Quakers and Youth Hostels the Friend Independent Quaker Journalism Since 1843
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10 March 2017 £1.90 the DISCOVER THE CONTEMPORARYFriend QUAKER WAY Quakers and youth hostels the Friend INDEPENDENT QUAKER JOURNALISM SINCE 1843 Contents VOL 175 NO 10 3 Thought for the Week: Oversight and eldership Alison Leonard 4 News 5 Leaveners’ final act Harry Albright 6-7 Calais Anne M Jones 8-9 Letters 10-11 Quakers and youth hostels Duncan Simpson 12 Peacemaking in a troubled world Linda Murgatroyd Wilderhope hostel. Manor youth from A view YHA. Photo courtesy of 13 We love conflict! ‘Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, Marian Liebmann, Zélie Gross and Roger Cullen and narrow-mindedness, and many 14 Knowing what to do of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, Stephen Allen charitable views of men and things 15 Thoughts on adoption cannot be acquired by vegetating A Friend in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.’ 16 q-eye: a look at the Quaker world 17 Friends & Meetings Mark Twain Cover image: A view of Wilderhope Manor youth hostel. The WA Cadbury Trust bought and renovated Wilderhope Manor in Shropshire in 1936 and presented it to the National Trust for use as a youth hostel after John Cadbury had found it being used as a barn and storehouse. Photo: JR P (UGArdener) / flickr CC. See pages 10-11. The Friend Subscriptions Advertising Editorial UK £84 per year by all payment Advertisement manager: Editor: types including annual direct debit; George Penaluna Ian Kirk-Smith monthly payment by direct debit [email protected] £7; online only £66 per year. Articles, images, correspondence For details of other rates, Tel 01535 630230 should be emailed to contact Penny Dunn on 54a Main Street, Cononley [email protected] 020 7663 1178 or [email protected] Keighley BD20 8LL or sent to the address below. the Friend 173 Euston Road, London NW1 2BJ Tel: 020 7663 1010 www.thefriend.org Editor: Ian Kirk-Smith [email protected] • Sub-editor: George Osgerby [email protected] • Production and office manager: Elinor Smallman [email protected] • Arts correspondent: Rowena Loverance [email protected] • Environment correspondent: Laurie Michaelis [email protected] • Subscriptions officer: Penny Dunn [email protected] Tel: 020 7663 1178 • Advertisement manager: George Penaluna, Ad department, 54a Main Street, Cononley, Keighley BD20 8LL Tel: 01535 630230 [email protected] • Clerk of the trustees: Nicholas Sims • ISSN: 0016-1268 • The Friend Publications Limited is a registered charity, number 211649 • Printed by Headley Bros Ltd, Queens Road, Ashford, Kent TN24 8HH 2 the Friend, 10 March 2017 Thought for the Week Oversight and eldership was looking around for something to counter my drift towards despair about the present political landscape when a friend, who works at the Bradford School of Peace Studies, sent me a copy of a lecture given last year on the theme of caring. In Iit James Thompson argued for caring to stand at the centre of any argument for social justice. Caring in our present society, he says, is delivered reluctantly, at the lowest possible cost, by the poor to the desperate. One council even has a stated policy of giving ‘just enough’ care: the minimum – and no more. Then James Thompson quotes Norman Geras, the highly regarded political philosopher of the Holocaust. In his book The Contract of Mutual Indifference Geras documents the climate of fear in 1930s Germany that led ordinary people to ignore the sufferings of their Jewish, homosexual, disabled or Roma neighbours, instead of giving friendship or help. James Thompson offers us, as an alternative, a ‘contract of mutual regard’ – ‘tender relations with others [that are] central to the rationale of many political projects’. This train of thought led me to the Quaker vision of community. As Ben Pink Dandelion says, the Quaker thing is not an ‘I’ thing, it’s a ‘we’ thing. This, in turn, took me to a fresh consideration of the two major roles in a Quaker Meeting: oversight and eldership. Oversight encompasses the caring aspects of community, and can be done by all of us, not just those appointed. In times like this, when politicians and news media urge fear and hostility, we can make special efforts to extend that care beyond the Quaker Meeting, around where we live and beyond. The eldership role, if we step outside the Quaker context, is more subtle. It could involve getting together before a demonstration, with others who are intending to go, to give attention to what might happen there and to rehearse the best way of preventing violence in the course of a march; or arranging Meetings for Worship and Fellowship to support those who are most involved in political activity. In these febrile times, a conscious effort to lower the temperature and support healing in our communities might be something we can all take part in. Alison Leonard Hebden Bridge Meeting the Friend, 10 March 2017 3 News reported by Harry Albright [email protected] Quaker MEP welcomes QUNO briefing paper on refugees new directive and migrants GREEN QUAKER MEP Molly Scott-Cato has welcomed a new EU THE QUAKER United Nations directive that addresses the problem of money laundering. Office (QUNO) has launched a The economic and legal committees in the European Parliament new briefing paper for Friends: jointly voted to support the strengthening of the anti-money-laundering Protecting refugees and migrants directive on 28 February. under the New York Declaration: The directive is a piece of European law that requires financial and challenges and opportunities at the legal companies to be transparent about how rich people are moving UN level. their money from country to country. It also includes the proposal for a On 19 September 2016 the UN ‘beneficial ownership register’ – meaning that rich people cannot hide set a new agenda under the ‘New their money in closed trusts so that nobody knows who benefits from York Declaration’ for responding what. to large movements of people Molly Scott-Cato said in a statement: ‘With so much gloom around it’s crossing borders. great to be able to share news of a historic move against tax evasion and The briefing aims to inform financial crimes’. Friends about the Declaration ‘The directive is about clamping down on illegal flows of money and and the developments it initiates global gangsters getting away with murder,’ Molly Scott-Cato explained. for improving global governance ‘Since much of this “dirty money” is cleansed through the London on refugees and migrants. It also property market, I was delighted that a Green proposal to strengthen describes how QUNO is engaging controls on that activity was passed.’ in these opportunities, as well Molly Scott-Cato is Green MEP for the South West of England and as ways that Quakers in Britain Gibraltar and was elected in May 2014. and around the world can link up with, and benefit from, UN-level Disabled Friend takes initiatives. legal action Leaveners memorabilia Esther Leighton, a disabled She has now initiated court Friend living in Cambridge, has proceedings against them. taken legal action against several ‘Like many wheelchair users, businesses in the Mill Road area I have spent years being denied of the city after they repeatedly access to shops, restaurants and ignored requests to install ramps cafes. I’ve been raising these or other facilities to allow her to concerns with businesses on Mill access them. Road for years,’ she explained. The Cambridge Friend has been ‘The most important thing to me raising her concerns informally is an apology, not getting money. with shops and cafes in the area The point is to be able to access since 2010. the shops. The Equality Act requires them ‘Thanks to the changes made by to make reasonable adjustments to those businesses that responded accommodate disabled people. positively, I’m delighted to say She says that for most businesses that I’m now able to get in to the Photo: Harry Albright. the cost of an adjustment is majority of the shops. Posters AND programmes minimal. She added: ‘I’ve been encouraged from productions by the Leaveners However, seven businesses have and comforted by the support were among the memorabilia in failed to respond to at least two I’ve received from other disabled a special display presented at the letters from Esther, with another people who are fed up that the emergency annual general meeting one responding unhelpfully. Equality Act is being ignored.’ held in Birmingham (see page 5). 4 the Friend, 10 March 2017 Report Leaveners’ final act Harry Albright reports on an emergency general meeting Friends at the EGM. Photo: Harry Albright. fter forty years, the final curtain has come the meeting minuted: ‘The meeting agrees to lay down on the Leaveners, the Quaker performing down the Leaveners registered charity no. 292499 in arts charity. An emergency general meeting good order and as soon as feasible, passing on any Aheld on 4 March in Birmingham, attended by twenty- remaining funds, for the use of Quaker Life, to Britain three people, made the decision after hearing that the Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends as organisation was no longer financially viable. laid down in the constitution.’ Peter Fishpool, one of the Leaveners trustees, told The meeting heard that there were some activities the meeting that the Joseph Rowntree Charitable that might continue in a different manner, including Trust, which had provided core funding for many the chamber music and choral group, which will years, had changed its priorities and withdrawn its continue under the working name of Quaker Music grant aid from 2016. Efforts to raise funds to cover Network. There was also a suggestion from the Quaker operational costs had not been successful.