The organisers of the annual meeting of Quakers in Britain, Yearly Meeting Gathering, have announced that this year’s event in Bath in 08/2014 is so full that people not booked to attend must not come. Over 1,900 people are booked to attend the event, meaning that the number of Quakers gathered together in Britain will…
Putting aside all the media coverage Quakers have received over same-sex marriage, the recent revelation about the nation’s favourite churches and every article that can’t help mentioning which banks were formed by Quakers, Quakers continue to pull in media coverage nationally and locally and often in passing. For example, there was a long feature in…
Two Quaker meeting houses have made it onto a list of the UK’s favourite churches. The list was chosen by a range of well-known people across the country including prime minister David Cameron, UKIP leader Nigel Farage, mayor of London Boris Johnson and Britain Yearly Meeting recording clerk Paul Parker. The list was produced by…
Quakers have joined churches from across Britain and Ireland to send a joint letter to David Cameron, the UK’s prime minister, asking for an apology to poor people for misrepresenting them. The letter, signed among others by Paul Parker, recording clerk of Quakers in Britain, states that the government has been giving out misleading and…
By Stephanie Grant Why am I a Quaker? because it’s where God wants me to be, because it’s a place I can work out how to follow the teachings of Jesus without the rituals and creeds that troubled me in other churches, because I feel it’s where I belong, because it gives me a safe…
London-based charity Quaker Social Action (QSA) has won a national award for its anti-poverty work. QSA was one of five winners of The Guardian Charity Award for 2012, having been chosen from a field of almost 1,000 other entries. The award is given for Down to Earth, QSA’s work with bereaved families helping them to…
by Eleanor Coss Quaker Meetings for Worship are one of the things I find hardest to explain to people who have never experienced them. It sounds so dull: you sit in silence for an hour and try very hard not to think about what you’re going to have for lunch. Then someone stands up and…
by Simon Colbeck To answer this question like a Quaker I’ll start by saying “It depends what you mean by “why””. No single answer is enough. In one sense I’m a Quaker because my parents made the decision for me. They were quite religious people and when I was about ten they decided that the…
by Wess Daniels I found old school Quakerism in a place that may surprise my liberal unprogrammed F/friends, in an Evangelical Friends college that had largely forgotten its historical Quaker roots. I grew up a nominal Catholic and in my early teens my family began attending a charismatic Evangelical church. It was there that I…
By Sam Barnett-Cormack On my bag, I have a badge, and on social media, I have an avatar, and both say “I’m a Quaker – ask me whyâ€; that last one was just for Quaker Week, though. People are still slow to ask, but every little helps when letting people know what Quakers are really…