing our own propensity for loving with the quality of the divine, the sacred, this may become a life-enhancing influence on us. This phenomenon is, in fact, the most valid claim to worth of Christianity per se.

Friends have intuitively contrived subtle ways of evoking the best, the creative, the loving from human beings. That is surely some sort of miracle. Let us not risk losing that holy ‘knack’ by trying to recapture lost certitudes and lost innocence, which can no longer exist, in truth, in our world today.

Do Friends acknowledge and cherish as human attributes our propensity for loving: ‘Faith, hope and charity…’? (Corinthians 1:13)

David Correa-HuntDuke House, Swafield, North Walsham NR28 0RQ

Populationroger Plenty’s article on over-population (28 February) hit the spot with me, as I had always felt there were too many of us on the planet being over clever, eating

up the Earth rather than being its caretakers. John Woolman reminds us ‘to lessen the distresses of the afflicted and increase the happiness of the creation’. What would he say to our present predicament?

Sheet six of the Quaker pack Responding to Climate Change talks of the need to underpin technical and political solutions with ‘a change in values, societies and relationships at almost every level’. These are the enormous, complex and non-politically-correct changes that must happen to reduce population to sustainable levels. By what means can this be done without coercion? What a hot potato!

Bravo, roger, for opening the debate. Quakers have always relished a challenge and this is one on all levels, from personal relationships, to cultural prejudices and top-level policy making. It is fundamental to the sustainability discussion, has been debated for centuries, but is never so vital as nowadays. I would like to hear roger’s concerns discussed in a public Quaker forum designed to raise our awareness of the issues and to debate ways forward in this matter for Friends both here and around the world.

Cherry FosterNailsworth Meeting, Gloucestershire

Sticking togetherWe look forward to getting our copy of the Friend each week and regret when it is missing. The splendid biodegradable plastic ‘envelope’ tends to stick to its plastic friend. Several times we have not received ours or have had someone else’s copy stuck to ours. If this happens to you, please post on the attached copy. Someone is waiting for it.

Ruth [email protected]


The four hundred people who attended the brilliant Quaker Service Memorial inauguration earlier this year did so in ignorance of what was,

probably, historically the most significant and dramatic single incident in the Friends Ambulance unit (FAu) story in either world war. This was the saving, in 1945, of the lives of 6,000 defenceless refugees and, in reality, many thousands more.

on 31 May 1945, three weeks after the war’s end, a bombshell exploded among refugees huddled in a muddy Austrian field close to the Yugoslav border. They were Slovene-Catholic resistance families escaping the Communist takeover: women, children and older men. The younger ones were in the anti-Communist Slovenian homeguard or militia – the domobranci. When fighting stopped 10,000 domobranci fled across the border. They surrendered their arms to the British eighth army and were directed to the neighbouring muddy field.

Between 27 and 31 May the 10,000 were loaded onto trucks by the British army. They were promised that they would be taken to Italy for their greater security, driven to nearby stations, locked in railway wagons and handed over to concealed Communist troops. Arriving back in Slovenia (northern Yugoslavia), however, they were brutally murdered. Five escaped and raised the alarm, but were not believed: the British did not do such things. When the reports were corroborated, horror spread.

Forcible repatriation

Then the bombshell – the 6,000 civilians were to be sent back at 5am next morning. The commandant of the civilian camp, Canadian major Paul Barre, took the Slovene leader, Valentin Mersol, to the local army headquarters to protest to major John Johnson. Johnson reluctantly took Barre to the next room. Thirty minutes later they returned. Johnson turned to Mersol: ‘We’ve decided that civilians won’t be sent to Yugoslavia against their will.’ How could the divisional commander’s order be reversed at the behest of a powerless refugee and a colonial major? The answer is in Quaker, British red Cross (BrC) and army archives.

John Selby-Bigge, leader of the BrC-FAu team, recorded that ‘forcible repatriation was being exercised in a most discreditable manner’; and John rose and Peter Gibson reported to FAu headquarters:

… it should be recorded how intervention by BRC/FAU succeeded in remedying a serious official blunder and a grave injustice… David Pearson [FAU section leader] and Joan Couper [BRC supervisor] promptly collected evidence and saw Selby-Bigge. Selby-Bigge and Pearson drove to 8th army HQ to see the head of MG [military government] and the army chief of staff. The general was shocked by

History

ABalkanstory

John Corsellis tells the story of a life-saving Quaker intervention in Austria in 1945

Pho

to: A

dria

n B

row

n (L

RP

S).


the evidence and issued instructions that no DPs [displaced persons] were to be repatriated against their will. For obvious reasons, this story should be treated as highly confidential, but it is an excellent example of successful intervention by voluntary societies to effect a highly desirable change in official policy. The greatest credit is due to Pearson for the way he took the matter up. [condensed text]

A ghastly mistake

In fact Selby-Bigge and Pearson had told the army commander himself that the whole BrC-FAu team would have to return to England if the forcible repatriations continued: a constructive threat of strike action. The cancellation came just in time to save the 6,000 civilians and also all other Yugoslav refugees in Austria and Italy. Successive British governments brazenly denied the incident had ever happened. Christopher Mayhew, under-secretary at the Foreign office, wrote to major Tufton Beamish MP:

I’m very much afraid these unhappy people have been the victims of provocateurs who are constantly trying to drive a wedge between the refugees and their British protectors… This impression is heightened by the reference to our alleged surrender of 10,000 Slovenes – a canard which has been refuted on more than one occasion, but which reappears with suspicious frequency in allegations purporting to come from displaced persons. [emphasis added]

But the British knew perfectly well that they had done wrong. Already, in August 1945, Foreign office official J M Addis wrote: ‘The handing over of Slovenes by the eighth army in Austria to Tito’s forces was a ghastly mistake… for about a week at the end of May these unfortunate men were passed across the frontier by British troops to be butchered by Tito’s army.’ His successor J r Colville [later private secretary to Clement Attlee, princess Elizabeth and Winston Churchill] added: ‘…a serious blunder did take place’ and suggested ‘it is no use trying to hush up an incident which is indefensible’. But the minister of state – none other than Philip noel-Baker, cofounder and leader of the FAu in the first world war and nobel Peace laureate, committed nothing to writing, deciding to ‘speak to major Lloyd [the MP raising the matter]’.

Memories of death and survival

not until 2005 was the full story of the FAu’s role told in Slovenia 1945: Memories of Death and Survival After World War II. The British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, welcomed the book, but gave no apology. The Times

Literary Supplement carried the most striking review, from critic and bestselling author John Bayley:

…the book that impressed me most could have been yet another harrowing journey into historic Balkan disaster, except that it has contrived wholly to avoid all the clichés of the genre. Slovenia 1945 presents us with a range of individuals as vividly seen and as sharply characterised as the multifarious inhabitants of War and Peace or A Dance to the Music of Time.

Sincere regrets

The following year John Austin MP tabled an Early Day Motion, calling on the British government ‘to officially express their sincere regrets for this mistake’. Sixty-three MPs of all parties signed, including Michael Ancram, former Conservative Party chairman and foreign policy spokesman. However, not until 2010 did the Foreign office minister of state for Europe, David Lidington, courageously produce ‘a kind of an apology’, saying in an official blog it was ‘a tragic and appalling episode’ and ‘I certainly do feel a great sense of regret that that action was carried out by the British authorities at the time’.

The book was published in Italian and Slovenian. In Slovenia it was a bestseller. It was acclaimed by the country’s prime minister and foreign secretary, by two Slovenian cardinals, who had both been among the 6,000 as schoolboys or students, and by countless former refugees. one described it as ‘a story which follows me into my dreams’.

Mass of Reparation

In october 2010 a Mass of reparation was held in Great Missenden ‘for the victims and their families who suffered so grievously – an act of spiritual compensation for the victims of a tragedy’. The Metropolitan archbishop of Ljubljana, the Catholic bishop of northampton and the Anglican bishop of Buckingham jointly officiated. The packed congregation included the Slovene ambassador, a former prime minister of Slovenia, a member of the russian orthodox Church and a Quaker. Messages of support came from, among many others, a former archbishop of Canterbury and peers of the realm Charles Guthrie and richard Dannatt, both former chiefs of the defence and general staffs. The Mass of reparation was sympathetically reported in The Economist.

John is a member of Cambridge Jesus Lane Meeting and is a retired author. [email protected]


Alarm has been raised at news of the high level of carbon found in a remote Polynesian island where regular measurements of the degree of

pollution in our atmosphere are taken. It is not as if the car is to blame! Electric vehicles are increasingly driven; such cars use no petrol, of course, and many buses and lorries now have dual fuel inputs combining biofuel with surface sourced oil, like that saved from commercial cooking and reused as propulsion fuel.

unleaded petrol is nearly the same price as diesel, the cheaper option.

regularly, news items make us realise that bicycles are not infinitely safe. Cyclists, sometimes, do get run over. Dangerous car crashes happen so often that it’s only the ones that are freakish, like a late-night driver driving into a granny’s front room through a brick wall, that make the headlines.

The quiet solid work bus drivers do, monotonously going along the same routes daily and coping with weird and wonderful passengers, goes unremarked. We would save a lot of money and get fitter by choosing public transport to get around, leaving the car at home. We might even get more bus routes if the people who think they can afford a car got into public vehicles and complained when the connections weren’t good enough.

More bus routes would provide better competition for the trains. They would then have to bring down the ticket prices and create more lines where there are

gaps. If drivers are opting to go out of their way to avoid toll roads, the economic argument must carry some force.

There are other aspects of using public transport that I have observed. Why do youngsters wear headphones on public transport? obviously, they are told what to do a good deal in school or college and listening to public safety announcements makes for a pretty boring musical background when you’re on a journey. It also ups the drama of life to listen to favourite tunes and gives meaning to a regular trip. However, wearing headphones can be dangerous if applied to all kinds of journey and other ways of getting around, like cycling.

The control freakery of our well-meaning police, who expect announcements of warnings to deter crime on our public transport, can, I believe, end up provoking criminality. We are left wondering if that’s a hidden agenda. Does crime goes up the more you announce that it is a possibility? Does making suggestions over a tannoy system – repeatedly broadcasting monotonous, identical statements – tempt people to carry out acts of a criminal nature?

These are just a few of the reasons I take fewer journeys to save my carbon footprint from enlarging, and squashing delightful butterflies, knocking down small birds and mammals, unknowingly, in the way of oncoming vehicles that my trips take place in.

Faith is an attender at Broadstairs Meeting.

Reflection

Getting around

Faith Kenrick shares some personal thoughts on our transport system

Pho

to: B

ob J

agen

dorf

/ fli

ckr

CC

.


If I opened this report with a description of the ecumenical instruments in these islands you would most likely stop reading. Can I, then, encourage you to see ecumenical instruments as

a jazz band, which makes music that challenges and delights you? Bob Fyffe, general secretary of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CTBI), recently encouraged us to do just that. Churches and their structures are so often seen as John Tavener – but they can also be Miles Davis.

The annual meeting of CTBI this year combined the annual general meeting and networking among the instruments. It brought together staff from Action by Churches Together in Scotland (ACTS), Cytûn – Churches Together in Wales, Churches Together in England (CTE) and a large number of denominations who work together on areas such as public affairs, inter-religious dialogue, Israel and Palestine and racial justice.

The beauty of working together, on issues that matter to all faith communities, is that such a lot can be achieved by pooling resources. However, some stark reminders emerged of the times we live in. The instruments, ACTS, Cytûn and CTE, all remarked that an increasing tendency has been shown by many denominations of a need to promote themselves – rather than handing over joint work to a networking function. Is this the marketisation of faith?

one model of working that was usefully reflected on was the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). EAPPI is a programme of the World Council of Churches. Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW) is the implementing partner for CTBI in Britain and Ireland. QPSW has delivered the EAPPI programme for over ten years and has carefully ensured that it is structured to represent the concerns of the churches in CTBI.

Britain Yearly Meeting has taken on the risk of fund-raising and delivering this programme while, at times, taking a back seat in terms of Quaker profile. In doing so, the reach of the programme is wider than Quakers alone could have delivered. Partnership working is the means by which we have been able to influence the understanding of churches (with eyewitness reports from the occupied Palestinian territories) and, jointly, work together for change.

There are times when the religious insight of Quakers, which stems from action and experience rather than text, is valuable in ecumenical settings, but there are also times when other faiths can teach us things, where they can excel or take a lead. Together, faith can be a powerful force for positive change in the world. Like a jazz band, different instruments take the melody in turns. Can the music carry us all along?

Marigold is assistant general secretary of QPSW.

Report

Hope in troubled times

Marigold Bentley reports on a recent Churches Together in Britain and Ireland event


Are there issues you know we should talk about, but don’t really want to? Issues that make you uncomfortable in some unspecific way and for

no absolutely obvious reason? Spiritual healing comes well up my list.

It is not a problem to read about Jesus healing the sick and laying on hands. He did this a long time ago. Friends Fellowship of Healing operated a stall at Yearly Meeting. There is a Friend active in my own Meeting in some way. I know people prayed for me when I fell off a ladder. I have recovered well. However, let’s be like Yearly Meeting sessions and Swarthmore Lectures and just ignore it.

Meeting for Sufferings, though, recently got sent a couple of minutes relating to spiritual healing and its relevance to the revision of the Framework for Action. Yikes! Can I ignore this? or should I be a proper representative of my Area Meeting and find out more? Should I try to understand what is going on around me and get a bit more clued up?

You can guess which way I have gone, can’t you? It seems as if we have a huge number of Quaker ‘healers’ in the woodwork. In East Cheshire Area Meeting we have a regular healing group at Disley and there is also one at Stockport. one of our members set up, with others, a training course for Quaker spiritual healers and a Friend from my Meeting runs an immediate prayer group for those who phone in, send letters or email.

What exactly do they do? Why do they do it? What has it to do with me and the Yearly Meeting as a whole? And why do I feel so uncomfortable about it?

Yearly Meeting gave me a great chance to talk to people about the healing ministry. Apparently, Quaker Life representative Council looked at the subject about fifteen years ago, but we have not looked at it at Yearly Meeting or Meeting for Sufferings. When George Fox’s journal was edited a long time ago all his references to healing were taken out because so many of us are

uncomfortable with the words many healers use. We are mostly happy to use the phrase ‘holding in

the Light’ – thinking of Friends who need support/love in a variety of situations, and that is something I have felt on occasions too. Probably most of us do that. To quote a Friend: ‘In the widest sense of the word all Quaker work/activity – for that matter all loving activity whatever its source – is healing in the sense of making whole, bringing harmony, from the most mundane committee work to the grandest efforts of peacemaking and reconciliation.’

A Friend suggested to me the importance of listening, the hand reached out, the hug, the demonstration of love being given to me that I can feel. Knowing that someone is sending love to me through the warmth of that contact can make me feel different. I think I now see all that as healing, though I am not going to use that wording in conversation.

A healer that I spoke to related what they do to the works of Jung – about drawing on our collective sub-consciousness and on the other side of the brain – things that I have explored and know exist. So, perhaps I am able to cope with some interpretations of healing.

There are words many healers talk about that don’t fit my understanding, such as shakras and auras. They feel flakey and nothing to do with biology. Is it the Eastern religion behind these words that makes them feel out of context? Most of those involved in healing have felt the need for healing themselves – the ‘wounded healer’. This has, perhaps, made me less likely to trust them.

So, is my problem really with the words people use? My rational self? The need for healing that the healers often seem to have? Why have we never really explored it, recently, in a Swarthmore Lecture?

What do you think? Let’s have some honest, open, gentle thoughts to keep each other in the Light!

Andrew is a member of Wilmslow Meeting.

Reflection

Spiritual healingand Quakers

Andrew Backhouse writes on spiritual healing


PoetryP

hoto

: Tris

h C

arn.

In the Large Meeting House

It’s time... Friends scurry and bustle into the Meeting roomwhere they slowly settle shiftinglike dogs on blankets flopping downexpanding into their seats the spaces between coughs lengthenrustles slowly die between the twitch of toesthe shifting of tender kneesthe sighs of release or earnest endeavourup like a lily grows a silenceas deep as oceansthe loudest silence I have ever heard the silence of a thousand people linked each to eachbreathing waiting when we open our eyeslove has crept in under the door

Lesley Morris Witney Meeting

Written after attending my first Yearly Meeting in Friends House, London.

16

[email protected]


a look at the Quaker world

JAVAn THornTon, from the Spiritual Explorers group for nine to eleven year olds, has written a beautiful reflection on an encounter he had on the way home from Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM): ‘As the train halted at the platform, I was still in high spirits after the meeting of so many Friends at BYM 2013. Trudging home in need of some rest, we came, quite by chance, across a small sign to a nature trail half way up the hill. It led us through the remains of rayleigh castle, though little sign of its stones remain upon the surface of the earth.

‘now it seems a hidden sanctuary for God’s quiet (and rather loud) things. We searched for the centre along the mud-riddled footpath. Persuading my mum to leave the

well-worn track, we clambered up the steep grassy hill.

‘As I raced ahead, I suddenly stopped in my tracks. Huddled in the ferns lay a large black bird staring at me. I watched it quivering, its black beady eyes blinking. We crouched low, respecting the space between us, and waited in the stillness. I scattered some crumbs from sandwiches. Suddenly, from behind us, a mallard duck and his wife came waddling, quacking impatiently and demanding his share. The pair passed on through the grass. A grey squirrel humbly inspected the remains but kept his distance and darted back down the hill.

‘How many creatures, including us, have hurried past and not

noticed our friend? We had called rSPCA three times and stood desolately in the pouring rain for an hour but they did not arrive. My mum attempted, in vain, to pick up this injured crow in a towel. He squawked in terror and flapped his injured wing. He struggled free, only to bury himself further into the nettle undergrowth.

‘I felt we had shown little faith in his instinct for survival and betrayed his trust. We had somehow interfered in a life we did not understand. I went to sleep that night with silent prayers for the peace of an injured crow and for his safety from nocturnal dangers.’Javan would like to thank the facilitators of the Children’s Programme at BYM 2013.

‘MAY PEACE PrEVAIL on EArTH’. These words adorn a new Peace Pole at Pales Meeting House. Sixty Friends, peace activists and singers recently gathered together in a dedication ceremony for the Pole, which stands beside the Meeting’s meditation pool.

Angela Coleridge, an attender at Llandrindod and Pales Meeting, wrote to give us a flavour of the day: ‘From within the time-worn walls of the Pales Meeting house at Llandegley came the voices of its peace choir with the song “Pace”. It was the early afternoon of 18 May 2013 and a bank of cloud had taken the warmth away from the day. The choir, carrying its song of peace, moved slowly away from the Meeting house, along the path to the meditation pool.

‘The words for peace moved with it: “pace”… “heddwch”… “shanti”… “salaam”… “shalom”… “haywa”.

‘The Peace Pole project has spread around the world. It was started in Japan in the wake of Hiroshima and nagasaki and carries the words “May peace prevail on earth” on slim poles in four different languages. At Pales we have it in Welsh, English, Japanese and French. It is a statement of absolute commitment to peace and the process of peace.’

Angela reflected that ‘through the moments of stillness and reflection, through the words spoken and the words sung and through the laying of a pebble by each of us at the foot of the pole, there was a corporate and inward honouring of the pole and its purpose.’

God’s quiet things

Peace at Pales

Photo courtesy of Martin Williams.


Births

Friends&Meetings

Diary

DeathsChanges of address

For details of placing a notice on this page please contact George Penalunaon 01535 630230 or email [email protected]

HEPTON SINGERS CONCERTPaddock Meeting House,Huddersfield HD1 4TR, 2pmSaturday 29 June. Fundraising forBarmoor Centenary Project. Myth,Folksongs and Part-songs –Tourmis, MacMillan, VaughanWilliams, Cornysh. Tea and cake.Info: [email protected]. 01422 885942.

The FriendPublicationsTRUSTEE REQUIREDWe are currently looking for aFriend with knowledge orexperience of employment law,to join the small and committedbody of trustees of The FriendPublications, an independentcharity producing the Friend andthe Friends Quarterly.

If you are interested, pleasecontact Jennifer Kavanagh, clerkto nominations:[email protected]

Registered charity no. 211649.

Independent advisorsplanning your secure

future in line withyour concerns

Ethical screening forexisting investments

Call Tracey for a free brochure

01603 309020www.investing-ethically.co.uk

Investing Ethically Ltd is Authorised andRegulated by the Financial Conduct Authority

investingethically

Dorothea Rose Izod SHARMAN10 June to Cathy Sharman and JohnGash of Hebden Bridge. A grand-daughter for Frank Sharman, AlisonLeonard, Rev Wilfred and the lateDoris Gash (née Izod); niece forAnna Sharman.

Sheila GEALE 16 June atManorlands Hospice. Wife of John,mother of Jonathan, Rachel andCatherine and grandmother.Member of Settle Meeting. Aged 77.Memorial meeting at Settle FMH,12.00 Saturday 29 June. Details:01729 822779; [email protected]

Ted GREY 30 May. Peacefully atHartrigg Oaks, York. Husband ofIrene, father to Duncan and Robin.Formerly of Newcastle upon Tyne.Aged 89.

John HIGHFIELD 7 June after ashort illness. Member of LiverpoolMeeting. Funeral in the manner ofFriends at 1pm Thursday 20 June atSpringwood Crematorium.

Judith LITTLEBOY 8 June after astroke. Widow of Michael, motherof three, grandmother of six.Aged 81.

Joss PERRY 13 April, suddenly.Husband of Xochilt. Son of Janetand John; stepson of Richard Wood.Brother of Fran and Rachel. Uncleof Abigail, Livia, Nell, Sam. Manythanks for all messages of comfort.

Helen PITCHFORTH 12 June.Widow of the late RonaldPitchforth. Member of KingstonMeeting, previously Chelmsford.Aged 80. Funeral at Clandon WoodNatural Burial Ground, GU4 7FN11.30am Tuesday 25 June. Moredetails Peggy Morris 020 8541 3267.

Rosemary BARTLETT has movedto: Apartment 3, Oakmere, SpathLane, Handforth, Wilmslow,Cheshire SK9 3NS. Telephonenumber to be confirmed.

Eleanor TEW Has moved fromTaunton to: 43 Lucombe Way,New Earswick, York YO32 4DS.Telephone 01904 593653.Email (unchanged):[email protected]

Changes to meeting

BLUE IDOL LM From July toDecember Meeting for Worship willbe held at Thakeham Village Hall,Storrington Road, Thakeham, eachSunday at 10.30 while extensiverenovations take place at the BlueIdol. Enquiries: Chris Knott 01798872596; www.blueidol.org.uk

WALKING THE WALK NorthernFriends Peace Board Walk ofWitness between Richmond Castleand Menwith Hill, 30 June - 4 July,linking two significant sites of peacewitness from our 100 years.www.nfpb.org.uk/walk100Enquiries/bookings: 01204 382330/[email protected]

Lionel George AYLIFFE 7 June athome. Son of the late FrederickLionel and the late Ida Lillian Ayliffeof Dursley. Member of NailsworthMeeting and formerly of FAU.Private cremation; Memorial Serviceat St Mark's Church, Woodmancote,Dursley on Thursday 20 June at 3pm.Donations for St Mark's Church,payable to L.W. Clutterbuck Ltd,Funeral Director, 24-26 High Street,Cam, Dursley GL11 5LE.

VERSE AT MIDSUMMER Poetryby Patricia Adelman, MargaretWhiting and the late Pam Hughesat Lewes FMH, Friars' Walk,Monday 24 June at 7.30pm.Collection in aid of Refugees andAsylum Seekers. Details:[email protected]

Barney SMITH (Clerk toBedminster Local Meeting) to:53 St. Lukes Road, Bristol BS3 4RX.Tel. 07929 727259.

Ad pages 21 Jun 18/6/13 14:49 Page 3

Classified advertisements


where to stayGUESTHOUSES, HOTELS, B&BS

COTTAGES & SELF-CATERING

miscellaneous

OVERSEAS HOLIDAYS

accommodationWANTED

George Penaluna, Advertisement Manager, 54a Main Street, Cononley, Keighley BD20 8LL. T&F: 01535 630230 E: [email protected]

jobs Classified ads Standard linage 53p a word,semi-display 81p a word. Ratesincl. vat at 20%. Min. 12 words.Series discounts: 5% on 5insertions, 10% on 10 or more.Cheques payable to The Friend.

Advertisement Dept54a Main StreetCononley, Keighley BD20 8LLT. 01535 630230E. [email protected]

EDINBURGH. City centre accommodationat Emmaus House. Tel. 0131 228 1066.www.emmaushouse-edinburgh.co.ukEmail: [email protected] charity SC042957.

LONDON: B&B IN CENTRAL, quiet com-fortable family homes. Double £27 pppn.Single £42 pn. Children’s reductions.020 7385 4904. www.thewaytostay.co.uk

14TH CENTURY CORNISH COTTAGEoverlooking sea. £180-210 pw. Shortbreaks. www.wix.com/beryldestone/cornishcottage 0117 951 4384.

A WARM PEMBROKESHIRE WELCOMEawaits you in 2 cosy well equippedcottages each sleeps 4. Woodburners,sea views, coastal path 2 miles. 01348891286. [email protected]

COTSWOLDS. Spacious barn conversionin Charlbury near Woodstock. Sleeps 2+.Woodburner. Lovely walking. 01608811558. [email protected]

PEMBROKESHIRE, NEAR TENBY. Goldensands, castles, Coastal Path. Two comfort-able flats attached to 16th Century farm-house, each sleeping 5. Peaceful environ-ment. 01834 845868. [email protected]

WEST CORNWALL BUNGALOW nearMarazion, sleeps 2-3. Quiet,comfortable,coastal walks,cycling. [email protected] 763623.

PERSONAL RETREATS, FRANCE. Stepaside from the demands of daily life. Makespace to reflect and be still. Small retreathouse in the Auvergne offers supportive,nurturing environment for individualretreats. Simple daily rhythm: meditation;silence; contemplative/artistic activities.Walking. Organic vegetarian food.Visit www.RetreatHouseAuvergne.com

VIENNA, WORLD’S BEST CITY. Culture,cafés, outdoor delights. Comfortablegarden apartment. Great location. Sleeps 4.Short breaks or longer. 01904 416840.anne.reynolds@uwclub.netwww.holidayapartmentinvienna.co.uk

ACTIVITY BREAKS

RAMBLECAMP! Easy, Ffriendly walk andcamp stunning Offa's Dyke south. 5 days£195 inclusive. [email protected]

ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORTFor Quaker Meetings and small businesses

Lettings, Bookkeeping, OfficeManagement, Wardening Cover,

Project Management.Dealing with your business

in a Quakerly fashion. Contact Wendrie Heywood

Wendrie@MindfulBusinessServices.comwww.MindfulBusinessServices.com

ALL YOUR PIANO REQUIREMENTSRestoration/removals/sales/part-exchange.www.cambridgepianolacompany.co.uk01223 861507. [email protected]

PROFESSIONAL ACCOUNTANCY& TAXATION SERVICE

Quaker Accountant offers friendlyservice countrywide.

Self-assessment & small businesses.

Richard Platt, Grainger & PlattChartered Certified Accountants3 Fisher Street, Carlisle CA3 8RR

Telephone 01228 [email protected]

www.grainger-platt.co.uk

QUAKER MARRIAGE CERTIFICATES,Partnerships, commitments, notices andother calligraphy. Liz Barrow 01223 369776.

QUAKER LESBIAN & GAY FELLOWSHIPA welcoming, supportive national net-work with local groups for Ffriends of allsexualities/identities. Roy Vickery,9 Terrapin Court, Terrapin Road, LondonSW17 8QW. E-mail: [email protected]

IS OUR SPIRITUAL JOURNEYconfined to this world? To explore thepossibilities contact Quaker Fellowship forAfterlife Studies. Clerk: Angela Howard,Webb’s Cottage, Woolpits Road, Saling,Braintree CM7 5DZ. Emailangela1@webbscottage.co.uk.www.quakerfellowshipforafterlifestudies.co.uk Free magazine “Reaching Out.”

personal

PROFESSIONAL LADY SEEKS s/c accom-modation to rent, initially for 3 months, inSouth Dorset. Dorchester area preferred.Peaceful, with wood-burner. Must allowvery clean cat! Experienced driver andgardener - can offer help in exchange forreduction in rent, if required. Please callCatherine 07594 431774.

IPSWICH QUAKERS SEEK A WARDEN.Now that the children of our current war-den are growing up the family is movingout into the country and so we now seeka new warden(s). A rent-free 3 bedroomflat is available and a salary in the regionof £5,000 per annum for 15 hours ofwork per week is currently paid. A cleaneris also employed. Ipswich QuakerMeeting House is near the town centreand immediately opposite a large andpleasant park. There are on average 15 to20 lettings per week. Initial enquiresplease to Lydia Vulliamy Tel; 01473717088 Email [email protected]

jobsWANTED

QUALIFIED LIVE-IN CARER seeks newpost. 10 years experience. Mature femaleof Zimbabwean origin. Driving licence.Good references and current CRB. AnyUK location. Rosemary 07825 [email protected]

y g y

MATURE FRIEND (N/S) looking for part-time base (van or cottage) - UK hills/mountains/coast - for walking. Cumbriapreferred. [email protected]

Ad pages 21 Jun 18/6/13 14:49 Page 4


Make time forthe Friend£6.50 a month by direct debit for 51 issues a year - just £1.50 a week!In a busy world we can often feel pressured, and theimportant things can get squeezed out.

Hold on to the Friend in your busy life. Make time for it,let reading it week-by-week help you develop yourspiritual insights and stay in touch with the Quaker world.

At just over £1.50 a copy delivered to your door, it has tobe better value than a £2 cup of coffee!

“The Eastertide edition of the Friend is one to be treasured for in it will be found proofthat the essence of Quaker spiritual thought is still alive among Friends.”

Edward Hoare

The Friend UK Subscription form - plus eight weeks free for new subscribers!I would like a direct debit subscription to the Friend at £6.50 a month and have completed the form below

I would like an annual subscription at £76 and enclose a cheque payable to the Friend Publications

Please add a free personal internet subscription, my email address is below (standalone price £48)

Name.............................................................................Address.....................................................................................

.................................................................................................................................Postcode.........................................

Email.......................................................................................................................Tel...................................................

Return to: Penny Dunn, The Friend Publications, 173 Euston Road, London NW1 2BJ.This form expires 30 June 2013. Eight weeks free available to new subscribers only, not valid for renewals.

Instruction to your Bank or Building Society to pay by Direct Debit

Originator’s Identification Number8 3 8 4 9 5

Name and full postal address of yourBank or Building Society

To the Manager......................................

Address..................................................

..............................................................

Postcode................................................

Reference (office use only)

8 3 8 4 9 5 0

Instruction to your Bank or Building SocietyPlease pay RSM2000 Ltd re The FriendPublications Ltd Direct Debits, from the accountdetailed in this instruction subject to the safe-guards assured by the Direct Debit Guarantee.

I understand that this instruction may remainwith RSM2000 Ltd re The Friend PublicationsLtd and, if so, details will be passed electron-ically to my Bank/Building Society:

Signature(s)

x.................................................................

x.................................................................

Date..............................................................

Names of Account Holder(s)

..........................................................

..........................................................

Bank/Building Society Account Number

....../....../....../....../....../....../....../......

Branch Sort Code

....../...... ....../...... ....../......

Banks and Building Societies may not accept Direct Debit instructions for some types of account.

g

Ad pages 21 Jun 18/6/13 14:49 Page 5

EDITORIAL173 Euston RoadLondon NW1 2BJT 020 7663 1010F 020 7663 11-82E [email protected]

Vol 1

71

No 25

ADVERTISEMENT DEPT54a Main Street

CononleyKeighley BD20 8LL

T & F 01535 630230E [email protected] the Friend

Programme DeveloperVibrancy in Meetings InitiativeFriends House, Euston, London and/or based at home.Fixed term 9 months, full time.Salary: £26,680 pro rata for 9 months (FTE - £35,573)

Are you looking to make a real change? Can you see over thehorizon while keeping your feet on the ground? Are you agood communicator, who can get people involved generatingnew ideas and making them come to life?

You will help us shape new ways of strengthening, supportingand enlivening local Quaker meetings. The Vibrancy inMeetings Initiative is a joint project of Quakers in Britain andWoodbrooke Quaker Study Centre.

You will:

• Draw on existing research data

• Work with committee clerks and senior staff in the twopartner organisations

• Consult widely amongst the wide variety of Quakercommunities in Britain

• Present a report with costed recommendations for the nextphase of work.

See www.quaker.org.uk/jobs for more details and theapplication process.

Closing date: Tuesday 2nd July 2013 (12.00 noon)Interviews: 24/25/26 July 2013

QPSWSustainabilityGrants

Is your meeting involved (or wouldit like to be involved) in a sustain-ability project? Grants of between£100 and £2,000 are available.Applications close: 19 August 2013.

Information/application forms areavailable at www.quaker.org.uk/sustainability-grants, or callSunniva Taylor on 020 7663 1047.

A QUAKER BASE INCENTRAL LONDON

The

Penn

Clu

b

Central, quiet location,convenient for Friends House,British Museum and transport.Comfortable rooms tastefully

furnished, many en-suite.Full English breakfast.

Discount for Sufferings andClub members.

21 Bedford PlaceLondon WC1B 5JJTel. 020 7636 4718

[email protected]

HAVE YOU EVERTHOUGHT OF

BEING A BOARDMEMBER?

QUAKER HOUSENEW MILTON

Residential care homefor older people.

Being a Board Member is anincredibly important role and a goodway to make a significant differenceto our business. As a respected andresponsible role, it is also a greatway to develop new skills and itis a good way to get involved insupporting your community.

Board Members do not receiveremuneration, we are a not forprofit organisation registered withcharitable status - we aim to keepour fees as low as possible.Reasonable travel expenses paid.

THE ROLESupport the Management Board tooversee the quality service deliveryto 40 older residents through effec-tive participation at Board Meetingsof which there are 9 per year.

Ensure the service continues tooperate within the legislative require-ments of a residential care home.

We also welcome applicants whoare interested in supporting a subcommittee to enable us to under-take specific projects.

THE PERSONCommitment to the ethos, valuesand independence of Quaker House.Willing to use your knowledge,skills and professional expertise tosupport the current Board ofManagement to develop theservices we provide.

We would particularly like to hearfrom someone with a fundraisingbackground to support us with

our exciting new projects.

All posts are subject to CRB andreference checks. For an informaldiscussion please contact either:

Anthony Woolhouse (Chair)on 01425 618560.

Paul Abbott (RegisteredManager) on 01425 617656.

Ad pages 21 Jun 18/6/13 14:49 Page 6

21 june 2013 £1.70 the friend · they were delivered to the enough food for everyone if event in...

Documents