By Jez Smith The Quaker Socialist Society has announced that Ed Mayo, the general secretary of Co-operatives UK, will deliver the annual Salter Lecture at Friends House just before Britain Yearly Meeting on Friday 24/05/2013 at 4pm. Ed Mayo will deliver a lecture titled “Raise the Sails as the Wind is Changing – how radical…
Quakers were among protestors who faced arrest after blocking a street by the White House yesterday, the home of the US president Barack Obama. The Earth Quaker Action Team were at the protest to send a message to Barack Obama not to support the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and to request him to address…
by Philip Austin Set up after a peace conference of Quakers in the North in 01/1913, the Northern Friends Peace Board (NFPB) has undertaken a variety of work with and for Northern Friends, supported by funding and representatives from throughout the North of Britain. When, a couple of years ago, NFPB members began to think…
A benefits briefing for Quakers Introduction by Jez Smith: This benefits briefing is intended for Quakers as a reference point who have an interest in all the changes that are happening across the welfare state. It is not passing comment, but stands as an opportunity for those who are concerned about the changes to see…
by David Zarembka I suspect that we, my Kenyan wife, Gladys Kamonya and I, are Quakers who are members of the 1%. At least we are in my home town of Lumakanda in western Kenya. Here we are multi-millionaires in shillings, since there are 85 shillings to a US dollar so $11,764 makes one a…
By Caro Humphries Ordinary people can create extraordinary change. A pensioner started a petition to the government to cap interest rates charged by payday loan sharks. The campaign was championed by high-profile members of the House of Lords and the government has been pressured into taking action to regulate the industry. Campaigning organisation 38 degrees…
By Joel Wallenberg It seems that much of the world has come to a consensus over the last few years: the banking industry has made some rotten decisions, and somehow it’s managed to muck up a whole lot of our personal finances in the process. But surprisingly, there has been very little activity on the…
by Julia Lim In this short and engrossing book, Small change big deal, Jennifer Kavanagh explores some of the major themes in recent spiritually- and ethically-based thinking about the problematic nature of our current financial systems. She does this through writing about a very specific area: the microcredit schemes developed by Mohammed Yunus (Grameen Bank),…
Class and environmental nonviolent direct action for Friends: an introduction to this article by British Quaker Sam Walton Class and nonviolent direction aren’t usually discussed in the same article, but American Quaker George Lakey thinks they should be. And he should know, he’s led over 1,500 workshops on five continents; training coal miners, homeless people,…
by Jez Smith Over £11bn for 18 days of sport. It is quite a tough one to accept, that. And particularly as a Quaker trying to live out a value of equality. To me equality means seeking, finding and giving the Light in everyone the opportunity to shine. In practical terms this means giving everyone…