23 October 2009 £1.70 the DISCOVER THE CONTEMPORARYFriend QUAKER WAY the Friend INDEPENDENT QUAKER JOURNALISM SINCE 1843 CONTENTS – VOL 167 NO 43 3-5 News 3 Quakers prepare to launch new ‘inreach’ materials 4 Friends ‘stand up’ to democratic representatives on poverty issues 5 New film highlights inspiring Quaker work in Rwanda 6 Is applause Quakerly? Robert Ilson 7 Comment John Nurse and Judy Kirby 8-9 Letters 10-11 Cover story: Advices, queries and the database state William Heath 12-13 Arts 12 Cole Sahib: a Quaker educationalist Eleanor Nesbitt 13 The children of Theresienstadt Paul Green 14 Spreading the equality message John Bell Cover image: Street artist Banksy’s ‘One nation 15 Carrying on the spirit of The Retreat under CCTV’. Photo: David Boyle/flickr CC:BY. See Jonathan Pim pages 10-11. Images on this page: Top, a still from ICYIZERE:hope. Image courtesy of Josiah Films. 16 Eye witness: An Englishman in New York See page 5. Middle, the shadow of a CCTV camera Joe Thwaites looms large over a London street. See pages 10- 11. Photo: Metro Centric/flickr CC:BY. Bottom, a 17 Friends & Meetings cell at Theresienstadt concentration camp. Photo: protectorrr/flickr CC:BY. See page 13. 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It came about as a ask all the daft questions she never they got an enormous amount joint enterprise between Quaker normally would have asked’, says from the conversations with the Life of Britain Yearly Meeting and Ginny. ‘She said “it was like having companions. One new Friend Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre my own captive elder”, which made said that “instead of just sounding after both had a high level of me realise we needed a way of nosey, it gave me a good excuse to demand for educational materials giving people “permission” to ask do what I wanted to do anyway”, from people who were still very those supposedly daft questions.’ and if anything sums up what new to the Society. So Becoming Friends was Becoming Friends is about, it is ‘It’s about what happens after developed: a set of online and that quote.’ outreach’, says Helen Rowlands printed learning materials in open- Woodbrooke courses for new of Woodbrooke; ‘for people who ended, interlinked units, designed companions are now taking have attended a Meeting and feel a to be used by Friends in pairs of bookings, and the Becoming connection, and then want to know enquirer and ‘companion’ with Friends programme will begin how they can become part of the more experience of the Society, across the country in January. life of the Meeting’. ‘Previously’, who would generally have attended ‘It’s always been hard for people says Quaker Life general secretary a course at Woodbrooke. ‘The to know where to start’, says Richard Summers, ‘new attenders companion is not there to teach,’ Richard, ‘as we don’t have Catholic with questions would be told says Helen Rowlands, ‘but to catechism classes or the specific to talk to someone at their own walk alongside, to discuss and to techniques of Buddhism. This Meeting – but this didn’t guarantee facilitate interactions with others provides that structure, but in a they would find coherent answers when they’re needed’. very Quaker way, very flexible and to their specific questions’. Trials of the materials took open to the individual – giving As such, Woodbrooke and place over five months this year people the opportunity to be Quaker Life together tasked with around fifty people in six authentically themselves as they Ginny Wall with researching and Meetings across Britain Yearly learn.’ responding to new Friends’ needs. Meeting, including both the newest One of the key moments in her of enquirers and those who’d Joe Mugford Union branch backs Friends’ same-sex marriage decision Actor inspires A branch of the Unite trade union has passed a resolution supporting Britain students at school Yearly Meeting’s minute regarding same-sex marriages, and pushing for its Actor and world traveller Charley principles to be enshrined in British law. Secretary Mary O’Brien described Boorman with current Sibford school the LE/524 branch as ‘a large voluntary sector branch which has most of the students. Charley attended the school from national charities and campaigning organisations as its members’. 1980 to 1983 Its resolution says: ‘This branch welcomes the decision of British Quakers and recently to support the principle of celebrating and affirming same sex marriages; revisited it to asks all working for Unite in the field of Equalities to support this initiative; highlight how asks Unite sponsored MPs to seek amendment to current legislation so that his time there partnerships between a woman and a woman, or a man and a man, celebrated had helped in a religious context can be legally processed and recognised in the same way him deal with as opposite sex marriages.’ his dyslexia. the Friend, 23 October 2009 3 News Friends ‘stand up’ to democratic representatives on poverty issues Friends across the country ‘stood Friends have been joining forces discussion on the spiritual side up’ last weekend as part of the with representatives of groups such of the issue. We talked about the three day Stand Up campaign as Christian Aid and Catholic aid conflict between insistence on coordinated worldwide by the agency CAFOD to lobby MPs and endless growth with the need to Global Call to Action Against candidates; each group has been look towards a more convivial and Poverty (GCAP) movement. As emphasising their own part of the sustainable lifestyle, and how that well as the symbolic act of literally message, for example Christian requires a change of mind as much standing up, repeated in homes, Aid focusing on tax issues and as of habits. Tony was in agreement public spaces, schools and churches Quakers on environmental policy, with us on the need for grassroots around the world, participants but the intention in this alliance new ways of thinking.’ also lobbied their democratic is to show a united front at a vital David Turner of Edinburgh representatives on the subject time. ‘It’s a matter of pushing at Meeting also felt that a useful of global poverty – and, in the an open door in some cases’, said conversation took place when he, case of Quakers, on the need to Sunniva. ‘The idea of 0.7 per cent another Friend and five Christian connect development issues with of GNP [Gross National Product] Aid activists met their Labour a robust approach to combating going to development aid by 2013 candidate Sheila Gilmore for a climate change in the run-up to the is now very current, for example. Christian Aid coffee morning. ‘She Copenhagen summit in December. The Conservatives have promised was very well informed’, he told ‘Stand Up is essentially the that (as Labour have already the Friend, ‘although we did have legacy of the Make Poverty History done), but Labour went one better doubts about how much this was campaign’, explained Sunniva and promised that it would be from her own work or whether Taylor of Quaker Peace & Social enshrined in law, so we have to she had simply been well briefed; Witness (QPSW). ‘In 2005, around make sure that this stays on the however, she made very interesting the Gleneagles [G8] summit, agenda.’ points, about how politicians won’t people took to the streets and the Simon Bond of Maidenhead take action unless their electorate campaign was very high profile, Meeting teamed up with a local is pushing them, and about how a and this is about maintaining the CAFOD supporter to meet their positive message is very important momentum. It has one great factor Liberal Democrat parliamentary because talking too much about in campaigning terms, which is candidate Tony Hill.