Story sources:
Parliamentary report: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmworpen/58/58.pdf
London Pathways Partnership: http://www.lpp-pd.co.uk/
Friends House Hospitality: https://www.friendshouse.co.uk/news/partnering-london-pathways-partnership-help-ex-offenders

Street scene during Trump inauguration protests. Photo: Reana Kovalcik/flickr/CC

“He is a Quaker, and he acted like one throughout. He was completely nonviolent and always acted that way and spoke that way.” This is what lawyer April Downs told the Huffington Post after her client Casey Webber was found not guilty of charges that could have led to a sentence of up to 80 years imprisonment for his involvement in a protest against Donald Trump.

The charges had been brought against Casey and over 200 others after protestors smashed windows in Washington DC on the day of Donald Trumpâ€s inauguration in 2017. After a series of acquittals and dropped charges, prosecutors continued with cases against just under 60 defendants. So far one has pled guilty, ten have had charges dropped and 47 more are still facing prosecution or are mid-trial.

Casey is a baker who was reported in the Washington Post in 2017 as saying that his role in the protest was as a medic, helping others, when he was arrested.

Last year, Casey gave a talk to Chapel Hill Quaker Meeting in the US about “Quakerism, Anarchism and Pacificism”. Casey was brought up as a part of the Chapel Hill Quaker Meeting and he attended youth events there and Southern Appalachian Young Friends retreats during his high school years. He drew on similarities between Quakers and Anarchists, such as the large amount of time spent in meetings. He told the Quakers that many anarchists in Washington DC fund themselves with working class jobs and spend a lot of time in direct action to help the disadvantaged. Casey estimated that he spends around 30 hours per week in such activities, including organising a free school for people who cannot afford a traditional education, on top of his full-time job.

“Basically all I know that the anarchists do is they read books, they make phone calls, they hand out food to the homeless,” explained Casey. But it is not an easy path to take: “Doing good works is not supposed to be easy. It’s exhausting, it’s tiring.”

Casey encouraged the Quakers to support people, those who are hurting, and the community directly. “It’s very good to leave our comfort zone to help those who are hurting,” he said

In February 2017 Chapel Hill Quaker Meeting had agreed in a business meeting minute to send a letter to the United States Attorneyâ€s Office, challenging the legality of the arrest and asking for all charges to be dropped. They explained that they teach values in their Quaker meeting of simplicity, peace, integrity, community and equality and that they are “proud of the way that Casey exemplifies these values”.

The meetingâ€s letter concluded: “Casey is a model to us in the way that his sense of community so clearly encompasses the most oppressed in our society. This is a goal toward which we Quakers strive, though we often fall short.”

Story sources:
Ryan J Reilly, Huffington Post: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-inauguration-trial-j20_us_5b155d5be4b010565aae50d4
Chapel Hill Friends newsletters: http://www.chapelhillfriends.org/
Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/protesters-who-destroyed-property-on-inauguration-day-part-of-well-organized-group/2017/01/21/096678c8-dfeb-11e6-ad42-f3375f271c9c_story.html

The Norwegians†Society of Friends began in 1814 when released Norwegian prisoners from prison ships in England returned home and began silent meetings for worship in Stavanger and Oslo (which was known then as Christiania). The Norwegians had been prisoners of the Napoleonic wars and had been held in ships along the Thames. They suffered years of hardship while prisoners but around 20 returned home and began to practise their new religious convictions having had support and friendship from English Quakers.

However, this was not the first Quaker presence in the country. Norwayâ€s Quaker history goes much further back with the first Quaker visits to the country believed to have taken place around 1657/8.

Today, Norwegian Quakers†faith and practice is similar to that of most other members of the Friends World Committee for Consultation Europe and Middle East Section. There are around 150 Quakers in Norway and they have a regular publication Tidsskriftet Kvekeren (Quaker Journal).

Norwegian Quakers meet in Oslo and Stavanger every Sunday, in Kristiansand on alternate Sundays, in Farsund/Mandal on third Sundays, in Bergen on first Sundays and in Trondheim and in Bo in Telemark by arrangement.

The Norwegian Quaker Press has published around 70 books and pamphlets since it was set up in 1978.

“Closely related to the need to understand and learn tolerance is the understanding of mutual respect, or what Quakers have traditionally described as ‘finding that of God in every manâ€,” said Tony Baldry. “I have visited primary and secondary schools in my constituency for more than a third of a century, and my impression is that schools are extremely good at seeking to promote mutual respect among pupils.”

Tony Baldry added: “Nothing in what the government propose should be seen as being in any way intended or likely to be anti-Muslim because it seeks to promote British values.” He also went on to quote the queen and suggest that another British value is that of “loving oneâ€s neighbour as oneself, accepting personal responsibility and accepting responsibilities to oneself, oneâ€s family and the community in which we find ourselves.”

Tony Baldry is no stranger to Quakers and the Quaker faith. His mother was a Quaker and he attended Leighton Park, a private school in Reading with Quaker connections. In a debate on the situation in Gaza earlier this year he said: “I went to a Quaker school, so I have always taken an interest in international development and humanitarian affairs.” In a 1999 debate he said: “I am fortunate in having a Quaker mother and a Quaker background” and in a 1985 debate he said: “I was educated at a Quaker school run by a religious minority”.

Other recent mentions of Quakers in parliament include reference, by Jill Pitkeathley, to a briefing prepared by Quakers in a discussion about the role of the voluntary and charitable sectors; reference, by Mike Watson, of Quaker conscientious objectors to military service; and a mention by Patrick Cormack of Quaker meeting houses in a discussion about the importance of the local parish church.

The Trident Commission was set up by the British American Security Information Council (BASIC) and funders include the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and the Ploughshares Fund. The commission is expected to find that the nuclear deterrent remains vital to prevent the UK suffering ‘nuclear blackmailâ€, according to a report in the Independent. The commission is also expected to state that the final decision on replacement of the UKâ€s nuclear weapons should be delayed for 2 years and that keeping nuclear weapons works as a contribution to NATO. The commission is headed by politicians Malcolm Rifkind, Menzies Campbell and Desmond Browne.

The Quaker-led Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust traditionally backs organisations that are working for a nuclear weapons-free world so it may be seen as unusual that a JRCT-funded organisation has produced a report that gives the impression of supporting the possession of nuclear weapons. The traditional JRCT stance is reflected in recent grants of £50,000 to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and £90,000 to the European Leadership Network for its ‘Top Level Group†of UK parliamentarians for multilateral nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. The trust also recently gave over £150,000 to the Nuclear Information Service, which ‘works to promote public awareness and foster debate on nuclear disarmament and related safety and environmental issuesâ€. JRCT recently funded BASIC with £200,000.

Quakers in Britain stated in a media release on 30/06/2014 that they “strongly disagree with the conclusion of a report published tomorrow that says the UK should retain its nuclear deterrent. Quakers say that Trident is a relic of the cold war and that the Trident Commission has failed to consider the legal obligations of the UK under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to negotiate in good faith for the elimination of nuclear weapons.”

Helen Drewery, general secretary of Quaker Peace & Social Witness said: “The Trident Commission has failed to properly consider alternatives to Trident. These are weapons of mass destruction which can never be used and have proved to be a poor deterrent against acts of terror or against recent political events. Trident is a relic of the cold war.”

Quakers are disappointed that the report is not expected to address the legal and moral obligations of the UK under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to negotiate in good faith for the elimination of nuclear weapons.

Helen Drewery added: “In 1955 Quakers said ‘To rely on the possession of nuclear weapons as a deterrent is faithless; to use them is a sinâ€. Quakers in Britain hold fast to that statement. We reject the notion that war is inevitable and advocate putting resources into nonviolent ways of solving conflict. Genuine security comes from the recognition of the inherent worth of every person in a society free from the threat of violence.”

Paul Ingram of BASIC explained that the report will be owned by the commissioners and does not necessarily reflect BASICâ€s position. He also said that the report may contain surprises for those “who care to read it” once it is published.

“We stand resolutely by the publication of the Trident Commissionâ€s final report as a valuable contribution to the debate in this country at this crucial moment in the renewal cycle,” explained Paul. “We expect it to stimulate a deeper level of discussion around the national security framework.”

Speaking on the programme, funeral poverty campaigner Heather Kennedy said: “Thereâ€s this Victorian legacy of shame around not being able to give someone that you loved a decent send off so someoneâ€s quoted a certain price and people will move hell and high water to try and come up with the money.”

Almost one in five people struggle to pay for a funeral and costs have risen by 80% over the past 10 years, well above the cost of inflation. At the same time, government support for people who face financial difficulty when paying for a funeral has been eroded.

The problem is not going away. According to the annual Sunlife Direct survey on funeral costs, the cost of dying rose by 7.1% between 2012 and 2013. Quaker Social Action reports seeing a marked year-on-year increase on people coming to them for help as they try to deal with funeral costs.

Since 2011 Quaker Social Action has run a service, Down to Earth, which helps people on low incomes in East London to arrange a meaningful and affordable funeral service. However, recognising that little was being done to tackle the growing problem of funeral poverty, Quaker Social Action is working at every level from grass roots campaigning, collaborating with professional bodies and influencing policy makers and parliament, to raise awareness and seek solutions to end funeral poverty.

You and Yours featured a woman, Kristina, who had suffered debt from paying for her motherâ€s funeral. When her mother became ill she looked after her and checking the cost of a funeral in advance had not occurred to her. “Itâ€s the last thing on your mind, checking the prices of how much a funeral director was going to cost you.” Although she got some state help, the average Social Fund Funeral payment is around £1,200 so it was only about a quarter of the cost of her motherâ€s funeral. She saved money by: “Choosing a cheaper coffin, less flowers and little details made a huge difference. It put me in a lot of debt, with funeral costs and a baby coming along. Iâ€m still paying off some of the costs.”

The ingrained association that people have with spending money to show their love and care for someone came through in the programme when the presenter asked Kristina: “What did you do to keep the cost down, without being disrespectful to your mumâ€s memory and to other members of the family?” The idea remains that you must spend in order to show your respects. However, another woman had emailed into the programme that she was so shocked by the cost of her own motherâ€s funeral that she went out and picked some wild flowers to help keep the cost down. She said that her mother would have appreciated the gesture as it was done with love.

On the programme Heather Kennedy explained that arranging a funeral always comes at a difficult time: “When people are bereaved theyâ€re on the back foot in terms of making decisions and often people donâ€t realise that there are huge differences in what funeral directors will charge. So the first thing that we always say to people is to shop around and take a bit of time to think things through.”

Meanwhile, the organisers of the Ideal Funeral Show in Birmingham in September were quoted last month as having chosen Bournville as their venue because of its Quaker links.

“They had a reputation for progressive management and embracing ideas ahead of their time,” said a spokesperson speaking to the Birmingham Mail. “We particularly like the way they put emphasis on making this world better rather than pondering what happens after leaving it. We respect the Quaker commitments to social justice, environmental consciousness and community.”

The You and Yours programme is available for a week after first broadcast to be heard again at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b046p07g (the feature on funeral costs starts approximately 27 minutes in).

The film, “Engage: the military and young people” is set to launched on Thursday 26/06/2014 with the first showing taking place at Friends House in London. Commissioned by campaigning organisation ForcesWatch and made by young people from youth charity Headliners, the film shows that many young people are critical of the way the military is promoted in schools and gives voice to young people considering issues around the militaryâ€s youth engagement activities including the cadets. Young people featured in the film include air cadets and members of the Woodcraft Folk. The film was part-financed through crowd funding and was backed my organisations and individuals, including Quakers.

Last week the Department of Education announced that it is committing £1 million (with match funding) to support the expansion of the Combined Cadet Force (CCF) in state schools. The funds are in addition to over £10 million committed to establishing 100 new CCF units by 2015 and almost £5 million allocated to military activities for ‘disengaged pupilsâ€.

ForcesWatch, who commissioned Engage: the military and young people, are concerned that the expansion of cadet units, and other military-led activities, in schools serves as a soft recruitment tool and training programme for the armed forces and question whether the promotion of military activities within education is appropriate. However, the Ministry of Defence and Cadet Forces Associations deny there is a recruitment link despite other official sources which suggest a strong recruitment purpose.

Emma Sangster from ForcesWatch, said, “A great deal of money is being spent promoting the military in schools when other education and youth resources are being cut. This film suggests that many young people are critical of military activities in their schools and the motivations behind it. It also shows that, while participation in cadet activities may benefit some young people, it also makes them more likely to be recruited into the armed forces. As the cadets are clearly a recruitment tool, we do not believe that they should be promoted in schools.”

Last weekend peace campaigners in Wrexham held a “peace presence” alongside the town’s armed forces day, which was promoted by the local council and featured opportunities for children and young people to pose with weapons and try on military clothing and armour. The event was set to include jugglers and circus workshops as well as a fly past and a parade through the town.

The ForcesWatch event at Friends House will include speakers from Headliners and the Woodcraft Folk, and ex-soldier and founder of Veterans for Peace UK, Ben Griffin.

Meanwhile, War Resisters’ International is also running a crowd funding campaign in an effort to raise £1,000 to finish work on their Handbook for Nonviolent Campaigns.

In the build up to the 2014 event The Guardian ran an article with festival organiser Michael Eavis answering questions from famous people.

Jeremy Deller, who included ‘the Quaker movement†in his acknowledgments when he won the Turner prize for art in 2004, asked “Has your familyâ€s Quakerism had an effect on the festival?” Earlier in the article Michael had explained that his family was Methodist but he had a Quaker uncle – “he was a big influence.”

But the Quaker connections didnâ€t end there. “Quakerism also had an influence in that the Clarks [the shoe-making family, from Street in Somerset] are Quakers. My great-grandfather rented a farm from them. The non-conformist, Quaker thing was strong in mid-Somerset, and the Clarks had an influence on the politics and the planning of the neighbourhood.” He added that the festival: “succeeded only because of the support and influence of the Clarks and the Quaker/Methodist non-conformism here.”

The Quaker influence on Michael Eavis was published in The Guardian just a week after columnist Charlie Brooker wrote about his own Quaker upbringing.  He wrote: “I was raised a Quaker, but only in a relaxed donâ€t-fret-too-much-about-the-God stuff kind of way.” In another column in 2004 he wrote “Iâ€m a Quaker”. Perhaps the latest column suggests that Charlie no longer directly self-identifies as a Quaker.

As well as Jeremy Deller, other contemporary artists with Quaker connections include Wolfgang Tillmans and Martin Creed.

Yearly Meeting clerk Chris Skidmore explained that there were both positives and negatives to take from the situation. “It is heartening to have such a huge response but extremely disappointing to turn away Friends,” he said. “It is our experience that Friends across Britain will be upheld and strengthened by Yearly Meeting Gathering, whether or not they can be physically present.”

The announcement that YMG was full was originally posted on the Quaker Life Network Facebook page, revealing that there are up to 500 more people booked to come than at previous residential gatherings and although they have extended the capacity to fit the numbers booked they are no longer allowing any more day visitors or residents to attend.

Quakers reacted with delight to the news on social media sites. However, the decision to tell people who arenâ€t booked in not to come may run contrary to the yearly meetingâ€s own constitution, which states that “all members of the yearly meeting have the right to attend and to take part in its deliberations.”

The theme of YMG is “what it means to be a Quaker today” focusing on what it means to be a Friend in membership and what it means for attenders who have chosen not to come into membership. In preparation for YMG, Quakers are being asked: “How does your being a member or not a member affect your feeling of commitment and belonging to your Quaker meeting and the broader Quaker community, and how do you think it affects your meetingâ€s relationship with you?” and “If you are in membership, you might also like to think about what changed for you, and in you, when you became a member. Did you feel different, perhaps even transformed?”

Also on the agenda during the week is the tabular statement – the annual record of the numbers of members, attenders, children and marriages in Quaker meetings across Britain Yearly Meeting, and is received by yearly meeting each year. Last year, yearly meeting asked the recording clerk to work with Meeting for Sufferings and area meetings to experiment with new ways of gathering and presenting information about our patterns of membership.

Commemoration of world war one is on the agenda as the 100^th anniversary of the start of the war falls during YMG and is being seen as an opportunity for British Quakers to recommit to the peace testimony.

Meticulous planning goes into each yearly meeting gathering event with local and national organisers starting preparations years in advance. Arrangements also enable those attending to keep all their home comforts with participants able to make a shopping order in advance so that Quakers donâ€t have to go without their fennel, clotted cream or free range duck eggs while staying on site.

YMG runs from 02/08 to 09/08/2014 and Quakers in Britain will post updates on their website as the week progresses and through their Twitter account, @BritishQuakers. They are encouraging people to use the hashtag #ymg14 on social media in connection with YMG.

The full statement posted on the Quaker Life Network Facebook page reads:

“Yearly Meeting Gathering is full!

Dear Friends,

Can you share the following information with Friends in your meeting.

Yearly Meeting Gathering is full!
If you are not booked please donâ€t come. We have been delighted by the numbers of Friends who have booked for Yearly Meeting Gathering, we have 400-500 more Friends booked to come than at our previous residential gatherings. We have extended our capacity to fit the numbers booked but reluctantly we can take no more day visitors or residents.

In Friendship,
The YMG Team”

C&J Clark International Ltd, known as Clarks, has faced widespread criticism from shoppers who object to the slogans in its stores that say “Because boys test their shoes to destruction, so do we” in big blue lettering and “Because girls love comfort and style, we design both into our shoes” in big pink lettering.

The Clarks company is facing opposition in the form of a petition about the perceived sexism on change.org. The petition calls on Melissa Potter, the chief executive of Clarks, to remove all sexist signage from their shops “so that our children can be who they want to be”. Quakers James and Cyrus Clark founded the company in 1825 and today Clarks is one of the few companies that retains strong Quaker connections. Most other major Quaker family owned businesses, such as Cadbury’s and Rowntree’s, have lost all or most of their Quaker identity through corporate ownership and takeovers

Among those who had signed the petition, a mother from Exeter wrote on change.org that she had signed it “because I do not want my daughter to be hemmed in by social-cultural boundaries that dictate how she should behave as a girl, and later as a woman.” Another woman from Birmingham wrote that she had signed: “because this is 2014 and I thought Clarks would be more enlightened than this lazy sexist advertising.” The subject is being discussed on Twitter with the hashtag #letshoesbeshoes.

But fans of Clarks have come to their defence on Facebook. One woman posted on Clarks†Facebook wall that “There is nothing wrong with your advertising. For heavenâ€s sake, people in this country are going mad. Girls and boys are different.”

While there is no creed in the Quaker faith, many British Quakers draw inspiration from their book, Quaker Faith & Practice, which includes a section on social responsibility. A 1986 passage from Pauline Leader is included in this section. She wrote: “we are all equal in our shared humanity. Sexism does violence to this important insight, as it does to individuals of either sex who are seeking to find themselves and express themselves in the world.”

Meanwhile, a general welcome to visitors to the Clarks†website from Melissa Potter states: “Responsible business is good business, and vice versa. And that’s why behaving responsibly is important to us. It also comes as second nature, compelled by enduring values shaped by the Clarks family ethos – an inherent willingness to do the right thing for consumers, shareholders, employees and the community alike.”

Now customers and Quakers will be waiting to see how Clarks responds to the accusations.