The wars in Ukraine and Gaza are distressing, causing horrifying levels of death, and devastation to ordinary people now and into the future. Northern Friends Peace Board has, during the past two years, sought to promote understanding of the nature of the conflicts and also of possible routes to peace. The very nature of war … Read more
At our meeting in Sheffield at the start of March, NFPB members heard from Cassie Woodard, who manages the Middle East programme for Quakers in Britain, with particular responsibility for the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme for Palestine and Israel. Cassie described the challenges that programme continues to face, as well as the advocacy work that Quakers … Read more
For our second members’ meeting of the year, Friends gathered in Darlington and online on 24 June, with roughly equal numbers in the physical and virtual spaces respectively. The date of our meeting coincided with the government-sponsored ‘Armed Forces Day’ and Friends had the opportunity to reflect on this in the opening part of the … Read more
‘No one said it was easy’, wrote Mary Lou Leavitt in the NFPB booklet published in the late 1980s. Peace is not easy, but on the other hand, to see wars being waged and money spent on weapons for no good reason is distressing and frustrating, plain and simple. As we approached the anniversary of … Read more
Thirty Friends gathered online on 20th February, for the first of this year’s periodic NFPB informal meetings. NFPB members and others who share our concerns used the opportunity to introduce themselves – with a good number of new NFPB representatives being amongst them – and to reflect on areas of inspiration and hope. Following a … Read more
NFPB’s meeting (that was to have been in Glasgow this month) took place online, with 25 Friends present during the morning from across the north, and a representative from Quaker Peace & Social Witness. Whilst smaller groupings of NFPB had met via video conference since March, this was the first of our representatives. Shorter than … Read more