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discover the contemporary quaker waythe Friend
6 January 2017 £1.90
Structuresand the Spirit
2 the Friend, 6 January 2017
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CONTENTS VOL 175 NO 1
3 Thought for the Week: Don’t complain! John Lampen
4 Quakers and Brexit Antonia Swinson
5 Ministry on death Jeffery Smith
6 Prison, ecology and stewardship Mark Humphries
7-9 Letters
10-11 Structures and the Spirit Beth Allen
12-13 A factor unknown Laurie Andrews
14 Quaker renewal: Spiritual generosity Craig Barnett
15 Being mortal Alistair Heslop and Elizabeth Redfern
16 Friends & Meetings
Six Weeks Meeting
‘Six Weeks Meeting, dating back to 1671, does not fit neatly into the modern pattern of Area Meetings, General Meetings and gatherings. It is made up of representatives from the Area Meetings within the London region. Its main objective is to maintain, preserve and insure the places of worship of the constituent Area Meetings, and their contents. It is accountable to the constituent Meetings for the stewardship of the funds and assets it holds on their behalf.’
Quaker faith & practice 15.09Six Weeks Meeting has become the London Quakers Property Trust.Above is a detail from the original minute book.The opening reads: ‘At a Six Weeks Meeting of Friends of Truth at the Bull the 23rd of the 8th Month 1671.’See pages 10-11.
3the Friend, 6 January 2017
Thought for the Week
I learnt recently that Rabia Basri, the female Sufi saint of the eighth century, warned us not to complain. This advice spoke to my heart, but I had to think carefully about it. Did she want to stop us challenging injustice and disrespect? No. Judging
by other sayings she did not mean ‘Don’t protest’, nor even ‘Don’t write a letter of complaint’. So, what was she telling me?
I realise that, as I get older, I feel a strong temptation to be a ‘grumpy old man’. I recognise an increasing tendency to be judgemental about people and their actions, especially politicians. I can respond badly to frustration and sometimes give way to fears – or even despair, perhaps with the news from Syria. I like to make comparisons with a past which (it is easy to imagine) was better than today. But I remember T S Eliot wrote: ‘Do not let me hear of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly…’
Those habits of mind stand in the way of spiritual growth, which is a lifelong task. What is the way to avoid them? Another Eastern teacher, Patanjali, said: ‘When a negative thought arises, replace it with a positive one.’ Rabia Basri pointed to the duty to be thankful; the good in my life so greatly outweighs the bad. Instead of being judgemental, Thich Nhat Hanh teaches us to root out the violence in our thinking and learn to react sympathetically and mindfully. The noisy drunken football supporters on the train last Saturday may have been enjoying their one bright spot in an unfulfilling week. The official who said ‘No’ to me was perhaps constrained by health and safety requirements, or by shrinking budgets, or by the fear of setting a precedent, and so found my request difficult for her to grant. Should I blame her, even though I have almost forgotten the nurse who made no fuss when I was very late for an appointment and made her job harder?
The Buddhists tell us to practice compassion. That means we should stop playing ‘blame games’. Even when contemplating something as terrible as the conflict in Syria, if I cannot see any action I can take, I can still feel pity for everyone involved as I hold them in the Light, from the leaders who have lost control of the situation to those who are powerless even to protect their lives.
The challenge, however, is not about far-off problems but my own everyday behaviour. When I took an Advanced Driving Assessment recently, the examiner advised me: ‘Always drive in a way which reduces the amount of aggression other people might feel.’ I think Rabia would have agreed.
John Lampen
Stourbridge Meetimg
Don’t complain!
4 the Friend, 6 January 2017
Heard the one about the bishop, the Turner Prize winner and the Quaker?
The Church of England has ‘jumped on a middle class bandwagon of horror at the Brexit vote’. So thunders Philip North, the bishop of Burnley, writing recently in the Church Times. There had been ‘an almighty cry of anger from a dispossessed and marginalised working class’.
Controversial artist Grayson Perry, addressing a smart London arts gathering, recently said: ‘You failed in your opposition of the popular right-wing vote…this is a dose of smelling salts to us all’. He said it was time for artists to ‘genuinely engage with the majority of the population’.
Then in came the Quaker. Silence. No, you won’t be hearing from him. Quakers are brilliant at quietness, except when they are all agreeing that Brexit is a tragedy.
Please let’s wake up. Let’s not kid ourselves that the Brexit vote can be reversed or that it will be the usual fudged business as usual. Arguably, we are living in a time as pivotal for our island story as the English civil war. This was a period, let us not forget, when Quakerism was forged around the campfires of Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army and in the homes of officers who couldn’t buy either the Royalists’ or Calvin’s top-down undemocratic ‘schtick’ a minute longer. Are Quakers in danger of becoming unaligned to both our history and our purpose?
Early Quakers bravely sought new ways to reach God, and their successors carried on changing the world through love – whether tackling slavery, prison reform or running successful ethical businesses. So, whose side are we on today? What does equality really mean, as a testimony, as we debate war tactics around Article 50? Remember it was in the North and the Midlands where Quakerism first emerged, where people overwhelmingly voted Leave.
I first saw the seeds of Brexit back in the early ‘zeros’ when, as a full-time professional writer and passionate pro-European, I accepted a pro bono commission writing the European electoral manifesto for the Scottish Liberal Democrats. I spent a great
week in Brussels drinking in European Community politics with the Liberal group – the second biggest grouping. I came home truly shocked and horrified at the democratic deficit – the European Parliament’s lack of teeth against the unelected Commission: a sort of pre-1832 back to the future. But the main reason I knew the UK would eventually leave was homegrown and self-inflicted. At the time, I was writing a book about ethical business, heavily influenced by Kevin Cahill’s Who Owns Britain. This revealed why and how the UK population was corralled into seven per cent of the land mass, while less than one per cent of the population controlled or owned seventy per cent.
Looking at the figures by county as a business journalist, I realised I just could not see how a popular UK uprising against EU membership could be avoided, unless land for housing doubled to fifteen per cent, akin to that of Germany and France. The growing post-war population had already been squashed into an artificially restricted land supply due to Green Belt legislation, so how could EU immigration possibly happen on top of this without a political meltdown?
With hindsight, I should have been asking just whom did the status quo suit? Over the next decade, despite the economic downturn, asset prices rose, wages in real terms fell and landowners received billions in EU subsidies. Charges of racism muted any honest, healing debate about how our small island could manage land distribution for the benefit of everyone living here. How much easier for faith groups to emote about ‘making poverty history’ – preferably safely overseas – rather than campaigning here for social justice – through compulsory land purchase, Green Belt planning reform or locally gathered land value taxation.
But we are where we are and Quakers must seize the day, however we voted on 23 June. Let us look beyond disbelief and denial and not be tempted to thwart democracy on our angry little feudal island. We have, after all, the Quaker inheritance of collaborative leadership and can choose to coin new and relevant healing language for this unfurling picture.
Antonia is from Wandsworth & Kingston Area Meeting.
Talking point
Quakers and Brexit
Antonia Swinson reflects on the European referendum result
5the Friend, 6 January 2017
Last year my friend, a Quaker, was admitted to hospital and it soon seemed likely that he would die. I visited him hoping, at best, to give comfort.
Unlike others, I do not have any detailed idea of an afterlife or how it might happen. Even if we had such a picture as presented by the Bible, I could not see how to invoke blessings on him. Nor did I suspect choice readings from the Bible would especially help.
He had seen and been affected by life in many of its positive and many of its negative aspects. He had overcome greater difficulties in life than I had. I looked in Quaker faith & practice and there seemed to be more on bereavement than dying. I thought this not entirely surprising, since we tend to keep in this book the best ways of living life.
So, I felt in something of an existentialist crisis. What could I say? Would direct dialogue be possible in terms of relating to his situation?
In effect, I let him decide. It seemed to me that the key thing was to get him to speak to me and, more importantly, within himself. In my amateurish way, I have come to accept Carl Jung’s view that a ‘healthy’ psyche is self-regulating. So, it was necessary for me to encourage him to review his existence.
I asked if there was anything on his mind. He was in a quiet ward so he could speak. He recalled a terrifying
experience in his family life one Christmas during his adolescence. It seemed as if he still felt some responsibility for this. He spoke of other complex incidents in his life, then and in subsequent visits. Later, he was moved to a busy ward and the man in the next bed wanted to join in our conversation. He seemed to think we were talking of life in a far off country, once a British colony. This did not seem a useful tack and that conversation had to be curtailed! But, broadly, I think my friend had spent his time in his hospital bed reviewing his life and becoming at ease with himself.
I had to be away for a time and so said so. He was happy for me. As we parted he cuddled himself up in his hospital bed almost as a child would, smiling the utmost of happy smiles. Two weeks later in a hotel room, in another country, I got a telephone call saying he had died. He certainly lives on in my mind. And somehow it seems as if he is now part of a greater consciousness based on love.
Mine was a somewhat last minute effort to ease someone as his or her death approached. It occurs to me we could try to prepare our minds for death sooner than the last few days. Can we do this? Meetings for Clearness?
Jeffery is from Bristol Area Meeting.
Ministry on deathJeffery Smith considers our preparation for death
Reflection
Pho
to: J
im /
flick
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C.
6 the Friend, 6 January 2017
What image do you have of prison and the prison community? Perhaps you see high walls and ‘razor’ topped fences? You might
imagine groups of thugs and villains moping around not doing anything useful.
You might also have read memoirs and thoughts of early Friends who have experienced prison – either because of their faith or as conscientious objectors to military service. You might have read about the work of Elizabeth Fry at Newgate prison. Some readers might even remember stories in the British media about holiday-centre-style prisons. The prison system today, however, is one that aims to challenge and change lives. There are some good stories.
The modern prison service is a very different one to that encountered by George Fox, Elizabeth Fry and other Friends. It is a very different place to the one I encountered when I was sentenced to life imprisonment in May 1993. Today, those who run prisons, along with various partners, are more concerned with rehabilitation. The prison service offers courses to inmates that will challenge their offending mindset and seek to change lives for the better. These are not short, tick-box courses – they require input from each individual that participates.
The prison service, through private contractors, now offers a more employment-based education. Every prisoner is offered an educational assessment, and this can be used to create an individual learning plan. The plan can include gaining qualifications in functional skills, literacy and numeracy. This can lead to courses using information technology and employment skills training. The employment training will usually be workshop-based and can result in an industry-based qualification.
The modern prison service is continuing to progress. There are challenging projects that continue to change lives. One is also changing the environment. The men who participate in it are not paid. It is purely voluntary. The group of prisoners involved has signed up to put in hard work and time to look after a plot of land they have adopted. This garden space already had some flowerbeds and trees. It has an ornamental fishpond and
an abandoned aviary. It was against this backdrop that the prisoners, with the help of a local charity, started to work. Many of the prisoners were going to re-employ pre-prison skills while others were going to learn new ones.
The aviary has been renovated. It is now a newish, clean and bright potting shed. It is a place to escape the British weather when required. The team also constructed raised beds and some composting bags. The local ecology is changing as small wildflower ponds were dug and other wildlife ‘homes’ put in place. The growing conditions in the raised beds were also natural – no chemicals have been used.
With the valued input from the charity, Greener Growth, the men have been given respect as team members. They have been encouraged to make decisions about what is grown in what raised bed. They have all learned new skills in planting live willow hedges and weaving with willow sticks. The men have shared their harvest with those on the wing (house block) in which they live.
Quaker faith & practice 25.01 says: ‘The produce of the earth is a gift from our gracious creator to the inhabitants, and to impoverish the earth now to support outward greatness appears to be an injury to the succeeding age.’
This thought is over 200 years old. It highlights our responsibility to Creation. This project teaches the prisoners involved a real theology lesson – one deeper than I learned as a Bible college student. The other thing that the project, married to the thought from Quaker faith & practice, teaches is that we are all stewards of the earth.
As stewards we learn that our behaviour has been similar to the Unjust Steward in Luke 16. We have taken and given no thought to the consequences of our actions. Who would have thought that coming to prison would be such an eye-opening lesson in ecology, stewardship and theology.
Mark is a recalled prisoner, a student with the Open University, a freelance writer and is seeking membership of his Local Meeting.
Prison, ecology and stewardship
Mark Humphries writes about hope, hard work and rehabilitation
Criminal justice
7the Friend, 6 January 2017
All views expressed are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the FriendLettersPeace and beautyThis is an account of Quaker outreach in Lincoln.
At last, we were ready to take a small table and chairs to the High Street where we were going to make and distribute origami ‘Peace Cranes’ – a Japanese symbol of peace. When the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, two-year-old Sadako Sasaki survived. However, nine years later, she developed leukaemia. In hospital, she folded paper cranes believing the ancient Japanese legend that if she folded a thousand she would be granted a wish – which was for world peace.
Sadako folded several hundred cranes and when she died her family completed the shortfall, burying a thousand cranes with her. Her brother, Masahiro Sasaki, saved five of the cranes – each no larger than a fingernail – and has donated them towards peacebuilding. One of the final cranes is in the 9/11 Tribute Centre where thousands of other cranes made by the families and colleagues of victims of 9/11 also hang. Masahiro said: ‘I hope, by talking about that small wish for peace, the small ripple will become bigger and bigger.’
On Lincoln High Street we folded cranes and Don Sutherland, who has made cranes to raise awareness about many injustices, distributed them to members of the public; children were especially interested and adults commented on their beauty. We told people about Quakers, recounted Sadako’s story and had copies of the Friend available – a Quaker presence amid the incipient Christmas crowd.
Pat TaylorLincoln Meeting, Lincolnshire
Post-industrial humanityWhat is our value when robots can assemble things; computers can organise our transactions, predict our behaviour, design things; and when we need high earnings to have property in a finite planet with a rising population? We know that the financial and intellectual capital to build and programme computers is in hands that seek to exploit us.
Thank a universal loving God, born of Christianity, for our democracy. But democracy has its limitations. When defensive, when the destitute are near, and they are tempted to random violence and organised revolution, we turn to security, to exclusiveness. People vote Right.
We have two values. If we raise our children and grandchildren with the air
quality, nutrition, space, quiet and education that they need to learn information technology, they can protect themselves from exploitation. If they are raised in love with their fellow humans and a God who loves them, even when humanitarianism seems thankless, they will
seek to prevent information technology and those who control it from exploiting their fellow humans.
As people who experience the human condition, we are uniquely well placed to care for each other. We can share, record and treasure the experience, we can form mutual support groups, we can provide social care for one another when we are disabled, out of fellow-feeling rather than a desire for gain. We can transcend the disappointments of personal letdown and rise on the wind in our wings from the prophets.
Friends, we must continue to do so.Alick MunroKingston & Wandsworth Area Meeting
FaithThe essence of faith, Keith Wedmore’s reflection(9 December), is a difficult but important subject. For me, the Quaker way is certainly not Belief – especially with a capital letter.
Mainstream Christian belief was determined by those church people who did a deal with the Romans. They then decided on the beliefs, including those concerning the virgin birth of Jesus and his rising from the grave three days after his death. They then excommunicated the Gnostics who put greater importance on Jesus’ experience of the flow of love connecting us all and his cooperating with it. It is the experience of ‘that of God’ in each of us which is the ground of our belief and you can’t arrange it. We can just give time to be open to it.
A beautiful poem in the current Mid-Thames newsletter by an attender at Newbury Meeting expresses this and concludes: ‘And we, realising the cost involved, promoted him to a safe distance.’
Richard ThompsonMid-Thames Area Meeting
We do not have committeesIan Beesons’ ‘Dibleyfication’ (16 December) of British Quakers does not describe my Area Meeting (AM). Our Properties Committee comprises three men and two women. Our trustees comprise two men and three women, plus two co-opted men.
The trustees’ minutes are not secret, but are distributed to the AM clerk and filed in each Meeting’s library. The trustees’ aim was to relieve the AM of the burden of finance and property so that it could concentrate on Friendly matters; in this it has been successful. Major decisions of trustees are commended to AM for approval or otherwise.
The membership of these bodies is down to AM Nominations looking to the wider membership and being inclusive in its discernment. When the person approached says that they do not have the skills, Nominations needs to say that the name was discerned
8 the Friend, 6 January 2017
in full knowledge of what they can provide.As for the deprecation of committees expressed
in the letters page and elsewhere, what was being described, I feel, was committees as seen in the outside world, where the chairman has his/her own agenda and has control of the minutes. We need to remember that Area Meeting (AM) is a Meeting for Worship for Business; and that other bodies like properties, wardenship, elders and so on are all subgroups of AM, and as such are Meetings for Worship for Properties, Business and so on. This may be why my AM’s subgroups work effectively.
Ditch the ego and trust in the Spirit; it works.Andrew Smith, trustee and AM treasurer1 Sawmill Close, Kendal, LA9 6JE
Talking is not enoughDorothy Woolley (16 December) says that it is ineffective to talk to ‘people of bad faith’ in a violent conflict. She does not say what we should do instead, and some may conclude that violence is the only alternative. Having been in post-war situations, I am doubtful. Can we really imagine that if the USA and its allies intervened with violence in Syria this conflict would come to an end?
There are different ways to talk. Prophetic voices may be needed, but they seldom lead towards peace. Lectures from the moral ‘high ground’ do not usually change governments, as the fate of many UN resolutions shows.
In contrast, the presence of Quaker voices during the Zimbabwe talks in 1980 and the experience of Quaker House in Belfast show that parties which seem committed to heartless and indiscriminate violence can listen, explore other options, and change their behaviour. Talking can be appropriate; indeed, how many large-scale conflicts end without it?
Diana Francis, a Friend with experience of peacemaking, wrote: ‘The notion of inclusion is fundamental in nonviolent approaches to conflict. It means that everyone in a situation of conflict is to be treated as if they were of value and as if they had legitimate needs which should be met. This is not only a profoundly important moral and philosophical commitment; it also represents a vital understanding of what is needed for relatively secure and efficient coexistence (and coexistence is not an option but a necessity).’
Diana [email protected]
Quaker MethodistsI was interested to read Michael Hennessey’s letter (9 December) as my mother’s family were Independent Methodists in Salford. I attended chapel and Sunday
school there from an early age until I was ten years old, when I was evacuated to Ulverston.
My evacuation foster father had been brought up in Swarthmoor, and we attended Swarthmoor Methodist chapel on Sunday evenings. Occasionally, we would walk back via Swarthmoor Hall. Back home, after the war, I attended my parents’ chapel until I left home. I then became a ‘proper’ Methodist and remained one until 9/11, when I first went to Quakers.
I had heard of similarities between Independent Methodists and Quakers. This surprised me for I had not noticed it.
Independent Methodists do have ministers who have undergone a course of training, have no authority and are unpaid, but they are not pacifists. My parents’ church had several members in the army in 1914-18; some were killed. Others served in 1939-45. One minister, from a nearby church, did become a pacifist after world war two. One of his sermons certainly influenced me some years later when I was considering signing the Register of Conscientious Objectors.
My parents’ church closed before my father died. Some years after, in 2009, I took a lot of photographs to the Independent Methodist records in Wigan. I was on my way to a ‘1652 Country’ course at Swarthmoor Hall!
Brian HopkinsChichester Meeting, West Sussex
An eternal indefinability?Ian Beeson’s excellent three points (16 December) link powerfully in my mind with the review of David Boulton’s book on nontheism (16 December).
Quakerism is ineffable – literally ‘inexpressible’ – its ineffability captures the miracles around us with robust flexibility. I have a healthy vagueness, an eternal indefinability about what ‘God’ means for me, and I hope you do too. Please don’t take that away. Written creeds have always proved unreliable. Our better substitute takes words a step further: ‘Let your life speak’. It is so powerful, so practical, so vital and so easy to lose.
Science is even less definable, since the Higgs boson debacle. ‘Discovered’ in 2013, the so-called ‘God particle’ is now an orphan. It has nothing to do with God, and the last thing it is, is a particle, as Carlo Rovelli (Reality Is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity) explains so clearly. In that year’s Sibford Summer School, I predicted this boson would be bereft of fellow subatomic particles, and it is. Science has no ‘bottom’, it can’t resolve our ‘truths’ for us. It no longer works as a system of secure, immutable beliefs – not much does – except, to my perennial delight, the ever practical, nonverbal
All views expressed are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the FriendLetters
9the Friend, 6 January 2017
The Friend welcomes your views.
Do keep letters short (maximum 250 words).
Please include your full postal address, even when sending emails, and specify whether you wish for your postal or email address or Meeting name to be used with your name.
Letters are published at the editor’s discretion and may be edited.
In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty,
in all things charity.
emphases of Quakerism. Letting your lives speak says more than words ever can. I love my ineffable Quakerism. It illuminates a rational, reliable, flexible path – what would I do without it?
Bob JohnsonHampshire & Islands Area Meeting
TristimaniaFollowing the article published in the Friend on books about depression (16 September), I’d like to draw people’s attention to an outstanding book recently published: Tristimania by Jay Griffiths.
This is not an easy book to read, but very rewarding. Jay is a fine writer, and the way she describes her bipolar, or as she prefers to call it manic-depressive, episode is very revealing. It is a poetic and scholarly book.
Seeing the highs and the lows from the inside is harrowing, but gripping. She uses metaphors to describe what is hard to put into words. If we want to help, we should try to get in there with the sufferer, share their metaphors and be there beside them.
Lydia VulliamyIpswich Meeting, Suffolk
Through a glass darklyI am saddened by the division described in the review of David Boulton’s book, Through a glass darkly, (16 December).
I know I frequently fail to heed the ‘promptings of love and truth’ but am aware of the experience our first Advice points to. Would we not be better helping each other to discern and act on these promptings rather than fighting each other over where the experience might come from?
Vernon GriffithsSwindon Meeting, Wiltshire
AleppoThe destructive consequences of invading Iraq, which I did not support, are well known. However, when Britain and America decided not to intervene in Syria in 2013 where a bloody tyrant, supported by his Russian allies, was using chemical weapons this also seems to have some terrible consequences.
This set a precedent for the use of chemical weapons by a great power. Other outcomes seem to have included the destruction of a huge city and war crimes against civilians, the snuffing out of the hopes of the ‘Arab Spring’, in which many Arab people aspired to the freedoms most of us enjoy, and the strengthening of a world power, Russia, which has links with far right political movements in France and elsewhere. This could lead to invasions or war in Europe, with serious consequences for us all.
Russia is on the UN Security Council and has a veto.This leads me to deep soul-searching and
questioning. Quaker faith & practice 24.21 to 24.26 speaks of the ‘dilemmas of the pacifist stand’. At the very least, we need to give some urgent thought to how to confront powerful aggressive forces if we are not to, as Wolf Mendl (1974) says in Quaker faith & practice 24.22, ‘sacrifice others for the sake of peace’.
Neil Simmons Cambridgeshire Area Meeting
EAPPI representative detained and deportedWe are told (16 December) that someone going to a World Council of Churches (WCC) conference in Israel has been refused admittance by the Israeli authorities. There is a bit more to the story.
The WCC has a reputation, in the eyes of some, for being anti-Semitic and this member, Isabel Apawo Phiri, is alleged to be an activist in the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. Israel has been very tolerant of EAPPI (a WCC project administered by Quakers) up until now.
However, a bill to deny BDS activists entry to Israel has recently passed its first reading in the Knesset by a large majority. The WCC, the BDS movement and EAPPI, in my opinion, have little to do with a ‘just peace’ and, in the view of many, help to prolong the conflict by encouraging the Palestinians to achieve their ends through murder and non-negotiable demands. We Quakers should rethink our involvement in this controversial effort.
Sarah [email protected]
10 the Friend, 6 January 2017
My small Local Meeting, like most others, gathers a varied collection of worshippers: a peace campaigner, a financier, a physiotherapist, a
street pastor, the chair of a local housing association, a teacher and others. Each Sunday the living depth of our stillness gathers, lightens and heals our concerns, our failures and successes; as we separate, the silence flows into our weekday lives, into the nursery which uses our building, and into other faith and local groups which hire our rooms.
We are just one Meeting among forty in London – of which thirty-four have Meeting houses. We gather as individuals, to sit in the living flow of the stillness, and we also meet as an organised body. Like other Meetings, we ask ourselves: ‘What is our Meeting’s ministry? Does our organisation channel the flow of quietness, does it enable our activity outside Quakerdom, does it support us, or does it drain us? Is our Meeting house a gift or a burden? What organisational and physical structures help us to walk cheerfully over today’s world?’
Working together
Friends have always worked together across the metrop-olis in some structured way. George Fox set up the Monthly (now Area) Meetings, and the Six Weeks Meet-ing, to enable Friends to think together about the city’s needs. Area Meeting boundaries changed, Meetings sprang up or were laid down as the city grew, and Friends moved to the suburbs and beyond.
Six Weeks Meeting 350 years later had developed into a body appointed by all the Area Meetings that looks after London’s thirty-four Meeting houses and burial grounds. A small paid staff run the organisation and plan regular inspections of properties. As more Meetings and Area Meetings begin to pay bookkeepers and building administrators, local Friends need more expert advice on staffing, pensions, insurance and all the rest.
Six Weeks Meeting has been working with the Area Meetings to find an appropriate structure for London Meetings in the twenty-first century, and on 1 January 2017 Six Weeks Meeting became London Quakers Property Trust (LQPT).
We had to register as a charity, like other Quaker bodies, as we own property with an insurance rebuild value of nearly £30 million and an unquantifiable sale value of two or three times that figure. We decided to simultaneously become a company limited by guarantee, so that the trustees as individuals were protected. Accordingly, we are primarily a charity, but also a company.
Pooling funds
The core purpose of LQPT is exactly the same as that of Six Weeks Meeting – to care for, repair and maintain the Meeting houses and to provide for worship. We pool our funds, so that the financially stronger Meetings support the weaker ones, and our method, unchanged since George Fox’s time, is to think together about providing places for Quaker worship for forty Meetings of different sizes, across London, ranging from Westminster, with 100 members and a hundred attenders, seventy-five on a Sunday morning, to Orpington, where four Friends meet in one member’s sitting room.
In the new company structure, each of the seven Area Meetings in London is a member of the company, and is represented by the Area Meeting clerk of trustees. The existing Six Weeks Meeting trustees are now the company’s board, responsible to the members, the Area Meetings, and, therefore, more clearly accountable to all Friends in London.
Quakers in London can now work together in a coherent and organised way. Personally, I find that this increased sense that ‘we are all in it together’ reconciles me to the loss of the historic name of Six Weeks Meeting. Also, the new name describes our function better to the rest of the world. Sometime in the first half of 2017 we will meet for the first time as the members, the board, and all interested London Quakers.
We are working towards a method of thinking strategically together, and we find that we are filling an unforeseen structural gap. When London Yearly Meeting laid down Quarterly Meetings in 1967 few of us realised that we would no longer have regional bodies with the authority to bring Meetings and Area Meetings together
Structures and the Spirit
Beth Allen writes about a historical change in the administration of Quaker Meeting houses in London and the end of Six Weeks Meeting
Quaker life
11the Friend, 6 January 2017
to support each other, to look imaginatively at our shared needs in a changed situation, and then – the essential element – to agree on action together.
Could our changes in London be helpful to Friends in other regions in Britain Yearly Meeting? Would Area Meetings elsewhere benefit from getting together to pool expertise on finances, buildings, insurance and employment? London’s solution will not work in exactly the same way elsewhere, because different regions have different strengths and needs; what suits the physically close Friends in London might not help the widely-separated Meetings in Lincolnshire.
Scottish Friends know how to connect over huge distances, and hold Business Meetings by phone conference and Skype. Friends in the 1652 country, with so many historic Meeting houses, have particular advantages and problems. Some regions – Wales, or Devon and Cornwall – are well defined, while others – the Midlands – are not. Historically, Quaker business groupings were organised around travel routes; nowadays, communication is more electronic than physical, but we can surely find our natural groupings.
Risk and gain
For varied reasons, there are fewer of us these days to sustain the organisational structure we have inherited, and we can all see the indicators of strain – nominations committees struggle, Area Meetings can’t find clerks, older Friends feel duty-bound to maintain tired-looking buildings created when membership numbers were higher. It would be useful to know if other parts of Britain Yearly Meeting are also beginning to employ staff locally to do much of what we used to do voluntarily.
Is this a good way forward? What do we risk, and what do we gain? Yes, we have lots of attenders, we have lots of interested newcomers; however, they come
for the deep stillness, not for the sometimes tedious activity. One attender, asked to consider membership, replied: ‘No – if I join, I will be put on a committee.’ We do outreach for the sake of those we speak to, not to feed the Quaker machine.
In the London Quakers Property Trust we will do our best to ensure that Friends across London are enabled by this new structure to talk over and implement any necessary changes to our organisation and buildings, so that our worship deepens, our buildings inspire us and others who use them, and our Meetings continue to develop as cheerful and attractive communities, joyfully witnessing to Quaker testimonies and values.
The springs of life
As we’ve worked on our new structures in London, I’ve often gone back to the words of William Braithwaite, in Quaker faith & practice 10.04:
The life of a religious society consists in something more than the body of principles it professes and the outer garments of organisation which it wears. These things have their own importance: they embody the society to the world, and protect it from the chance and change of circumstance; but the springs of life lie deeper, and often escape recognition. They are to be found in the vital union of the members of the society with God and with one another, a union which allows the free flowing through the society of the spiritual life which is its strength.
The outer garments of our organisation need renewing so that they are appropriate for today; but the springs of our shared inner life are timeless.
Beth is clerk of the London Quakers Property Trust.
Brentford and Isleworth Meeting House, built in 1785, is the oldest Meeting house in London. It had modern repairs
after extensive damage during the second world war.
Part of the facade of the new Kingston Quaker Centreopened in 2014.
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12 the Friend, 6 January 2017
When our daughter was a little girl she asked me: ‘Daddy, is there a God?’ ‘Of course,’ I said, ‘otherwise there would be no word for it.’ But
as the philosopher Cyril E M Joad used to say on the radio programme The Brains Trust, it all depends what you mean by God.
‘Jesus said: “But who do ye say that I am?” And they replied, “You are the kerygma of the ground of our being, the quintessential personification of all our conation towards the Omniscient-Omnipotent, the ontological-existentialist summation of the transcendental in our experiential cognition of the universe.” And Jesus said: “What?”’
Carl Jung
The Franciscan Richard Rohr said: ‘First there is the fire; then the words about the fire – then the arguments about the words about the fire’; theology – God talk. In his new book A Little History of Religion, Richard Holloway, the former bishop of Edinburgh, writes: ‘Gods were the common imaginings of the human race’s deep past, dreamed up by minds that gazed in wonder at the universe they found themselves in.’ I heard Jo Farrow say once that she knew someone who said: ‘Some people never change their god; very unhygienic.’ The word God appears thirty-eight times in Advices & queries, but who or what is this taken for granted God? And who decides?
In 1959, when he was eighty-four, Carl Jung was interviewed for a BBC television documentary by journalist John Freeman. After talking about Jung’s childhood faith, Freeman asked him: ‘Do you now
believe in God?’ Jung paused and then replied: ‘Difficult to answer. I know. I don’t need to believe – I know.’ But what did he mean?
In a letter to the BBC magazine The Listener, following the interview, Jung, in answer to correspondents, wrote: ‘My opinion about “knowledge of God” is an unconventional way of thinking… which takes into consideration the immense darkness of the human mind… we cannot continue to think in an antique or medieval way when we enter the sphere of religious experience. I did not say: “There is a God”… I do not know a certain God (Zeus, Jahweh, Allah, the Trinitarian God, etc.) but rather: I do know I am obviously confronted with a factor unknown in itself, which I call “God”…
‘It is an apt name given to all overpowering emotions in my psychical system subduing my conscious will and usurping control over myself. This is the name by which I designate all things which… upset my subjective views, plans and intentions and change the course of my life… Yet I should consider it an intellectual immorality to indulge in the belief that my view of a god is the universal, metaphysical Being of the confessions (i.e. religion) or “philosophies”… Only my experience can be good or evil, but I know that the superior will is based upon a foundation which transcends human imagination.’
In other writings Jung used different analogies: for example, God as something stronger than his (ego) self, instinct or intuition, our conscience, an idea or proposition and the voice inside us; so no metaphysical Being or sky god, except in the archetypal or mythical sense.
A factor unknown
Laurie Andrews reflects on God and Jung
Opinion
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Coming to Friends
I came to Friends in September 1984. I had rejected my teenage evangelical faith and spent twenty-five years in the purgatory of addiction, but following a crisis I was forced to become ‘as open-minded as only the dying can be’ and seek a spiritual solution to my soul sickness. I shall be forever grateful that Friends accepted me as I was. After two years as an attender, I applied for membership and was visited by two seasoned Friends. I made plain that I was now an agnostic; it was noted but did not seem to be a stumbling block.
Harvey Gillman wrote in the Friend (5 August) that when he told his visitors he was living with another man it was a ‘stop’ for one of the visitors. But Harvey added: ‘Friends have changed because human beings have witnessed to their own authenticity and have seen each other as individuals. I am not all Jews. I am not all gays. And as Friends will know, I am not all Quakers… There are many ways of being human and that diversity is what we all have in common.’
Pretended builders
In a great peroration George Fox declaimed:
All you pretended builders of people up to heaven, who deny the light, deny Christ, deny God… They build in the dark. Spiritual Egyptians, spiritual Sodomites and spiritual Babylonians, with the Jews, deny the light… And has not the old pope, Cain-like… set up as head of his city… in opposition to Christ and his church… All you who call yourselves churches – first, papists: You say you have never heard Christ’s voice. How then were you married to Christ, who have never heard his voice, and Christ your husband never spoke to you? Strange kind of marriage! Presbyterians: You say you are Christ’s wife and spouse and bride, yet you say you never heard Christ’s voice from heaven, and yet you will be married… this manifests deceit. And come independents and Baptists: You say you are Christ’s
spouse and bride and wife, yet you say you never heard Christ’s voice… Can you be married to Christ without his spirit, without his light?
Hugh McGregor Ross quoted these words of Fox in his book George Fox: A Christian Mystic. Anti-Semitic, homophobic, racist and anti-ecumenical, Friend George would be disowned, or at least severely eldered, today. For, as Harvey Gillman said: ‘Friends have changed.’
A secular understanding
Fox’s inflammatory words would not appear in a modern edition of Quaker faith & practice, which is why it is important that we make generational revisions to our basic text. Daphne and Peter Copestake say we should not attempt the next revision until we ‘have been able to unite in a clear, Spirit-led understanding of what Friends are’ (5 August). But Friends are who we are right now in all our stimulating, fertile, inchoate diversity.
We need not and should not wait indefinitely to reflect our changing Society in Quaker faith & practice. In A Little History of Religion Richard Holloway said Quakers decided that if God was wrong about slavery, as recorded in the Bible, He could be wrong in other ways: ‘[Quakers] ended a childish way of reading the Bible. By asserting their conscience against it they made it possible to study it like any other book and not as an untouchable idol.’
Paul said it nearly 2,000 years ago: ‘The letter killeth but the Spirit giveth life.’ My conscience leads me to be an open-minded agnostic and more and more questing enquirers come with a secular understanding of spirituality. Their experience is to be valued because we are, as individual Friends and as a Religious Society, work in progress; we weren’t the first word and we won’t be the last.
‘Judge not, that ye be not judged’ (Matthew 7:1).
Laurie is a member of Mid-Essex Area Meeting.
Do you now believe in God?’… ‘That is difficult to answer.
I know. I don’t need to believe – I know.’
14 the Friend, 6 January 2017
For many years, Quakers in Britain have been deeply reluctant to share the riches of the Quaker way with others. We have labelled any attempt
to welcome potential new Friends as ‘proselytising’, but as Paul Parker, recording clerk of Britain Yearly Meeting, has pointed out: ‘There is a big difference between proselytising and not hiding.’ Our long-standing refusal to actively invite newcomers is not just liberal reticence. It is a failure of generosity and of imagination; an inability to imagine that people who are not ‘just like us’ might also find something of value in Quaker practices.
By refusing to reach out to people beyond our existing social circles, expecting them instead to ‘find us when they are ready’ without any assistance from us, we have become narrowly self-selecting in our social make-up. The culture of British Quakers is now dominated by the views and experiences of a very restricted social group: largely white, retired and overwhelmingly from the education and health professions. There are many good and valuable things about this subculture, but it is inevitably very limited in its range of experience and perspective on the world.
We have unintentionally backed ourselves into a subcultural ghetto, which both restricts the range of insights available to our ministry and discernment, and also makes it extremely difficult for the vast majority of people in our society not to feel uncomfortably out of place in any of our Meetings.
In recent years, initiatives such as Quaker Quest and national Quaker Week have challenged Friends to overcome this exclusive ‘culture of hiddenness’. Meetings which have done this have often encountered unexpected benefits, as Friends have learned much more about each other, quite apart from the energy and enthusiasm brought by new attenders. Even those Meetings which have experimented with some form of outreach, however,
are not always clear about the reason for doing it. Is it in order to grow as a Meeting, to prevent Quakers in Britain from dying out, or for some other reason?
The Religious Society of Friends is not an end in itself, but a vehicle for nurturing the spiritual practices that can sustain a more fully human life – one that is guided by and surrendered to the ‘principle of life within’. What Quakers in Britain have to share with others is a tradition of spiritual practice that enables us to encounter a source of healing, guidance, meaning and purpose within ourselves, and the quality of the community life that emerges from sharing these practices together. The motivation for our outreach is spiritual generosity towards all of those people who are experiencing the confusion, meaninglessness and disconnection that are so characteristic of our times.
Authentic spiritual practices are remedies for the soul-sickness of a culture that suppresses and distorts our inner lives in order to keep selling us distraction. The Quaker way offers a path through the modern condition of meaninglessness and isolation by drawing us into the purposes of God, by which our own healing and growth into maturity are brought to participate in the healing of the world.
Spiritual generosity challenges all of us to move outside our comfortable social ghettos and to share the life-giving riches of the Quaker way with people of different cultures, experiences and life-journeys. We need to be willing to enlarge our image of what a Quaker community might look, sound and act like. We need the generosity to reach out to welcome those whose differences can enlarge and enrich our experience of Quaker community, and our insights into the leadings of the Spirit for our times.
Craig is a member of Sheffield & Balby Area Meeting.
Quaker renewal
Spiritual generosity
Craig Barnett concludes his series on Quaker renewal in Britain today
15the Friend, 6 January 2017
Anyone who has a parent, or hopefully two, who are, let us say, getting on a bit, or are themselves in their later years, should find
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, written by American doctor Atul Gawande, compulsory reading.
The book provides – through heartening, interesting, saddening and also delightful real life stories – what happens to us when we approach death, or certainly the last years of our life. It includes the story of what happened when the author’s own father approached death, as well as people the author treated.
Our Friend Liz Driscoll brought a copy of the book to our small ‘home-based’ Meeting for Worship in Towcester. She said that her granddaughter – who is in her third year at medical school – had been encouraged to read it by one of her tutors. Being impressed, the granddaughter passed it on to her grandma, who, also impressed, encouraged the rest of us to read it. For us, both in our fifties, it has been a sobering and very enlightening reminder of our roles in the lives of our widowed mothers, both of whom are well into their eighties.
The author emphasises how, due to huge strides in medical science, the medical profession seems to focus solely on keeping the patient alive and offering hope, irrespective of the impact on the patient’s quality of life. The stories related by Atul Gawande in the book tell of individuals whose final months and years are not improved by being offered another, and another, medical treatment, when the reality is that it is time to
stop treatment and provide a different type of care. In fact, the stories bear out that there is often no impact on the length of life, nor a significant improvement in the quality of life.
We are encouraged in the book to talk more to our elderly parents, or anyone else who has been diagnosed with what could be a terminal illness, and find out what they really want to do for the rest of their time. We are also asked to consider how hospice care at home could be far more comfortable than treatment and, potentially, death in a hospital. The author describes some informative cases where understanding a person’s view of what makes a life worth living can inform medical decisions now and in the future. In one case it was: ‘As long as I can eat ice cream and watch football on the television, life will be worth living.’
As relatives and friends, we are encouraged to have these conversations and to appreciate that even though we may be in a position of control, especially with elderly parents, we need not think that must include ensuring our nearest and dearest’s ultimate safety.
Even in infirmity, we need to let people ‘Live Life Adventurously’!
Alistair and Elizabeth are from Northampton Meeting.
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande is published by Profile Books at £8.99. ISBN: 9781846685828.
Being mortal
Alistair Heslop and Elizabeth Redfern consider a moving exploration of illness and death
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the Friend, 6 January 201716
Friends&MeetingsDeaths
Memorial meetings
Changes of clerkAMERSHAM MEETING From1 January, clerk: Penny Ware, email:[email protected]
Diary
Extracopiesof ourChrist-masissue If youenjoyedreadingour special
Christmas issue, why not buy a fewextra copies and share it with yourfriends, family and Meeting?
Available at just £1 per copy for5 or more copies sent to one UKaddress, post free. Send your nameand address with a cheque payableto The Friend to:Penny Dunn, The Friend,173 Euston Rd, London NW1 2BJ.
5 monthly Saturday workshops10am tea/coffee: 10.30am-5pm
28th JanuaryFinding our own SilenceMarion Gillett & Brian Holley
25th FebruaryPrayer and HealingFrances Crampton & Gill Sewell
18th MarchRecognising SpiritPaula Tait & Alec Davison
8th AprilArt of Vocal MinistryVal Rowling & Steve Tilley
13th MayLove’s RequirementsDavid & Rosemary Brown
Kindlers SouthDEEPENING
WORSHIP
Friends House, 173 Euston Road,London. No advance booking,£10 at the door. All welcome.
Picnic lunch or Quaker Centre.
Malcolm WHALAN A MemorialMeeting to celebrate Malcolm's lifewill be held at Welwyn Garden CityMeeting House, 109 Handside Lane,AL8 6SP at 2.30pm Saturday4 February. Refreshments afterwards.Enquiries: [email protected] 07887 393136.
QUAKER AFRICA INTERESTGROUP Saturday28 January 2017.Priory Rooms, QMH, 40 Bull Street,Birmingham. 9.30 for 10am to 4pm.Refreshments/lunch bookable. Allwelcome, to network and learnabout Quaker witness in Africa.Contact: [email protected]
Kathleen RODHAM 19 December,peacefully at home. Mother ofRachel and Janet, grandmother ofKate and Lucy Entwistle. Member ofBeverley Meeting. Aged 89.Memorial Meeting Thursday5 January. No flowers please.Contact 01482 863240.
Friends & MeetingsPersonal entries (births, marriages,deaths, anniversaries, changes ofaddress, etc.) charged at £27.50incl. vat for up to 35 words andincludes a copy of the magazine.Meeting and charity notices,(changes of clerk, new wardens,changes to meeting, diary, etc.)£23.23 zero rated for vat. Max. 35words. Three entries £55 (£46.46 ifzero rated); six entries £90 (£75 ifzero rated).Entries accepted at the editor’sdiscretion in a standard house style.A gentle discipline will be exertedto maintain a simplicity of style andwording that excludes terms ofendearment and words of tribute.Guidelines on request.The Friend, 54a Main Street,Cononley, Keighley BD20 8LLTel. 01535 630230. Email:[email protected]
Start 2017 with asubscription to
the Friend!Make time forthe Friend. Let readingit week-by-week enrichand inspire your Quakerlife right through 2017,and help you stay intouch with the Quakerworld.On a weekly basis the cost isjust £1.65 a copy - deliveredright to your letterbox byFirst Class post!
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6 Jan 22/12/16 17:09 Page 6
the Friend, 6 January 2017 17
Quaker Peace & Social WitnessCommunications CoordinatorSalary: £32,073 per annum. Contract: Full time - permanent. Hours: 35 hours per week.Location: Friends House, Euston Road, London NW1.
Quakers have a radical vision of a more just, sustainable and peaceful world. Could you help ustransform this vision into reality?
We’re looking for an experienced professional who shares our values and can help take our communi-cations to the next level.
Could you help us to articulate confidently and effectively what we do and why we do it? Do you have theknowledge and skills to enable us to strengthen our links with core supporters and engage new audiences?
This is a diverse role and no two days will be the same. You’ll need to be a flexible team player with aproven understanding of how communications strategies can be used to bring about social change.
Does this sound like you? If so, we want to hear from you!
For further information about the work of QPSW, go to www.quaker.org.uk/our-work and fordetails on how to apply, go to www.quaker.org.uk/jobs
Closing date: Friday 13 January 2017 (12 noon). Interviews: Thursday 26th January 2017
Britain Yearly Meeting is committed to equality in all its employment practices.
Registered Charity No. 1127633.
Harbour HouseResidential Care Home
“The house of smiles”Harbour House is a residential care home for theindependent elderly focusing on encouragement,confidence, support and laughter. A recent respitevisitor referred to us as ‘The house of smiles.’
Adjacent to Bridport harbour and just yards from the sandy beach, we have 31 en-suite bedroomsincluding 1 en suite respite room and 2 flats, which can accommodate up to 29 individuals and 3 couples.
Created and built by a local Quaker, Eileen Morland, over 50 years ago, we continue to work to herphilosophy of creating a community promoting inclusion and independence. The support team consistsof over 55 staff who are all based locally.
The team provide quality care, menu planning, catering, domestic and maintenance support. Our diningexperience is something both residents and staff pride themselves on. All our food is fresh, local andcooked to the highest standard with a three course lunch every day. We can cater for any diet andensure our menus are varied and interesting. Our homemade cakes and cream teas are delicious!
To learn more about living at Harbour House or coming for a respite stay please call us on
01308 423277You’re welcome to pop in for a chat and a cup of tea at any time, no appointment needed.
www.westbayhousing.co.uk [email protected]
West Bay Housing Society Ltd, Harbour House, George Street, Bridport, Dorset DT6 4EY
6 Jan 22/12/16 17:09 Page 7
the Friend, 6 January 201718
George Penaluna, Advertisement Manager, 54a Main Street, Cononley, Keighley BD20 8LL Tel: 01535 630230 E: [email protected]
A WARM PEMBROKESHIRE WELCOMEawaits you in 2 cosy well equippedcottages each sleeps 4. Woodburners,sea views, coastal path 2 miles. 01348891286. [email protected]
SIMPLE PEACE AND QUIET. West Cornwall.Cottage on smallholding. Sea view.Sleeps 2. Tel. 01736 763803.
PERSONAL RETREATS, FRANCE. Makespace to reflect and be still. Beautiful oldfarmhouse in rural Auvergne offerssupportive, nurturing environment forindividual retreats. Simple daily rhythm:meditation; silence; contemplative/artisticactivities. Walking. Organic vegetarianfood. www.retreathouseauvergne.com
COTSWOLDS. Spacious barn conversionin Charlbury near Woodstock. Sleeps 2+.Woodburner. Lovely walking. 01608811558. [email protected]
TRANQUIL NORFOLK VILLAGE. Artist’scottage, near Blakeney. Accommodates 5.Beamed sittingroom, three bedrooms.Sunny garden. Orchard. Sailing, fishing,walking, great birdwatching. Available allyear. 07731 842259. www.thornage.com
1652 COUNTRY, HOWGILL, SEDBERGH.Comfortable 4 star holiday cottages inYorkshire Dales National Park overlookingFirbank Fell. Walks and Quaker trails fromthe door. Bed & Breakfast also available.www.AshHiningFarm.co.ukJim Mattinson 07774 281767.
GLASGOW FRIENDS B&B. £20pppn.Proceeds for new Meeting House. Contact:01505 842380. [email protected]
DELIGHTFUL COTTAGE in picturesqueNorth York Moors village, sleeps 5/6.Situated in the National Park with superbviews, private garden, Aga and open fire,the cottage is a perfect base for walkingholidays. [email protected]
Summer Friends in Residence (FiR)Minimum 25 hours per week per person.April - October, stay of up to 3 months.Accommodation and a contribution to living expenses provided.
We are looking for Friends who are interested in coming toSwarthmoor Hall for 1-3 months in the period April to October 2017.
We are looking for enthusiastic and flexible individuals or coupleswho would enjoy being part of a friendly team of staff and volunteers.
The purpose of the volunteer FiR role is about providing a Quakerpresence which enhances the experiences of visitors, groups andguests so that they have an enjoyable stay and are encouraged toleave feeling spiritually refreshed.
There would also be an opportunity for Friends to offer spiritual orpractical support or activities depending on their gifts and experience.
For more information and an enrolment form please contactSwarthmoor Hall manager Jane Pearson:[email protected] or 01229 583204.
Closing date for applications: Tuesday 31 January 2017.
EDINBURGH. City centre accommodationat Emmaus House. Tel. 0131 228 1066.www.emmaushouse-edinburgh.co.ukEmail: [email protected] charity SC042957.
where to stayGUESTHOUSES, HOTELS, B&BS
Classified advertisements
THE DELL HOUSE, MALVERN.Self-catering apartments. Extensive woodedgardens. Dogs welcome. Ideal for couples,families and groups of 6-20. Also B&B.www.thedellhouse.co.uk01684 564448.
resident Friends
WELLINGTON MEETINGSeeks Resident Friends
We are seeking Resident Friends inWellington, New Zealand, for a year from
November 2017.This position, based at George Fox House
in the Meeting House complex, wouldsuit a couple or a single person.
Resident Friends are usually appointed fora year but the length of time is negotiable.Duties include involvement in the spiritual
and social life of the meeting andrunning the 4-bed B&B facility in
George Fox House.For job description/application details
please contact Heather Roberts [email protected]
after 20 January.Applications due by 20 March 2017.
COTTAGES & SELF-CATERING
RETREATS
KENDAL. Available for occasional shortbreaks with visits in Lakeland, tapestry, artgallery, etc. Two bed house with stair liftand adaptations suitable for accompanieddisabled person. Enquiries 07855 865011.
CAUTLEY, SEDBERGH, 1652 COUNTRYCross Keys Temperance Inn (formerlyhome of early Quaker Gervase Benson).Quality en-suite B&B £42.50pppn.Evening meals available. Friendly Quakerhosts. 015396 20284. [email protected]
CLAVERHAM, NORTH SOMERSETCottage adjoining historic Meeting Housein rural area close to coast. Ideal for shortbreaks or family holidays. Sleeps up toseven. Website: www.claverhamtrust.org.ukEnquiries: Tom Leimdorfer, telephone01934 834663. [email protected]
NORTHUMBERLAND COAST.Comfortable cottage. Views of Lindisfarne.Sleeps up to 7. Graham, 9 Kyle Crescent,Cardiff CF14 1ST. Tel: 02920 692166.Website: www.farneviewcottage.Email: [email protected]
SHETLAND, TRADITIONAL COTTAGE.Well equipped, disabled friendly, sleeps2/3, spectacular position, views, [email protected] 880308.
HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR......advertise in the Friend!
6 Jan 22/12/16 17:09 Page 8
the Friend, 6 January 2017 19
YOUNG QUAKER COUPLE seeking tobuy small flat in North London, preferablyto renovate. Hen’s teeth. Tash andCallum: [email protected]
WRITING YOUR BOOK? Biography,family history, novel or non-fiction, let mehelp with layout, typesetting, printing.Photographs/images can be included.Free quotes. Leaflets/brochures alsoprepared. Trish: 01223 363435,[email protected]
BritainYearlyMeetingFinancial ControllerSalary: £46,958 per annum. Contract: Permanent.Hours: Full time - 35 hrs pw. Location: Friends House, Euston, NW1
Why is our Financial Controller role right for you?You are looking for a new challenge and increased scope of operationalresponsibility. Used to ensuring solid financials, you will be keen tohelp our charity develop robust controls and system frameworks inorder to deliver our work effectively.
What can you expect to be doing day-to-day?The Financial Controller is responsible for implementing and maintainingall financial controls and systems within Britain Yearly Meeting, identifyingand recommending potential operational efficiencies and improvementsto working practices and procedures; overseeing the financial dataprocessing and maintaining the quality and accuracy of data heldwithin the Trial Balance for Britain Yearly Meeting and related entities.Reporting to the Head of Finance and Resources, you will oversee ateam of four.
What will make you right for the role?You are qualified accountant with a strong knowledge of financialaccounting and controls. Working alongside programme staff, operationalmanagers and Members of Management Meeting, you are committedand engaged with both the financial numbers and our charitable work.
How is Britain Yearly Meeting changing the world?As Quakers, we are inspired by faith to work for a just, peaceful, andsustainable world. We seek to fill the gaps, to work where help is mostneeded, alone or with others – whatever will have the greatest impact.This is an exciting time to join us and make a real impact as the charityevolves and grows. We offer a generous benefits package, including apension scheme, 27 days holiday and other non-financial lifestyle benefits.
Closing Date: 12 noon Monday 13 February 2017.Interviews: Monday 27 February 2017For further information about Quakers, go towww.quaker.org.uk/about-quakers and for details on how toapply, go to www.quaker.org.uk/jobs
Britain Yearly Meeting is committed to equality in all its employment practices.Registered charity 1127633.
Something new in 2017?Why not join the Quaker Centrevolunteer team?!Duties include welcoming visitors to the Quaker Centre Caféand bookshop, answering queries about Quakerism, helpingwith outreach tasks and leading a daily Meeting for Worship12.30-1pm. Any age and experience welcome; lunch andtravel provided within reasonable travelling distance of Euston.
Enquiries and applications to Gill [email protected] or call 020 7663 1017
ALL YOUR PIANO REQUIREMENTSRestoration/nationwide removals/modernsecondhand sales. [email protected] Poole 01223 861507.
PROFESSIONAL ACCOUNTANCY& TAXATION SERVICE
Quaker Accountant offers friendlyservice countrywide.
Self-assessment & small businesses.Richard Platt, Grainger & Platt
Chartered 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.
miscellaneous
flat wanted
INNER LIGHT BOOKSEditions concerning traditional
Quaker Faith & Practice
For a list of publications or for moreinformation on particular titles visit
www.innerlightbooks.comor write: Editor, Inner Light Books
54 Lapidge StreetSan Francisco CA 94110, USA
books
HOW TO WRITE A BOOK, novel, autobi-ography, memoir or collection of shortstories, Bethany Rivers will guide youthrough the process, with insight,wisdom, gentleness and over ten years’experience. www.writingyourvoice.org.uk
PLEASE NOTE - This issuehad to go to press beforeChristmas. We are sorry for theomission of any advertisement ornotice received after the cut-off.
6 Jan 22/12/16 17:09 Page 9
150 years of Quaker action on poverty
Join us as we look back on our history and plan for our future
6 Jan 22/12/16 17:10 Page 10
