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MID-THAMES AREA
NEWSLETTER Spring 2015 No. 202
News from Local Meetings:
Wallingford Wokingham Maidenhead Reading East Garston Newbury Henley
My Experience of JYM Charney Adult Gathering 2014 Life After Death? Remembrance Contribution details
Wallingford MH, before projected changes to the courtyard
News from Local Meetings
Wallingford During our Away Day at Aston Tirrold last May,
Wallingford Friends identified the need for a
project that would unite us as a Meeting in
pursuit of a social goal. Further consideration
has led us to feel that, given scarce time and
energy, this should be in the form of a social
witness designed to influence opinion, rather
than a hands-on activity.
The following factors have been taken into
account when considering topics for our
witness:
It should be of broad relevance to society
and clearly linked to core Quaker
values, testimonies and/or work
Friends are engaged in nationally or
internationally.
The statements we make should be simple,
clear and rooted in evidence.
Although inevitably political in nature, our
witness should not be partisan in the
sense of supporting one party, or
ideology, over another. Ideally it should
highlight issues that are being unjustly
neglected by all parties.
It should be addressed to a broad audience,
e.g. not just politicians, and be
designed to appeal to all socially-aware
people.
It was considered vital that the whole Meeting
unites around the project. Everyone therefore
has had the opportunity to contribute to the
process of discernment. Two suggestions have
been received so far.
We have heard from Amanda Griffin of her
activity in relation to the work of the
Oxfordshire Credit Union in extending
their provision of low cost finance.
They are looking for outposts in the
county to do two things: promote the
Credit Union, spread the word, be a
presence in the town; and be a place
where people can go for information,
explanations, help filling in forms etc.
We have heard from Allan Ridgeley of the
Equality Trust, which undertakes work
looking at the root causes of inequality.
There are local groups being set up in
both Reading and Oxford.
Allan Ridgeley
Wallingford MH Courtyard
We are drawing up plans to improve the
courtyard in front of the Meeting House and
are about to invite contractors to submit
estimates for the work.
Our main aim is to improve access, especially
for those who are less steady on their feet and
for wheelchair-users. The present path to the
Meeting House is uneven, there are one or two
steps to negotiate and the cobbles become
slippery after rain. We plan to provide a level,
paved path that also leads to the toilet, which
will be made more wheelchair-friendly, with a
wider doorway.
At the same time we will re-arrange the whole
courtyard in order to provide a better gathering
area in front of the Meeting House. The flower
borders will be pushed back and rejuvenated
by new planting. We wish to retain a ‘cottagey’
feel while refreshing the look and feel of the
area.
Alternative ideas have been sketched out and
the comments and suggestions of Friends have
been taken into account. Trustees have
indicated their approval, in principle, of our
ideas. We hope to have the work completed
during the course of this year.
Peter Braithwaite
Wokingham Since our Quadrennial report, Wokingham
Meeting has grown in size. Our last quarterly
collection was for Quaker Social Action and
raised £206. We have had the Young People's
Meeting Room taken down with a view to
replacing it with a more stable structure and
we are currently looking to replace the chairs in
the Meeting House as they are in a poor state.
Fiona Heston
Maidenhead One of our pleasantest events over the last
few months was to welcome Daisy Bentley-
Dawkes formally into our Meeting, just before
Christmas. At just one year old she is our
youngest attender, and the Meeting was also
attended by her close family and friends.
We have continued to be involved with
interfaith activities. The Bahai community have
recently been running a series of discussion
meetings in the town for people of all faiths
regarding the relationship between religion
and peace, which Alasdair Donaldson has
attended, and he reports that many faiths
were well represented. We also attend the
Maidenhead and Windsor Community Forum
women’s group, and on 23 January two of our
number attended a vigil outside Maidenhead
Town Hall to show the continuing solidarity
which exists amongst all the faiths in the town.
This was organized by two women members of
the interfaith group, one a Muslim and one a
Christian.
We have continued to hold our midweek
Meetings for Worship each month, and have
decided that we would like to make it known
that we wish to continue with this, and would
welcome anyone from the Area Meeting who
would like to come. Each Meeting will be held
on the last Wednesday in the month, at 12
noon at the Friends Meeting House, West
Street. We have about 40 minutes of worship,
followed by informal chat and discussion. It is
good to be able to have time to hear each
other’s news and views, and for people to be
able to come who cannot always manage to
get to Meeting on a Sunday. We bring our own
snack or sandwich to have after the worship.
Our numbers at Meeting remain low, but
several Friends are involved in interesting
activities. One of these is Rajiv Chelani, who is
on the steering committee of Cambridge Eco-
Village Community. This community is based
on three pillars: people care, earth care and
fair share, where mixed age groups and
cultures can thrive, support and co-exist. We
hope to report fully on this in a future
newsletter.
We continue to support and visit those of our
Meeting who are ill, housebound or in hospital.
Lastly I would like to report that the damage to
our copper roof in the autumn, as reported at
Area Meeting, was not great, and not too
expensive to put right.
Angela Feldstein
Reading Meeting continues to be well
supported. Special attention is made to
welcome newcomers - as well as those who
come regularly. Several children attend and
they have their own activities during Meeting
and then come in to the main Meeting towards
the end, so that they can experience the
gathered Meeting. Afterwards they are
encouraged to tell us what they were doing.
The Sunday before Christmas had the usual
singing of carols after Meeting - much
appreciated by all. The once-a-month shared
lunch is well attended and is always preceded
by an interesting talk. It's a good way to get to
know other members of the Meeting and their
particular interests.
There have been some Saturday workshops,
"Becoming Friends". The prayer group for
healing continues to meet on the first Tuesday
of the month at 7.30 pm. Leighton Park School
invites us to attend the half-hour Meeting for
Worship on the first Thursday morning of the
month, 8.25 to 8.55. Despite the fact that there
are very few Quakers at the school, the
Meetings are well gathered and are a valuable
experience to all.
The garden continues to be well cared for as
this gives a good impression not only to us but
also to those attending meetings of other
societies which use our premises during the
week. Lastly, enormous thanks to our Warden,
Liz Smith who deals with many enquiries and
does all the bookings besides keeping the
premises in excellent order.
Liz Longhurst
East Garston
We are wintering well in East Garston. We
have 2 Members and several long Attenders,
so a small but faithful group of us meet every
Sunday.
In recent months we have felt very enriched by
the ministry of new friends. As usual, after
Meeting, we always enjoy informal chat and
shared news over coffee and chocolate biscuits
and frequently it is an extension of the
ministry – recent topics and shared experience
have included non-theism, the film ‘Open
Bethlehem’, Retreats with Franciscans in
Alnwick, and cloud names!
East Garston village is in a beautiful part of the
Lambourn Valley, and most of us enjoy a lovely
drive to Meeting. Our garden is still being
looked after by keen gardeners from the
village community. We have had a very
generous gift from the local Parish magazine
‘Village Views’ which has paid for hedge
cutting and will cover more work in the
garden, and this also frees us to resume
responding to charitable appeals.
We have been invited to include information
on the Society of Friends in welcome packs
given out by the local Church, and the Meeting
House and Children’s Room is regularly used
by local groups such as the Parish Council and
the Over 60s Club, and is hired for children’s
parties.
We would welcome more users or any groups
who might enjoy our beautiful little Meeting
House and garden. We look forward to Area
Meeting at East Garston in April too.
Phoebe Fennell
Newbury In the late summer of last year Newbury
Meeting hosted a well-attended fund-raising
Christian Aid tea party with visitors enjoying
the sunshine in the garden, and we opened
the Meeting House on a Saturday for the
annual ‘Ride and Stride’ event in which
walkers and cyclists are sponsored to visit as
many churches as possible in aid of the
Berkshire Historic Churches Trust.
In December we shared breakfast together
before Meeting for Worship.
As winter set in, the greyness of the skies
matched the struggle of some of our members
dealing with sadness, loss, sickness and
weariness – their own and that of those close
to them. Perhaps the seasons affect us more
than we sometimes realize.
But all things pass, and as the snowdrops look
set to flower again and daffodils emerge from
the dark earth, so we trust that sickness will
be healed, sadness overcome, loss accepted
and weariness transformed into gratitude for
all that is.
Our finances remain healthy, due to the large
number of groups hiring our rooms, and we
have been able to give the Eight Bells for
Mental Health group a grant to cover their
rent (to us) for a year, meaning that they are
effectively using our premises rent-free.
All our hirers seem to value the ambience of
our Meeting House. We had Christmas cards
from two groups saying how the peace,
tranquillity and ‘imbibed spirituality’ of the
building were of benefit to their group
members.
Paul High has been steadily selling the
remainder of John Perkin’s paintings, now £20
per picture. We are going to use the money
raised to repair the stained glass panel from
the back door which was smashed last year by
a member of the Eight Bells group who was
having a bad day. As the panel was designed
by John, we think it is a fitting way to use the
money. The panel will not be returned to the
door but will be mounted in a frame with
integral lighting and hung in the hall.
We continue to hold our ‘Becoming Friends’
discussion group once a month and had a
particularly stimulating and challenging evening
led by Roger Straughan (attender at Newbury
Meeting) on the subject of life after death.
Roger has had a lifelong interest in psychical
research. [See article below]
Members of our Meeting are involved in
community groups including Newbury Christian
Aid, Churches together in Newbury (CTNA) and
the Interfaith Forum. We have a new attender
who is a member of the Newbury Street
Pastors Team, organised by CTNA. He has told
us how teams of volunteers go out on a
Saturday night between 10pm and 3am to
minister to the practical and spiritual needs of
the late-nighters as they emerge from the pubs
and clubs.
As with most Quakers, our members and
attenders contribute as individuals in many
varied ways to the well-being of society
through their voluntary work and through
bringing Quaker values to their paid work. It
can be easy to become overwhelmed by the
pressure of all that needs to be done. We need
to care for ourselves as well as others. Perhaps
a reading of Advices and Queries number 34
should always be followed by a reading of
number 28.
Carolyn Fletcher
Henley Mince Pie Meeting and our contemplation of
the Christmas story prompted a glance back at
the last few months.
Our Outreach as usual was energetic; we
bought the display panels, got posters from the
Bradford Peace Museum and showed work in
Henley library. Then we had a 1914 tea party to
discuss The Accrington Pals with Janice Selkirk
who acted in the play at the Kenton Theatre. In
spite of all our efforts, however, only six extra
people came to tea on Sunday ; we also
welcomed a couple from Maidenhead ! This
makes us wonder whether we have the
cost-benefit analysis right. Do we simply want
to attract more members or is it enough just to
raise our profile in Henley? Of course, our own
community spirit develops at the same time.
Later Hilary Browne came from Yorkshire on
her mission - ministry to let people know of the
desperate plight of Gaza. Her slides and
statistics were especially shocking and we
willingly gave to her charity towards providing
prosthetic limbs.
Interestingly, our previously chosen charity for
December was the Quaker School in Gaza, and
Hilary's talk certainly made it mean more to us.
As we enter 2015 with growing numbers we
shall continue to flourish. Tom Heydeman had
asked us to sign the 38 degrees.org.uk petition
against sending arms to the Middle Eastern war
zone and we can wonder how futile that is until
we see the video, shown at a recent
Woodbrooke course, listing the vast number of
organisations working for change. A Friend at
that course read another encouraging list of all
the changes the 38 degrees organisation had
effected in the past year.
Glenda Hemken
My experience with JYM I would like to thank Mid-Thames Quakers for
arranging for me to attend JYM at Bath
University (2nd to 9th August 2014). This was
the second time that I have attended a
Triennial Quaker Gathering; the last time was
with my family in Canterbury in 2011.
The JYM programme was very busy. A highly
structured timetable was laid out for the whole
week (with most days it was 13 hours a day).
Throughout the week we explored the theme
of “What does it mean to be a Quaker teenager
today?” – “Where are we going?”
We had sessions on the role of transformation,
Quaker testimonies, Quaker action on alcohol
and drugs, environment and seeking economic
justice.
We were involved with the planning and
coming together with all the rest of BYM for the
special “WW1 Commemoration Event” on the
Monday evening. We all thought that the
silence and the lights going out was very
moving.
We had a number of very informative and
sometimes very moving talks by special guest
contributors. We had a lively “question and
answer” session with Ben Pink Dandelion.
It would have been good if we had had more
free time to have had the opportunity to
engage directly with more of the rest of the
BYM programme. It would have been good
if we could have been able to join in with more
of the agenda in the big tent and also
been able to attend the many interesting talks
and workshop sessions in the variety
of tents making up the “Quaker Village”.
Despite this, the experience was very good and
varied. It was obvious that a lot of effort had
been put into creating the JYM programme.
It was good to observe the discernment
process used for the nomination of
teenagers for next year’s JYM.
Friendships were made. I can see why many of
the other teenagers return to similar Quaker
youth events year upon year. It would be good
to see the friends that I made at JYM again,
although in a more freeing environment.
Joe Appleton, Reading Meeting
Adult Gathering at Charney Manor Finding inspiration in our everyday lives
I found the introductions and the Meeting for
Worship at this event very uplifting and
inspiring. The programme, objectives and
timetable were all very clearly laid out. It was
nice to see a wide variety of different people,
and that most Meetings had been represented.
We explored a variety of different
interpretations of inspiration and spiritual
learning. The first exercise that we were asked
to do was about mindfulness, where I was
shocked to be given a raisin and told to focus
on exactly what it was and how it felt, before
putting it in our mouths. I liked this activity as it
reminded me to be more present in my
everyday life and to understand inspiration
when it is there. This topic is something that I
would like to explore more, and I have enquired
about an event Karen is looking to run shortly.
We were asked to think about experiences of
inspiration in childhood which identified a
number of things such as wildlife, community,
music, Jesus and the Bible. I liked that exercise
as it gave me an insight into my childhood, and
the inspirations that I came across. It was good
to reflect on this stage of my life, as I don't get
time to do this in my daily life now.
We then explored what inspires us now and in
the future; we were put into groups and I
enjoyed this very much. It made me think about
my everyday life and what inspires me. I
thought about the books that I read and the
music I listened to. I also thought about what I
could do in the future, reflecting on what others
did and what I could try.
We then undertook a variety of different
options. I found the Tai Chi was very good and
made me be very mindful of my actions and
how I act in everyday life. I found that
thoughtful movements were much better than
rushing movements, which was very interesting
and thought-provoking.
The 'inspiration cafe' in the evening was also
very interesting and a number of people read
books and poems. This gave me an opportunity
to look at what others do for inspiration; a
taster of what inspires them. This was very
uplifting and I took away from it a feeling that
poetry might be a good way of understanding
inspiration as it was something that I had not
done before.
We closed the Adult Gathering with Meeting for
Worship; this had such a different feel as it was
held outside, and I felt there was a deep sense
of God's presence in the Meeting; I experienced
incredible deep silences.
The thing I most enjoyed about the workshops
was exploring inspirations in childhood. This
gave me time to reflect on what inspired me
now. The most important thing I have
understood and taken from this Adult Gathering
has been what I could do differently, namely
reading more widely and reading poetry. I think
it's our responsibility as a society of seekers to
continuously push ourselves to explore our
spiritual leading and learn from other people.
Ashley Newport, Newbury Meeting
LIFE AFTER DEATH. Is Death an End,
a Beginning or a Continuing? (Reflections on a talk given by Roger Straughan)
Roger has had a long interest in psychical
research and has published a book recounting
his own experiences.
Psychical research is the study of the psychic,
which is the experience of possibilities not
defined by or restricted to the five physical
senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell.
Why bother about the afterlife? We have a life
to live here and now and what is the point of
worrying about what comes next? This is a valid
perspective. But we are all going to die, so it
may make sense to think about the possibility
of an afterlife from time to time. We all make
preparations before we undertake a long
journey, so why not prepare for the long
journey of death?
However, there is no point in preparing for
something that doesn’t exist. So what evidence
is there for life after death? There is a tendency
to think that researchers into an afterlife are
cranks, but this is not so: many serious
academics and psychologists are looking at the
subject. Their research provides plenty of
evidence for the afterlife, but no proof. We
cannot ever prove that there is an afterlife, but
neither can we prove that there isn’t. We can
weigh the evidence and make a judgement. We
can ask what is beyond reasonable doubt.
All the major religious traditions have some
sort of belief in life after death. You may think
that this is wishful thinking and that these
believers are deluded, but maybe not – there
are a lot of them!!
The evidence includes:
Apparitions – particularly those associated with
hearing or seeing someone who has recently
died. These crisis apparitions occur around the
time of death to close family or friends of the
deceased. According to the research, almost
50% of bereaved spouses admit to having had
an experience of communication with their
dead partner. There may be many more who
don’t want to admit it for fear of being seen as
odd.
Mediumship - communication between the
living and the dead is controversial. But solid,
rigorous research into mediumship has
provided very good evidence of life after
death.
Near Death Experiences – when people
recover from clinical death after resuscitation.
Medical science says that consciousness stops
when the brain dies, but these NDEs occur
after brain death. Personal experience is
always the most convincing evidence.
So – we may survive death, but what then?
Another world? Another level of experience?
For eternity? Or temporarily? Some suggest
that after death we are on a journey of
continuing transformation, learning and
experience. Others believe that individual
consciousness, or individuality, may remain at
first, but that there is a movement towards a
universal consciousness or integrated
consciousness.
Recent research by some scholars (e.g. Rupert
Sheldrake) is beginning to suggest that
consciousness is not held in the brain; that it
has an existence outside the brain. It is
thought that in brain-damaged people or in
people with dementia, consciousness is still
there but simply cannot express itself because
of the physical damage or deterioration of the
brain. It is often noted that there can be
terminal lucidity in people with brain damage;
i.e. they become lucid just before death, as if
as their body dies their consciousness is freed.
Have you had an experience of life after
death? And if so, has it affected the way you
live now? How will you weigh the evidence?
Carolyn Fletcher
Remembrance
Wallingford Meeting
Ruth Crook died 21st January 2011
Reading Meeting George Simiyu died 31st January
2015
NEWSLETTER CONTRIBUTIONS
There are three editions of Mid-Thames Area Newsletter each year,
in Spring, Summer and Autumn
Please send your contributions for the Summer 2015 issue by 1st May.
Contributions are welcome on any subject you think Friends would be interested in, including reports of conferences and other activities,
personal reflections and book reviews. Contributions can be sent by email or by post in typed or handwritten form.
Please send contributions to
Jane Mutisya 9 St Leonard’s Court, Wallingford, OX10 9EY