Course Search
Kindful Eating: making peace with food and our bodies
Imagine a world where no-one wakes up hating their body and where health campaigns acknowledge that factors like privilege, racism, loneliness and trauma impact our overall wellbeing whatever our lifestyle. Using the Well Now approach, this course explores practical ways to make sense of self-care and social justice. Find out how to join-the-dots between food,…
Early Quakers in their Own Words: Spirituality
In this course, we will engage at a deep level with several short passages written by early Friends that express something essential about their spirituality and personal experience. This will help us to understand these Friends better, and consider what their words mean for us today. Some of the words are very well-known and others…
Quaker Nominations
An entirely online course for anyone involved in Quaker nominations. We will aim to root ourselves in good practices of discernment whilst responding to the particular issues that face us. Nominations are at the quiet heart of the way we live together as Friends, when we listen faithfully to the Spirit. By taking two to…
A Quaker Approach to Dementia
Dementia is a significant issue for many Friends, for many meetings and across our society. Is dementia a gift, a painful gift, a part of our world, part of God’s creation? Or is it a disaster, a tragedy for individuals, families and society, making people lose who they are, taking the people we care about…
When Quakers got it wrong – and where do we go from here?
Surveys indicate that British Quakers today are mainly white and middle-class. How has this happened given our testimony to equality? This course looks at some uncomfortable parts of British Quaker history, with a focus on race and class. Participants are invited to consider how this history still affects Quakers in Britain today. From reflections on…
Exploring Quaker Membership
What is Quaker membership? How do I apply and what will happen? The course gives an opportunity to explore the meaning of membership and belonging, and to share with others at a similar stage in their journey with Quakers. We will look at the history of Quaker membership, the practical aspects of applying for membership,…
Philosophy with Friends: thinking together for fun and fellowship (30 Oct)
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
This taster session uses the Philosophy for Communities (P4C) method. We’ll offer activities to develop creative, critical, collaborative and caring thinking, and you’ll come up with questions that get you talking and enquiring together. The session will be facilitated by two experienced Friends who have used P4C in a variety of contexts with children, adults…
The Quaker Way
Are you relatively new to Quakers and keen to find out more? This course sets out the Quaker “basics”. It will give you an understanding of the history and international reach of Quakerism, and the importance of spiritual experience to the Quaker Way. We will discuss what happens in a Meeting for Worship and how…
A Foundation in Nonviolent Communication
In Nonviolent Communication (NVC), as developed by Dr Marshall B Rosenberg, the emphasis is on deep listening, to ourselves as well as others, and through that we can discover the depth of our own compassion. NVC can be seen as both a spiritual practice that helps us see our common humanity and a concrete set…
The Meaning of the Cross: punishment, or healing and reconciliation?
Many of us struggle with the Bible’s sacrificial imagery and are troubled by the idea that God punishes Jesus for our sins. In this course we will explore alternative understandings of the cross drawing on the early Church, peace church traditions, theologies of liberation, and the work of Rene Girard. Can we move beyond violent…
Freeing the Imagination: Creative & Devotional Writing
9:00 am - 5:00 pm
This day retreat will offer a chance to immerse ourselves in the creative process of writing. The focus is on creative and devotional writing so we will be led by the heart rather than the head, as we explore how to use the imagination to help people feel and see the world in new ways….
Citizen and Outlaw? The quandary of Quaker witness
The Quaker way has always placed us in an ambivalent position to wider society. Sometimes we need to directly confront injustice, breaking the law if necessary; at other times we want to work within ‘the system’ to effect change. Sometimes we act as prophetic outlaws, at other times we want to assimilate to wider culture…
Poetry: Expressing the inexpressible
2:30 pm - 4:00 pm
It is difficult to talk about our experience of the divine because language is a human and therefore limited tool. Poets, however, are skilled in using language to describe what is beyond words. They can push at the boundaries of our capacity to express ourselves. In this session we will look at two poets who…
Working towards defining and accepting White Privilege and becoming an anti-Racist ally
In this seven week course we will focus on our understanding and perception of racism in the modern world and begin the process of acknowledging and accepting of our privilege From here we can become anti-racist allies. In the wake of the recent protests across the world and the spotlight on the Black Lives Matter…
Meeting for Worship for Dance (November)
11:00 am - 12:00 pm
In the spirit of adventure and exploration we are offering a chance to embody our responses to what is going on for us at the moment. Live music from Robin Bowles will support and respond to the movement. We will start with a time to warm up our muscles and get our bodies moving, there…
Expectant Waiting: reflections from the Bible and Quakers, from theology and poetry
The silence of Quaker meeting is not an end in itself. It carries a sense of waiting. At any time, this can give rise to a depth that is collectively felt by those present. Or be the occasion of inspired words, heard by one individual or shared with the whole gathering. This online course is…
Hope as a Practice
Can hope be more powerful than simple optimism? What does it mean to “practise hope”? In this course we’ll explore how hope, agency, and action for social and environmental justice are interrelated, each integral to the other. We’ll look at what this means for us as individuals, and for working together towards a more peaceful…
Courageous Living amid a Climate Crisis – for young adult Quakers only
This course is for Friends aged 18 – 35 years. To create a world where we all survive and flourish, changes will need to be made, and soon. Some will be straightforward, even easy, but many changes will challenge us out of the comfort we have grown attached to. Join with others as we create…
Images of Jesus
How do you picture Jesus? How do images of Jesus shape our relationship to the Christian story? What difference does it make if Jesus is white or black? Male or female? Powerless or powerful? Straight or gay? Disabled or not? Or holding a velociraptor? Using a variety of images, we will examine how Jesus has…
Writing to learn: telling our stories of change
Are you working on positive social change in your community, in your country, in the world? Do you have a story to tell? Do you want others to learn from your experience? Using creative activities and approaches that have been tried and tested in the writing of the Barefoot Guides (www.barefootguide.org), this course will not…
Courageous Living amid a Climate Crisis
To create a world where we all survive and flourish, changes will need to be made, and soon. Some will be straightforward, even easy, but many changes will challenge us out of the comfort we have grown attached to. Join with others as we create a community to explore what sacrifices might be called forth…
Poetry 3: Telling truth to power
6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
Some poems make us stop in our tracks and acknowledge the scale of injustice in the world. They challenge our leaders to take action. We will listen to poems that expose injustice and articulate the challenges we face. We will discuss how they do this effectively and how we can use poetry in our witness….
Climate Crisis, Faith and Witness Reading Group
This is an opportunity to read or re-read texts about the climate crisis and discuss them in small groups. Over 8 weeks we will look at: Costing not less than everything, Pam Lunn, Swarthmore Lecture 2011 – this lecture was part of a process of reflecting on how Quakers should work towards sustainability that led…
Thinking Nonviolently
‘Many people are aware of the world’s suffering; their hearts are filled with compassion. They know what needs to be done, and they engage in political, social and environmental work to try to change things. But after a period of intense involvement they may become discouraged if they lack the strength needed to sustain a…
