the1 January 2021 Friend| £2.00 Nothing really matters Meeting House & Charity Insurance We are Chartered Insurance Brokers providing specialist advice with the right support As we are currently living through dicult times and navigating our way through unforeseen territories on a daily basis, we want to let you know that we are still committed to oering you the same high level service that you are accustomed to. Thank you for the help and excellent service you provided. I, personally was impressed with the quick and positive response you achieved. Colwyn Bay Quakers We are proud to be accredited by the Good Business Charter – an accreditation which recognises responsible business practices. At a time when people are caring more about who they work for and who they buy from, the Good Business Charter recognises organisations which prioritise and care for their employees, the environment, customers and suppliers, whilst also paying their taxes according to the spirit of the law. Discover what we can do for you. T: 01564 730 900 Happy New Year E: [email protected] www.edwardsinsurance.co.uk from all of us Edwards Insurance Brokers is a trading name of David Edwards Insurance Brokers Ltd which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Registered in England & Wales: 5055612. Registered Office: Stonebridge House, Kenilworth Road, Meriden, CV7 7 L J the INDEPENDENTFriend QUAKER JOURNALISM SINCE 1843 1 January 2021 | Volume 179, No 1 www.thefriend.org Letters 4 Trust issues 6 Trustees and treasurers meet Fred Ashmore Thought for the week 7 (Im)perfect sense Kate McNally Nothing really matters 8 Addressing busyness Stephen Feltham Only human 10 Isolation and the bereaved Louise Rendle An oversight 12 What’s in a name? Celia Waterhouse Review 13 The Black Book Peter Spiers Review 14 Small Axe Rebecca Hardy Poem 16 Circles Dana Littlepage Smith Friends & Meetings 18 Shall a cloudy sky, a little wet, a little cold, a little ease to the flesh, a view to a little earthly gain, or any common incident, furnish an excuse for declining this duty [of Meeting], and thereby depriving ourselves of the blessed advantage, often vouchsafed to the faithful, of enjoying heavenly communion together in spirit with the Lord of life and glory? Yearly Meeting in London, 1765 From Quaker faith & practice 2.43 Clough, principal investigator theFriend Letters for the project and professor of 173 Euston Road Theological Ethics at Chester London, NW1 2BJ University. 020 7663 1010 Churches and other Christian www.thefriend.org institutions in the UK are The Friend welcomes your views, influential in agricultural policy. to [email protected]. Please Subscriptions For example, the CEFAW website keep letters short. We particularly UK £95 per year by all payment mentions that Church of England welcome contributions from types including annual direct bishops take twenty-six seats children, written or illustrated. debit; monthly payment by in the House of Lords and the direct debit £8; online only £74 Please include your full postal Church of England owns 105,000 per year. Contact Penny Dunn: address, even when sending acres of farmland. Much of 020 7663 1178 emails, along with your Meeting church interests are invested in [email protected] name or other Quaker affiliation. food producers and retailers. Hopefully, this kind of influence In essentials unity, Advertising within Christian churches and in non-essentials liberty, Contact George Penaluna: organisations will encourage and in all things charity. 01535 630230 broaden an ethical and sustainable [email protected] view of farming in the UK. Animal farming change The new Agriculture Bill passed Editorial Animal farming is undergoing on 11 November 2020 may also Articles, images, correspondence change and uncertainty due to the help. It allows funding to support should be emailed to UK leaving the EU and increasing smaller farmers who work [email protected] environmental and animal according to animal welfare and or sent to the address above. welfare concerns. Christian environmental considerations, Ethics of Farmed Animal Welfare rather than owners of intensive Editor (CEFAW) is a project started in farms. The CEFAW framework Joseph Jones autumn 2018 involving thirteen policy document is available via Journalist partners from Christian churches its website. Rebecca Hardy and other organisations to agree Julie Hinman Production and office manager a policy framework in relation to Sussex West Area Meeting Elinor Smallman animal welfare. Site visits were Simplification, status, aid Sub-editor made prior to deliberations, for George Osgerby information on what raising I was a representative from animals means for the farmers, Southern Marches Area Meeting Arts correspondent farm workers and animals. (AM) that wrote the Symud Rowena Loverance Quaker Concern for Animals Ymlaen (Moving Forward) report Environment correspondent (QCA) attended the launch of to which Carolyn Sansom (20 Laurie Michaelis the finished policy framework November 2020) refers. (See Clerk of trustees document on 18 November 2020 our website or the video https:// Lis Birch and is one of the partners helping youtu.be/yrnhypiZJw0 for a to produce this, together with the lighter touch.) This is about the ISSN: 0016-1268 Methodist, Anglican, Catholic, simplification of the governance Pan Orthodox and United structure of the four AMs that The Friend Publications Limited Reform Churches, the Churches have Meetings in Wales and is a registered charity, of England Scotland and Wales, Meeting of Friends in Wales by number 211649 Veterinarian Christian Fellowship, the merger of the five charities to Compassion in World Farming, form one new one. Printed by PastureFed Livestock Association Inevitably the question arose Warners and research partners from about charitable status. The Midlands Plc, Chester University. advice we were given is that if The Maltings, It is the result of a collaboration you want to open a bank account, Manor Lane, of ethical and practical farming own property, take out insurance, Bourne, considerations with a broad carry out activities with children Lincolnshire range of views. Not easy, but and vulnerable people, then we PE10 9PH skilfully guided by David need to be a legal entity, which 4 the Friend 1 January 2021 means an individual, a charity or heartfelt approval of the sentiments to both sides, given determination company. The charity option seems expressed in Pete Duckworth’s and goodwill a solution is possible. to fit best because our primary letter (13 November 2020). It is a Armed with the same attitudes that purpose is the ‘advancement of timely and long overdue reminder led to agreement in these ninety- religion’, which is seen as being of of our Quaker values. It’s at a time seven per cent of cases one might public benefit in charity legislation. like this that we need to stand then expect to find ways leading Friends complain that since we up and protest at the massive to agreement that could be applied registered as charities our witness injustices that are being wrought to the three per cent of remaining to truth has decreased but as a upon our fellow humans. cases. church the Religious Society has We have been placing signs in Anyway, worth a try, offering the always had charitable status. All front windows on our terraced Brexit dispute to the Light. that has changed has been the houses in Cambridge since Harry Underhill requirement to register along March and have had so much Polegate Meeting, East Sussex with all other churches. We might positive feedback from passers-by, have decided to register only one including relief that they are not Woolman’s work on slavery charity, Britain Yearly Meeting, alone. It has been an opportunity I have been reading Janet but chose to make it complicated for face-to-face friendly contact Whitney’s biography of John requiring an enormous number of that so many are being denied. Woolman. In Woolman’s time trustees and treasurers. It’s been heartening to see a many US Quakers had slaves and I believe that the Charities Quaker presence in the London this greatly offended him. He had Act has improved charities’ protests and hopefully this will grown up on a farm in New Jersey transparency. Friends have always grow. where the whole family worked, set great store by truth and Janet and Annie Simpson and worked hard: the Woolmans integrity, so putting our financial Jesus Lane Meeting, Cambridge had no slaves. As a young man affairs and annual reports into the Woolman had skills in preparing public domain should be something Brexit and the Light legal documents, and he refused we welcome. The associated Modern science suggests that the to write a will for a fellow Quaker accountability is something we energy of mental thought can that included a paragraph which would want to encourage, rather influence events. Could Brexit be treated a slave as just a piece of than shy away from. an opportunity to give that thesis a property. He managed to convince Much charitable work could test run? the person that this was wrong and be said to be work that the Both sides in the Brexit dispute so the slave was liberated. government should be doing but have emphasised the problems On his first tour to Virginia and that is only partly true. I think the that they face in dealing with North Carolina in 1746 Woolman argument that we are diverting the other, which they claim are was upset by some of the Quaker money away from the work of unsurmountable. But the Irish farmers he visited. While the slaves government with regard to social prime minister, a leading figure were not treated cruelly, they only care is erroneous because we in Europe, says that solutions got just enough to eat.