WEST SOMERSET AREA

QUAKER MEETING NEWSLETTER

AUGUST 2008

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Andy Andrews had his hundredth birthday earlier this year and is a veteran of the Spanish Civil War and Dunkirk. Andy is the oldest member of Taunton Peace Group. Weather permitting he'll be attending the Hiroshima Vigil on his Peace Buggy.

 

COPY DATES – A week after Area Meeting, please,

so that the Newsletter is available for Preparative Meetings

 

 

There will be

A Meeting for Worship

To give thanks for the life of

Doris Flatt

On Saturday September 6th at 3 pm

At Wellington Meeting House

Followed by light refreshments

Everyone welcome

 

 

 

EXPERIENCING THE PALESTINIAN SITUATION AT FIRST-HAND

 

Gian Zuccelli of Minehead Meeting went on a Christians Aware study tour to Israel and Palestine in May. Two extracts from his diary are below. He has reported to his own meeting and is very willing to talk to others about his experiences and his concern for the Palestinians.

 

3rd May :

On to the village of Waah Foukin (population 1300) to visit a kindergarten. People there live on agriculture and handouts from various charities. Those locals who manage to obtain a work permit work in Israel - but permits are very difficult to get. Apparently the applicant must be over thirty five.

The road to the village is a settlers' road that displays only the names of Jewish settlements (in Hebrew). Apparently Palestinian towns and villages do not exist. This we found to be the case everywhere we drove. The roads in and out of the villages are very bad and mostly are situated lower than the settlers' good highways. As we travelled, we could see the new settlements, all built on high ground and on Palestinian land.

These settlements are ever expanding with people being attracted by very generous government incentives. They have all the facilities and are protected by the army 24/7. The water is rationed for the Palestinians but not for the settlers. The infrastructure available to the Palestinians is extremely poor whereas it is excellent for the settlers. I could not believe it when I was told that the Palestinians were expected to pay the same taxes as Israelis, yet the infrastructure left for them was almost non-existent.

We were told that the settlers often shoot at villagers down below from them when they farm their land. They also throw their rubbish and waste down onto the Palestinian olive groves….

 

6th May:

We arrived at the port of Haifa where we made the acquaintance of Archbishop Eliah Chacour, a Melchite Christian and famous author of the books "Blood Brothers" and "We Belong to the Land". When he was a young boy in Palestine, his family lost their home through demolition and were never able to return to it. His father helped him to become a priest, and it was from him that he learned the belief that he should not come to hate the Israelis. It is Eliah's unending love of Jesus that kept him going through his very difficult and hard life during the Israeli occupation.

 

I have met few people who are as inspiring and captivating as Eliah Chacour. He is a true Christian and, throughout his life, has maintained a standpoint which has won him countless friends all over the world.

During our chat with Eliah Chacour, he also warned us not to allow our experiences to make us see Israel as an enemy. He said that the world had far too many enemies already. Rather, we should be friends with them whilst remembering that at present the Palestinians need our understanding and friendship, with a special concern for work in order to achieve justice for both people.

Later that day we met Susan Nathan, a wonderful Israeli who also took the Palestinian plight to her heart. She has written books on the subject and tells us over a frugal lunch that the Israeli government is treating the deep wounds of the Jews with an emotional band aid. In her opinion Palestinians are completely discriminated against and find getting jobs extremely difficult. She is very ill but continues to work for the rights of the Palestinian people. This has made her many enemies in Israel but she too realises that justice does not come cheap.

 

 

ANNUAL HIROSHIMA DAY VIGIL FOR PEACE

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On Hiroshima Day, Wednesday Aug 6th local Quakers, the Taunton Peace Group, Somerset Campaign against Trident Renewal and others held a silent Vigil outside the Market House, Taunton.

In the face of widespread apathy and indifference (the potential slaughter of 280 million men, women and children is, after all, a discomforting and distressing scenario from which it is all too easy to avert one’s gaze) we consider it vital to keep this issue on the political radar by any means we can.

This annual gesture is one small gesture in a world where violence, fear and indifference proliferate. But small gestures are better than no gestures. 

All this has been said before but it needs to be repeatedly repeated. The threat of Nuclear Annihilation will not go away unless we make it go.

John Anderson. On behalf of Taunton Quakers and Taunton Peace Group.

 

Further information: Gillian Coe 01823 335733 John Anderson e.anderson487@btinternet.com

aug 08#3Picture sent from the Peace Group

 

Taunton Peace Group banner decorating the fence of the Trident Base at Faslane.

 

SPIRITUAL HEALING?

The words ‘spiritual healing’ may for some of us elicit various feelings of apprehension. This was the case for me in my earlier life.

How did I come to healing?

Firstly, I went to Claridge House on the recommendation of a Friend who was disabled from polio and a qualified psychotherapist, a graduate and a mystic. I undertook a course on healing there. My experience at Claridge House deepened my Quakerism and dispelled the fear of mystical experiences. Previously I had felt that mysticism was allied to a place in the psyche from whence I could not return, so I chose not to go there. I think our experience as Quakers and the spiritual discipline of Meeting, can lead us to be aware of the enormous potential of the mind and its capacity to access the Divine.

The book, “ Philosophical Inquiries into Mysticism” by Richard H Jones. www.Rufusjones.com describes mystical experience thus:

Mystical ways of life are various systems of values, action guides and beliefs oriented around certain interior experiences not described in terms of ‘sense experience or mental images.

In the past, I also rationalised other people’s personal accounts of healing as probably going to happen anyway or imagination on their part, and part of me still struggles to believe that miracles can and do happen.  I have heard lectures from qualified psychotherapists at the last Taunton Association of Psychotherapists’ yearly conference, who talked of people having a greater capacity towards being able to open up to the dimension of ‘ God’ or ‘Universal Energy’, in other words being more receptive to mystical experiences. That realm has unimaginable power and I believe also has the potential to change our lives both physically and mentally.

I now try to keep ‘open and protected’ with a mind open to possibilities, and to “close down” to those things I feel inappropriate.

There are two organisations that F/friends can belong to:

1. The Friends Fellowship of Healing, which has been in existence for about 70 years, is open to anyone who is interested and supportive of the idea of spiritual healing. Groups all round the UK meet to send distant or absent healing to those in need. There are also several ‘specialist’ prayer groups which are available to all. A journal, Towards Wholeness, is published three times a year for members.

Membership costs £10 a year, and currently there are just under eight hundred members.

 

2. The Quaker Spiritual Healers is a subsidiary group within the FFH which trains and insures people who wish to develop their potential as spiritual healers. As such they are fully insured under the auspices of the Alliance of Healing Associations. Membership (which is only valid if membership of the FFH is already held) costs £15 per person, or £11 for those over sixty. At present there are about sixty full healer members and the same number of probationer healers. If NFSH Members have taken the NFSH course and completed a supervised period after training, they are eligible to be recommended by two Friends to join QSH.

 

Both these organisations give a framework for people who want to explore openings to God/Universal Energy, and QSH also offers guidelines for working professionally.

While it is acknowledged that no-one can really teach people how to access higher realms, we can however, be guided to good practice and professional conduct.

Both can be accessed at www.quaker-healing.org.uk 

 Many healers have other qualifications. My own qualifications and CV of experience in a healing and a caring capacity are always available on request and I welcome enquiries.

Courses and retreats are organised and take place at various venues including Claridge House. Although Claridge House is some way from Somerset, the courses there have a special quality, and I recommend them to Friends.

 The Quaker Spiritual Healers who have given permission to register their names and are available for personal healing are as follows and have full insurance for contact healing :

Margaret Western 01460 74182

Zoe Ainsworth-Grigg 01823 275424 zoeainsworth@aol.com

In October Area Meeting, there will be an item on the agenda which is hoping to take Healing Meetings in the Area Meeting forward to encompass other Meeting Houses and I hope that Members and Attenders will be able to attend Area Meeting if at all interested or curious about the practice of Quaker Healing.

To a certain extent healing can be practised by anyone whose intentions are good, and in many ways a healing meeting is similar to a meeting for worship but with focused intentions. Opportunities to focus on healing areas of your life, the planet, and individuals are present in the communal healing environment. Then there are opportunities to receive healing from qualified healers within the framework of the Healing Meeting. I hope that if you are at all interested in taking healing meetings in your Local Meeting forward that you will contact me:

Zoe Ainsworth-Grigg 01823 275424

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A QUAKER BY CONVINCEMENT by his daughter Gillian

John was born in Portsmouth on 29th July 1913, the fourth child and only son of a naval cook, Percival Louis (Percy), and his young wife Mabel Helen (Nellie). Percy was one of about ten children whose father, John, was an agricultural labourer on the Hampshire/Sussex border, and Nellie, eight years his junior, was the daughter of a man who deserted his family and played as a “comedian” in the London music halls. Nellie was twenty nine years old when her son was born and subsequently went on to have her fifth and last child, another daughter, twelve years later. John’s early years were spent in Wallsend with his mother and next-up sister, Mollie Kathleen, since Percy was serving as ship’s cook throughout the First World War. John’s two eldest sisters, Ruth and Constance Olive (Greta), were left in the care of their mother’s sister, Aunty Marie, in Portsmouth, to continue their education. 

The family was reunited in Portsmouth at the end of the war, and Chief Petty Officer Blunden was demobilised in 1923, after twenty seven years of naval service. He invested his prize money in a smallholding in Sussex. John, a studious, bespectacled child, went by train every day to Shoreham Grammar School, where he learnt to play the violin, and won a school prize for English. He had early memories of being allowed to ride the horse that was employed on the smallholding to take the produce to market.

Money was very scarce during the 1920s and 1930s, but the three elder girls were sufficiently intelligent to become teachers and obtain work in small private schools. In addition, the family adopted a baby whom they called Peter, who came endowed with a considerable sum of money for his upbringing which assisted with the family finances. The two elder girls married at a young age, and, on leaving school in 1929, John joined the General Post Office in January 1930. Apart from his period of active service during World War II he remained employed in the Civil Service until his retirement in 1976.

During the 1930s John became a socialist. His mother died in 1937, aged just fifty two and John assumed much of the financial and family support of his youngest sister, Patricia, as well as his bereaved father.

John was with the British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk. He was not able to be evacuated from the beach at Dunkirk; instead, with a small group of soldiers he walked/got lifts 300 miles across northern France, being evacuated from St. Nazaire a fortnight after the main evacuation from Dunkirk. As the only French speaker in the party (he had passed his School Certificate in French), he negotiated with locals for food and sleeping quarters on everyone’s behalf. His sensitive temperament was permanently scarred by the horror of war; the ravages wrought on a civilian population; and witness of violent death; experienced at first hand. John missed boarding the troop ship HMT Lancastria by just a few hours, but witnessed with horror its bombing by enemy aircraft just outside the harbour, and the death of over 5,000 men, women and children. On landing in Plymouth from their overcrowded troop ship, John and his colleagues were ordered to say nothing of this catastrophic loss to prevent further loss of morale in England. John was hospitalised for some months after the evacuation and rejoined the Post Office after demobilisation on health grounds. He was subsequently seconded to the Air Ministry as a commissioned officer and served with the Air Ministry Audit Offices in Algeria, Italy and Cairo.

After returning home John resumed his education at Fircroft College in Birmingham, where he met his future wife, Enid Lilian Cowling. Enid was studying for a Diploma in Social Sciences at Birmingham University, and in residence at the Quaker College, Woodbrooke. Enid had served with the Friends Ambulance Unit and British Red Cross between 1944 and 1947, firstly in London and then, between 1945 and 1947, in Vlotho in North West Europe.

 Fircroft and Woodbrooke’s grounds abut on each other so there were many opportunities for social relations and courtship outside of formal lectures at the university. Their first date was a trip down a coal mine. “Enid, I hear they are getting up a visit to a coal mine, would you like to come with me?” He proposed on top of the Malvern Hills and they were married in 1950 in his wife’s home city of Plymouth. The post war housing crisis meant that the young couple were not able immediately to set up home together, and John continued his studies at University College, Southampton, winning further prizes, whilst living with his father, and Enid worked in a special school for children with cerebral palsy in Devon, living with her parents. Eventually Enid obtained work as a housekeeper (with on site accommodation for herself and her husband) at a settlement (Kingsley Hall) in the East End, and John worked for the Civil Service in Whitehall. Their first child, named for John’s youngest sister, was born in May 1953 in hospital in the East End. A few weeks after the birth of his daughter John took his family to live in a small village in Hampshire, Liss, where his father and sister Mollie were living. Securing promotion to Executive Officer with the Board of Trade, the whole family (there were three children by now) then moved to Cardiff, where John and his wife lived until his retirement.

During the period in Liss, John felt increasingly drawn to the Religious Society of Friends; a result both of his own and his wife’s war time and post war experiences. Convinced that war was never a solution to injustice he did three things: joined the Petersfield Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, commenced his Law degree as an external student with the University of London, and sent his three children to Sidcot School. John remained a Friend all his life, later joining Cardiff, Weston-super-Mare and Bridgwater Meetings as he lived in each of these towns. He graduated in 1970, winning Civil Service further education prizes for his endeavours. John’s love of learning continued throughout his life, especially in the fields of Church History and religious philosophy, hence his later involvement with the Salvation Army. He commenced the Cambridge Certificate in Religious Studies.

After retirement John and his wife moved to Worle, Weston-super-Mare, taking an active part in the life of the Quaker Meeting and wider community, as well as his soft fruit growing and jam making. His lifelong love of music was made more difficult due to his loss of hearing. His elder daughter married in the Friends Meeting House in Weston-super-Mare in 1988. After the death of his wife from cancer in 1989, John remained in Weston-super-Mare, taking much pride and enjoyment in his two grandchildren living in Bristol; his younger daughter and her nursing career, and subsequent marriage and children; and his son’s accountancy and other activities. He travelled widely and enjoyed the visits of his nieces and nephews. When his elder daughter moved to the North East in 1999, John took the opportunity to downsize and moved to a bungalow in Bridgwater, joining Bridgwater Meeting. Friends there recall that “in Meeting, when he spoke, it was always to the point and thought provoking.” He continued to read widely and remained politically active, writing to members of the Government and the local, national and Quaker press with his concerns on the UK’s defence, armaments, trade, and social services policies.

Registered blind in 2004/5, he continued to live in his own home with support from family, the Quakers, Salvation Army and Social Services until his final few months, when he moved to the North East to live with and then near his elder daughter. His other children visited often, and John derived support from visits, letters and phone calls from the local Salvation Army, Quakers, and family. A highlight was the visit of the Salvation Army band to his hospital bed in North Tyneside District General Hospital. Maintaining his faculties to the last, as his frailty and ill health increased, he often spoke of a desire to be at rest. On Monday, 21st July 2008, with the names of his beloved sisters on his lips, he died in North Tyneside District General Hospital. His final discernible words were “thank you.”

What love and strength betrayed by time and so abandoned by the end by all comfort. Only by looking at the whole day does it begin to make sense that darkness falls.        Phil Parratt.

REPORT ON THE LIFE OF MINEHEAD MEETING JULY 2007-JUNE 2008

We remain a group of twelve to twenty at Sunday morning meetings for worship though around thirty people are actively associated with the Meeting. A few new people have become part of this network in the past year and a few others have moved out for various reasons. We are glad for the former and wish the latter well in the new phases of their lives. Handling a resignation with care and love was a challenge. Holiday and other visitors enrich our meetings fairly often, and the visits of our Clerks’ grandchildren mean that a young people’s group is held several times a year and stimulates us in fresh ways.

Getting together for occasions other than meeting for worship is important for us, so evenings for discussion, hearing of travels and interests from members, enjoying “words and music”, a crafts group, the New Year social and excursions help to hold us together and to know each other better. Some of us joined in the ecumenical house groups for Lent and valued the meeting and sharing these make possible. A bi-monthly newsletter keeps us in touch with all these activities and provides reports and comments from members.

Three of our group enjoyed the weekend for attenders in Devon last September and two the AM weekend at Othona in May. One member and her daughter went to the YM Summer Gathering last year. We had a report on the FWCC Triennial in Dublin from a visiting Japanese Friend, Tayeko Yamanouchi. It is good for us to have these and other wider experiences feeding into our fellowship.

We made our responses to various national and local Quaker matters, enjoying meeting Mandy Goddard as our (then) Meeting for Sufferings representative as we shared our views on the long-term framework – we seem to be typical of most meetings now that the results are out. The discussions on financial sustainability in the AM helped us understand money and the Meeting and see the challenges ahead. A Saturday morning book sale was one fund-raising outcome. Another was putting up our lettings rates a little to keep up with inflation and increasing electricity costs. Our Meeting House continues to be well used by many groups but finding new ones is also important. We also hope that those who can will increase their personal donations to local and AM funds.

Two issues have made repeated appearances. Concern for the environment keeps us looking at our own practices and led us to suggest that Christians Together in Minehead do something together. A big “eco-day” in October is being organised at present as a result. Fair-trade is well supported with a regular stall; we have taken an interest in the local Community College’s link with a fair-trade tea co-operative in Uganda. Gian Zucchelli’s long-standing concern for the Palestinians has helped us learn more about their situation. In May, he went on a Christians Aware study visit to Israel and Palestine, on which he has reported to us fully. We are helped too by the presence in our Meeting of a member with family connections with Israel; so we are encouraged to realise something of the feelings present on both sides. A fund-raising supper held in February at the café which Gian and his wife run generated over £400 for bursaries for students at the Ramallah Friends Schools and a photo in our local paper. John and Louise Melbourne also went on a Christians Aware tour and re-visited Zambia where they had worked at one time. This too gave us first-hand insights into a different situation of need and another fund-raising opportunity.

Holding Quaker Quest in October entailed a lot of work, strong support from many in the meeting, good backing from the AM, some publicity and four excellent evenings. We hope we got a bit better known and a few people joined us in worship a few times afterwards. This year we will hold an arts and crafts exhibition during Quaker week and have an open evening about Minehead Meeting past and present. 

 Some repairs have been needed to the building during the year but nothing major. We polished it up high and low at a practical cleaning day. Trustees have sent a surveyor for the five-year check, however, so the news may be less good next year.

Looking ahead, there will be the need to find fresh people for some key roles and filling all the ones needed without overloading anyone as the Triennial appointments time comes up. Many of our members are very active in the local community, which is important, so trying not to overload anyone is a forthcoming challenge.

 

On behalf of Minehead Quaker Meeting, Chris and Christina M. Lawson, Clerks

 

The past is history, the future is a mystery; this moment is a gift. That’s why they call it the present.

Don’t look back in anger; don’t look forward in fear. Look around you in awareness.

 Thanks to Zoe Ainsworth-Grigg for these quotations.


PILGRIMAGES; 1938 AND 2008.


Seventy years ago my grandfather went on a Pilgrimage to Palestine and the surrounding area; he went as a Wesleyan Methodist lay preacher with a small group on a “Sunshine Tour”.
In May, in my seventieth year, Richard and I went on a Pilgrimage to some of the places he saw and recorded then - my equivalent of what the Muslims call their Hadj.

Our guide Joanne was a Catholic, our leader Liz, a Methodist.  We had with us a Catholic priest and a United Reformed minister who were licensed to perform communion together and a number of lay ministers, most of whom were women.  In our party of forty there was also a retired Anglican vicar, a sprinkling of atheists and agnostics and one Quaker.

Both Joanne and Liz have a deep knowledge of the region stretching back many years.  We met young men who knew them and who remembered Joanne from when they were children.  Liz has served in the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI), a group started by Quakers and now run by the World Council of Churches.

We stayed in Bethlehem for a week.  We were tourists and pilgrims and as such hardly noticed the checkpoints.  Hard to ignore though were the settlements on the surrounding hills and the separation wall.  This has been built totally around Rachel's tomb which cannot now be reached from the Bethlehem side.  The houses and restaurants and shops that used to do well here are now economically destroyed.  The people who live here,  Christians and Muslims, struggle daily  to earn a living in what used to be a prosperous and thriving community, and the consequent economic decline  follows a distinct pattern of  the way in which the continuous annexation of Palestine by Zionists  has  spread since 1938.

We visited most of the significant places which mark the life of Jesus, and worshipped there.  There was a crush of other pilgrims in Bethlehem and Jerusalem, many of whom come for a day and move on - after all, the country is very small. There is far too much to tell you everything but go and see for yourself.  You will not know unless you go.

As a group we had total freedom in the way we wished to join in various ways of worship (or not at all) and on bus journeys we were given insights and ministry from all denominations.  At one point we sang "Dear Lord and Father of Mankind" - one "Quaker" contribution to a memorable journey that day!  There were some wonderful voices among us.

There are two places which will remain in my mind; the road to Emmaus, deserted when we were there, brought the scene of Jesus walking with the two others, who did not as yet recognise him, vividly to life. The Sea of Galilee is still relatively unspoiled and we spent a time of silence on the lake in one of the “Jesus Boats”.

One final surprise; I found a striking picture of my grandfather in an old photograph in our hotel foyer.  He and his group were being rowed to a flying boat on the lake.  I have the photo he took of this seaplane at the time with a note that they flew in it from Galilee to Baghdad, the next leg of their journey. The staff and other pilgrims shared my amazement at this and I was able to show them more snaps he took. It is comforting to know that he, John Husk, who before the war was active in helping Jews leave France and come safely to England, is still present in the life of one of his grandchildren, and that both of us still follow in the steps of a young man, born in Bethlehem two thousand years ago, who continues in so many ways to actively work for peace in the world today.
 

Jennifer Bell The Cottage, Cadeleigh EX16 8HP Tel 01884 855313

 

SOUTH SOMERSET PEACE GROUP

JUST A NOTE TO SAY THAT THE PEACE GROUP WILL NOT BE MEETING IN AUGUST.

 

MINEHEAD MEETING

During Quaker Week we shall be holding an exhibition of Art, Crafts and Hobbies from Tuesday October 5th – Thursday October 7th. There will be articles for sale but the event will be mainly to share with each others interests and provide an outreach exercise.

On the evening of Thursday, October 7th there will be a talk on the past and present at Minehead Quakers.

Everyone welcome to both events.

 

Angela Birch

 

 

From A Memoir of John Bunyan, by John S. Roberts

(Printed sometime before 1884)

One of his visitors while in prison was a Quaker, who said. “Friend Bunyan, the Lord hath sent me to seek for thee, and I have been through several counties in search of thee; and now I am glad I have found thee.” His answer testifies that he was not wanting in a certain dry humour, although he did not exercise it frequently. “Friend,” he said, “thou dost not speak truth, in saying the Lord sent thee to seek for me; for the Lord knows that I have been in prison for some years, and if He had sent thee, He would have sent thee here direct.”

Contributed by Gillian Coe

MEETING FOR SUFFERINGS 5TH JULY 2008

 A personal and subjective reflection on the day.

 A triennial report was presented by a management team from The Retreat in York. (A Quaker mental health centre)
 

And what a fascinating list!

 

Before the main business of the afternoon the meeting agreed to send a letter to Rowan Williams at the York Conference conveying our support and compassion for his task of dealing with the potential schisms in the Anglican Communion over women bishops and homosexuality. We were all mindful of the issues in our own yearly meetings.

Defenseless under the night

Our world in stupor lies;

Yet, dotted everywhere,

Ironic points of light

Flash out wherever the Just

Exchange their messages:

May I, composed like them

Of Eros and of dust,

Beleaguered by the same

Negation and despair,

Show an affirming flame.

 

 SEPTEMBER 1, 1939 By W.H. Auden                 Martin Wall

 

aSALT COURSE, SUPPORTING LEADERS OF CHANGE

 TOWARDS FAIRER GREENER LIVING

SALT stands for Spiritual Activist Leadership Training. It is for people trying to bring change towards more sustainable, fairer, peaceful and loving living in Bristol. For campaigners, activists, professionals, good neighbours; anyone open to learning with others, get hands mucky, dream, be practical, still anxious minds. SALT is for people who believe that there is more to life than materialism and who have various ways of trying to source the light within, God, Buddha nature…there are various names.

David Mowat holds the group and leads some sessions, but, in order for the course to work, we are all both leaders and participants. The 2007 group found that it worked best by sharing in the leadership of design and content and the 2008 intake has carried this on. Need space to explore an issue? Present your findings to the group. Done a lot of yoga but have never led a session? Now’s your chance. Deeply involved in action which sometimes leaves you stressed and confused? Find some clarity and peace. Let the group be the opportunity for you to develop your leadership, your listening, your resolve and your skills. From past experience, the bond created in the group is a key driver for learning.

We rent a space in Barton Hill, Bristol or at The Hub, above the Arnolfini. We have an allotment to work on every time, David has music and art to offer, and you bring yourself and your skills. We set an agenda together and find out as we go along.

What’s costly about this course is not money but our commitment, our emotional energy. It’ll be rewarding as well as taxing if we all commit. A full day and an evening a month – ten meetings in the year is the current pattern. Financially, the cost you incur is the price of the food you bring, your transport and a donation towards shared overheads. We’re trying to find a non-money way of working.

Past experience suggests that Friday evening be taken with a shared meal followed by quality listening and sharing in ‘circle time’ as we build the group, ending with a meditation. Saturday begins with gardening followed by shared lunch, a skill-based workshop, a discussion, someone’s session they’ve offered, creative play (e.g. a dance or mural painting) and a shared spiritual practice. The design is up to the participants.

Two participants of the 2007 intake have written:

 

During the SALT course I found that everyone in the group was very supportive. I greatly appreciated the fact that people always readily offered resources of their own in order to help me resolve some of my personal concerns. I felt safe to be open within the group and this created appropriate challenges and opportunities that enhanced my journey. I was often given the opportunity to support members of the group and watch the impact of this support, which was rewarding and helpful in building my confidence. Overall, I gained a clearer understanding of my strengths, weaknesses and leadership skills.

 Daphne, Transition Town activist and ‘Converging World’ employee 

I've learned so much from really listening to other people and from being in a safe space to explore differences and conflict

 Marian, community involvement worker, olive picker in Palestine, socialist.

 

About the initiator.

David Mowat began work as an activist on a high rise estate in Sheffield in the 1980s, successfully forcing the council, with other residents, to reinvest in a municipal laundry, and innovating a shoppers’ crèche which ran for several years. As a qualified neighbourhood community worker in Bristol he developed parent-run play schemes and a residents’ pressure group which achieved alterations to the route of the Spine Road. As development advisor in a hill farming area of Nepal he built the capacity of a local NGO through devising a funded income generation pilot project and enhancing the political voice of ‘low caste’ people locally.

Back in Bristol in 1999, he saw real development as sustainability learned from such ‘earthed’ cultures as he’d found in Nepal, rather than the material growth-based model carrying us all over the ecological edge. He set up GILL (Global Issues Local Lives) from which aSALT course has emerged. He also works as a development trainer for Voluntary Service Overseas and, out of his parallel career as jazz musician, he now specialises in community building through the arts. ‘COSTA King Cotton’, a sell-out show he directed, in collaboration with Cameroonian drummer Alphonse Touna, at the Colston Hall –and the educational process leading up to it - touched nearly 3,000 people in Bristol in 2007.

 He needs aSALT course in 2008 as much as any other participant, and so both ‘holds’ SALT as a whole and takes part. He is a Quaker, married to Anne. His spiritual practices are meditation, running or walking in nature and trumpet practice.

IS IT FOR YOU? COULD YOU START A SALT GROUP YOURSELF? If so, contact 0117 9559444 / 0780 436 3170 bigbromo@yahoo.co.uk . Next introduction on Bristol indymedia site in the autumn.

 

 

 

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