Hereford Quakers Newsletter

March 2018

“Within the community there is a diversity of gifts. We are all therefore asked to consider

how far the advices and queries affect us personally and where our own service lies.” (Advices & Queries 1.01)

Diary

Events are at the Friends Meeting House, 21 King Street, Hereford HR4 9BX unless otherwise stated

Friday 2nd March
Women’s World Day of Prayer: All God’s Creation is Good, prepared by the women of Suriname.
Tea and coffee from 10.30. Service begins at 11.00.
St John’s Methodist Church, St Owen Street.
All are welcome, including men!

Saturday 10th March (please note – changed from Sunday 11th March)
Area Meeting at The Pales
Agenda and papers will be circulated towards the end of the month. The day will include a talk by John Kendall, a retired solicitor, based on his book about the treatment of people in police custody.

Saturday 10th March

Friends Spring Social

From 17.00, Friends and families come and welcome the Spring with games and quizzes and a delicious shared tea. Please bring food to share and your plates and cutlery to wash at home. Everyone is welcome. If you’d like to help in any way, especially by organising a game, please contact Christine Oxley or Kyrle du Heaume on 01432 274118.

Tuesday 13th March

The Bundle

A play about the experiences of some asylum seekers.
For further information, please listen for notices at Meeting for Worship.

From 14th March until 29th April, the Weeping Window exhibition will be at Hereford Cathedral. As part of a self-guided walking tour around the city, there will be a Peace Council exhibition and information about conscientious objectors on display in the Meeting House. For times of opening, and opportunities to act as stewards, please listen for notices at Meeting for Worship.

Saturday 24th March

Earth Hour

A worldwide movement for the planet organised by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). This event has been held annually since 2007, and Earth Hour 2017 saw a record-breaking 187 countries and territories, with millions of participants, taking a stand to help fight climate change. Earth Hour encourages individuals, communities, households and businesses to turn off their non-essential electricity for one hour (from 20.30-21.30), to raise awareness of climate change and demonstrate that we care about the planet. The Dean and Chapter have agreed that the Cathedral will participate and its floodlighting and other non-essential lighting will be switched off for one hour. Inside the Cathedral there will be a candlelit meditation and prayer for the planet. All are welcome.

Dates for your Diary

Wednesday 11th April, from 19.00

The Business Plan for Peace – Building a World without War (Millichap Peace Lecture) – Dr Scilla Elworthy
Scilla Elworthy has devoted her life to Peace Building. She was the founder
of the Oxford Research Group, a non-governmental organisation she set up in 1982 to develop effective dialogue between nuclear weapons policy-makers worldwide and their critics, for which she was nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize. She served as its executive director from 1982 until 2003, when she left that role to set

up Peace Direct, a charity supporting local peace-builders in conflict areas. In 2003 she was awarded the Niwano Peace Prize. From 2005 she was adviser to Peter Gabriel, Desmond Tutu and Richard Branson in setting up The Elders. She is a member of
the World Future Council and in 2012 co-founded Rising Women Rising World, a growing, vibrant community of women on all continents who take responsibility for building a world that works for all.

Her talk will outline practical and proven steps which would lead to a peaceful world and ways in which we can all play a part.
Admission free, donations invited.

Saturday 21st April

Peace building in our Quaker community

A workshop with Rhiannon Grant from Woodbrooke
10.30- 16.30
How does a pacifist community handle conflict? During this day, we’ll look at how we respond to disruptive disagreement both as individuals and as a group. Conflict is part of life, and we will explore ways to live with it as a known and even positive force. Please book your place with Jane Straker by 19th April.

Friday 24th April

Poetry & The Pales

Saturday 12th May

Area Meeting at Almeley

Saturday 9th June

Fellowship Day at The Pales

Friday 22nd June

Night of the Churches

Saturday 23rd June

A Midsummer Concert at The Pales

Hay Festival

If you are willing and able to support the Quaker presence at Hay Festival (24th May – 3rd June), please ask for the information and form.

Our next Appeal is for People in Motion. This is a local charity providing support and aid to displaced people. Their current efforts are focused on the refugee crisis: collecting, sorting and delivering regular van-loads of aid supplies to Northern France and Syria to help the many hundreds of homeless affected by the fighting in Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Financial aid is also urgently needed to support their work.

Quaker Spiritual Nourishment (originally friendship) Group

Dominic Walker and Susanna Grunsell write: Since 2012 a small group have been meeting in each other’s homes. Our topics of discussion have been many and varied. We have been led on guided meditative journeys or have shared spiritual experiences secure in the knowledge of confidentiality. We, each of us, are gifted in our individual insights, talents and accomplishments
and have gained from our friendly “communion of souls”. We have decided to have a break in these meetings, in their present form, at least for a few months.

Experiment with Light

Libby Hudson writes: Following the recent Area Meeting weekend, during which those who wanted to could sample an ‘Experiment with Light’ session, I’m interested in setting up a “Light” group. The group, if/when formed, will decide whether to meet weekly, fortnightly or monthly.

According to one leaflet, “a Light group is a group of people who meet to practise the Experiment with Light together and witness the work of the Light in each other’s lives”. My worry about this description is that it makes it sound like something all Friends should be doing, but the fact is that this is not everyone’s cup of tea.

I think it’s perhaps best described as a partially structured combination of meditation and shared worship. Some people may find that it helps deepen their prayer lives, but others may not experience the same effect, or may simply feel that they don’t need this kind of support in that area.
If you’d like to know more, please get in touch. I’m going to suggest that, if we can form a group, as many of us as possible, undertake a further workshop at Woodbrooke, Charney Manor, Glenthorne or Swarthmoor – as usual, bursaries may be available.

For further information about Quakers, please contact: Clerk: Ruth Stanier – ruth.stanier@smquakers.org.uk

smquakers.org.uk 

Please submit copy in writing for the next newsletter (April 2018) to the editor, Liz Chave – liz.chave@smquakers.org.uk by 19th March.