Category Archives: NFN website

General Quaker interest, MfW+Creative Conversation, NFN Events, NFN website, Non-theism

Quaker meeting and Creative Conversation Thursday 5 March

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Dear Friends,

Please join us on Thursday, March 5,  at 7PM BST/2PM EDT for our next Creative Conversation.  Jim Cain will be presenting on the “Quaker Approach to Rituals.”

We look forward to a lively conversation and hope that you will come and add your voice.

If you have not already done so, you might want to visit our website.  It has a variety of resources that you might find useful on your nontheist journey.  It can be found at https://nontheist-quakers.org.uk/

We welcome your thoughts about how to make these conversations more meaningful.  Address your comments to the working group at nontheistfriend@gmail.com.

We also are always in need of programs.  If you have something you would like to present, please contact me at nontheistfriend@gmail.com

Yours,
NonTheist Friends Network Steering Group
Creative Conversations Working Group

The evening’s plan is as follows:
• Zoom Room opens at 6:45PM (UK time), please arrive early.
• 7PM: Welcome and Quaker Meeting (~20 minutes): Sharing silence with one another for quietly gathering ourselves and connecting.
• Creative Conversation and Discussion (~1 hour): Concern introduced; followed by interactive discussions.
• Conclusion: Thoughts and a few moments to share silence.
• After Announcements the Zoom Room will remain open for friendly chats and community.
• Duration:1hr:30m-2hr:00m
NOTE: You may unregister/unsubscribe from our monthly Meetings or NFN communication at any time by replying to this email address: nontheistfriend@gmail.com

AGM, Conferences, General Quaker interest, MfW+Creative Conversation, NFN Events, NFN website, Non-theism, Publications

Nontheist religious experience and updates to this NFN website.

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I apolgise for my delay in updating.

Jim Cain has kindly shared texts with 3 slightly different versions of his presentation of 5 June on Nontheist religious experience in PDF, Word and powerpoint formats.

By scrolling through our Events page, and following links there, it is possible to find details of our past events for some years (2017-2025) and in some cases texts for earlier talks or audio recordings of the first 11 talks in 2021-22. There is still a gap in this record between Nov 2023 and Sept 2024 and I will try to get this filled in in coming weeks.

Our Articles and Newsletters page takes you back to NFN events as far as 2012.

Trevor

MfW+Creative Conversation, NFN Events, NFN website

Updates to website and next meeting

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I have now updated our ‘Organisation‘ page and am in the process of updating the rather neglected ‘Events‘ page where you can now see a ‘preview’ of our next meeting.

NFN Events, NFN website

Changes to the website November 2022

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I have updated the Events page and the nfn-monthly-meeting-for-worship-and-creative-conversation page to reflect current events. The latter page is substantially redundant, except for holding the recordings of the first 11 talks from March 2021 to April 2022, but does still give the basic information about the meetings and how we got here and does re-direct you to the Events page. You can have some fun following links in circles here.

I have also (after some years) updated the ‘How to?’ (use this website) page so it bears some resemblance to the current situation. Now you can have some more fun following links in circles, especially on a mobile device. Let me know how you get on!

Trevor

General Quaker interest, NFN website, Non-theism

Tonight’s meeting Thursday 3 November 2022 7pm

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A friendly reminder!

See you soon.
-NFN UK

3 November’s Quaker Meeting and Creative Conversation will introduce the topical conversation, “Spiritual practice among nontheist Friends” at 7PM UK time by Zoom.  (Please note:  On 30 October the clocks go back in the UK and they will be on Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).  If you are in the US or Canada, the Meeting will be at 3pm EDT/12pm PDT, because the clocks don’t go back until 6 November.)
Summary: There will be opportunity for Friends to share experience of their own spiritual practice and how it contributes to being Quaker.
This will be followed by a short presentation of findings from a Woodbrooke Eva Koch project in 2021 which included a study of the variety of personal spiritual practice of 25 Friends.

November’s Format:
• Zoom Room opens at 6:45PM (UK time), please arrive early.
• 7PM: Welcome and Quaker Meeting (~20 minutes): Sharing silence with one another for quietly gathering ourselves and connecting.
• Creative Conversation and Discussion (~1 hour): Concern briefly introduced for preliminary sharing in facilitated break-out rooms followed by further reflection and inspirational sharing in the plenary.
• Conclusion Presentation: Sharing of Eva Koch project findings and a few moments to share silence.
• After Announcements the Zoom Room will remain open for friendly chats and community.
• Duration:1hr:30m-2hr:00m
You will automatically receive Zoom links to subsequent Meetings, approximately one week beforehand and a reminder the day of.  There is no need to re-register. We ask that you please do not share the Zoom link with interested Friends, but encourage them to email the Clerk (clerk@nontheist-quakers.org.uk) to register. You may unregister/unsubscribe at any time by replying to this email address.

General Quaker interest, NFN Events, NFN website

A little teaser

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An NFN newsletter planned for July now looks to be forthcoming by the end of the month – so we’ll call it our August newsletter.

If you would like to send in any news, articles, book reviews, opinions, comments or quaker anecdotes for inclusion in this newsletter, please send them to me trevor at humber dot co dot uk, preferably by the 25th July – quite a tight deadline.

There will be an update by Kiera Faber (our membership clerk) on behalf of the QM+CC Working Group, which is comprised of, William Purser, Kiera Faber, Gisela Creed, and John Senior, looking forward to re-commencing the Meeting and Creative Conversations on 1st September.

They say (don’t they?) that ‘imitation is the sincerest form of flattery’ and if you’re missing our NFN Creative conversations whilst we have a break in July and August, our Friends at the Quaker Universalist Group (QUG) are beginning similar meetings in July and August starting tomorrow:
Daniel Flynn will talk under the title My spiritual journey, from obedience to choice. Some of you may remember Daniel, an American Quaker in Brussels, from ‘Nontheist approaches to religious language’ and other courses at Woodbrooke.
https://qug.org.uk/qug-monthly-worship-and-sharing/  You will have to email QUG quick if you want to join at 7pm tomorrow (Wednesday 20th July).

If you followed the themes at Yearly Meeting or attended the Swarthmore Lecture by Helen Minnis (Glasgow meeting) you will likely find the Quaker Podcast featuring Edwina Peart, Inclusion and Diversity Coordinator, and Rebecca Woo, Campaigns Coordinator, about the reparations conversation that is just beginning amongst British Quakers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tq7XpGPwnI  (audio not video) a useful introduction to this topic.

 

Conferences, General Quaker interest, NFN Events, NFN website

A new homepage – experimentally

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Through the history of this website since 2016 we have offered different pages as the homepage (‘landing page’) at different times. (If you follow any of the links below they open in the same window or tab so use your ‘back button’ in the browser to return here).

In the beginning it was our About page (still available!) virtually copy-pasted from the earlier website hand-coded by Brian Wardrop.  From time to time it was our News (posts) page – THIS very page.  For much of the last 15 months it has been our monthly Meeting and Creative Conversation’s page.

At other times it may have been a Conference page or the Events page. You may sometimes see this in future if we have any more conferences or events. These changes have always been motivated by NFN activity and a wish to bring the currently most relevant information to your immediate attention. (did I forget to put in a plug for our Articles page?)

Meanwhile we have a new home page offered experimentally, subject to amendment or ‘tweaking’ and your comments or suggestions will be very welcome.

Conferences, General Quaker interest, NFN Events, NFN website, Non-theism

What’s ‘appening? – current affairs

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I think that after 3 weeks (to the day) another post would be timely.

Our next Meeting for worship and Creative conversation is next Thursday 2nd June at 7pm where we will consider “Humanists and Quakers – How do we differ, and what are the similarities – an interactive evening”.  For full details and registration see here. (Sorry about the old link last 5 days – now correct I hope).

We have established, in addition to the Creative conversations Working Group, 5 further Working Groups that I know of (18 April) according to those who put their names forward. Some are more active than others as I mentioned in the previous post ‘No more NFN Conferences‘.

NFN Newsletter

The NFN ‘Newsletter’ Working Group has 4 names to it: Bryan Osborne, John Senior, Catherine Carr and myself Trevor Bending. This has not been active but may come to life if we try to produce a Newsletter for June as suggested previously. All Friends, NFN members, SG members and other sympathisers are invited to contribute (see that ‘previously’ link) and you may hear further after Britain Yearly Meeting 2022 has finished.

Quaker Faith & Practice revision

The Quaker Faith & Practice revision WG held its first meeting on the 18th May, hosted by Steven Goldblatt (NFN Treasurer) and attended by David Boulton, Chris Thomas, Gisela Creed, Bryan Osborne and myself. It was decided that updates would not be provided from this group until some clarity is discerned about what we hope to achieve. I won’t continue to participate in this group (for other committments) and am not sure if Bryan will for the same reason although he was able to help us off to a good start with a presentation and some insights from a meeting held with the BYM Quaker Faith & Practice revision Group by Cambridge AM. That presentation showed up later in the YM session on QF&P this week. If you want to contribute to the BYM Revision Groups deliberations you can do so in the following ways: Read BDRC reports to Meeting for Sufferings on this page https://www.quaker.org.uk/resources/quaker-faith-and-practice/revising-quaker-faith-practice
– see also creative project “Open to new light” on Padlet and other social media links on that page.
Ideas and pieces of writing can be submitted using this online form:
Q f&p: submit ideas for the next revision – QForms
https://forms.quaker.org.uk/qfp-idea/
or contact BDRC committee secretary, Michael Booth, by email to qfp@quaker.org.uk or write to him at Friends House.
(BDRC stands for Book of Discipline Revision Committee).

(Quaker faith & practice can be found online here https://qfp.quaker.org.uk/ (and it is more up-to-date than any printed edition))

Or, you can give your ideas about a nontheist contribution to QF&P revision to the NFN WG here:
nontheistfriend@gmail.com
preferably with ‘NFN Quaker Faith & Practice revision WG’ in the subject line.

Helping Woodbrooke ‘design’ nontheist courses

The “Helping Woodbrooke ‘design’ nontheist courses” Working Group consists of Tim Regan, Catherine Carr and Chris Thomas. I have heard no more about this since I withdrew on 23 April.

Website Working Group

The Website WG consisting of Chris Thomas, Ella Dorfman, Tim Regan and myself (Trevor) has probably been the most active with I believe at least 4 meetings (and lots of emails and ‘Slack’ messages) so far. I think you will probably hear more about this from Tim next Thursday evening (and/or by email) with an invitation to help by participating in surveys or interviews.

NFN Conference Working Group

This was dealt with in my last post. The Group has only Catherine Carr (from the SG) and myself. I believe at least half a dozen people would be needed to organise a Conference (but see that last post). There was only a limited response to that post and no-one came forward to help organise any kind of Conference. Perhaps, therefore, there will be no further NFN Conferences (some of the most rewarding weekends at Woodbrooke I have been to) until NFN members call for one and come forward to organise it. I’ll keep you in touch!

AGM, Conferences, General Quaker interest, NFN Events, NFN website, Non-theism

No more NFN Conferences? – and other matters

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I believe 5 additional Working Groups were proposed at the AGM in February and all those who came forward to express an interest were contacted by our clerk Tim Regan on 18 April to take matters forward. So far, only the Website working Group (6) seems to have been particularly active. (the others being QF&P revision (6 or 7), Conference (2), Newsletter (4) and Woodbrooke courses (4) – numbers in brackets names coming forward).

Whereas 6 people (including 3 members of the Steering Group) put their names forward for the Website group, only 2 people (and I was one of them) came forward for the Conference group – which appears to me to be a bizarre sense of priorities.

Why the concern for the website (which seems to be working fine?) and so little for a future Conference when the latter, whether at Woodbrooke, elsewhere or online, has been one of the annual highlights for Nontheist Quaker activity, support and the AGM?

Am I to take it that NFN members and past or potential future Conference attenders have no further interest in such an event whether in person or online?  I do hope very much that this isn’t the case as I have always very much enjoyed NFN Conferences of which I have attended at least 6 at Woodbrooke and one online (2021 in lieu of 2020 cancelled through ‘covid’).

From my experience of being involved with the QUG (Quaker Universalist Group) Conference at Woodbrooke over several years, last year online and especially the ‘blended’ Conference at Woodbrooke and online this year when I was heavily involved with managing the online component (but most of the work being done by the QUG team at Woodbrooke), I know that organising a blended conference is very much more demanding than organising one online or even just in person.

If we can’t assemble a team to organise a blended conference (rather more than half a dozen perhaps) or an in person only conference (still 5 or 6?) then perhaps we could rise to an online only conference organised by as few as 4 people perhaps?

There might be a ‘Conference-lite’ alternative which would be simply to have (in person or online) a ‘meet-up’ for social exchange, sharing ideas and worship and so on – perhaps a ‘nontheist retreat’? – organised by just the participants themselves with only 2 or 3 people taking on some prior planning, bookings etc.  Online this might seem little different from our monthly ‘Quaker Meetings with Creative Conversations’ although it could be over a weekend with more time together. In person would be quite a different experience – and perhaps even that could include the possibility of ‘dropping in’ online.

Does anyone else in NFN feel the need for a Conference (or ‘meet-up’) – or should I go back to bed?

I really would appreciate some feed-back on this – whilst you are preparing your articles for a future newsletter.

Oh, by the way, I mentioned ‘other matters’ – the ‘Conversation’ last night on ‘How do I as a nontheist Quaker relate to deeply Christian Quakers‘ went extremely well with some very interesting contributions, particularly, I thought, those from Jean Wardrop and David Boulton. I will try to return to this later but if anyone else who was there would like to write up something for the website now, that would also be most welcome.

NFN website

Web Working Group – test-Trevor-as-Contributor

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A little tutorial. The new web working group comprises Chris, Catherine, Steven, Tim (the last three on the Steering Group), Ella and myself Trevor.

So, having gone through some hoops (using a different web-browser, otherwise wordpress thinks I’m the same old Trevor and won’t let me play this game) I follow the invite link, do the necessary to sign up as a new user then follow this invite link to arrive at an ‘admin’ page and choose ‘Posts’ from the left-hand black column and notice in the top right-hand corner of the window ‘Screen Options’, ‘Help’ and ‘View’. None of it makes much sense (even to me!) but ‘View’ gives me a choice of the default design (new ‘Block’) editor and the ‘old’ Classic editor. I choose the default (Block) and am horrified so follow the mini-tutorial on the left of that window – I’m still horrified (incomprehensible to me) so I go back (with a little difficulty) and choose the Classic editor instead.

So I end up here, it looks very easy (but I am familiar with it!) – and I can still edit the HTML (Text in the top right corner of the editing window) if I want to. If I don’t, I just type away here (in ‘Visual’ mode) – easy peasy.

Then I can ‘Submit for Review’ (so the old Trevor or Tim) could review and publish! I might do that.

I can also choose other Formats in the right-hand column (though I can’t think that they are all appropriate); I can choose Categories just below that (recommended, otherwise it’s uncategorised) and I can add Tags below that – taking the easy option and choosing from the most used tags – or write in a new one (Add) which I’ll call ‘Tutorial’. (I’ll also choose Articles from the most used even though it’s a post and I could add my name if I haven’t used that as my user name.

I can Save the Draft (top of column on right – takes a few seconds) and also Preview which might be a good idea?

At this point I can see I have typed 327 words. (328)

I don’t see below here the option to allow comments or Replies to the post – will have to investigate!

I can close the Preview window to return here and continue editing and the Preview showed me that Comments (Leave a Reply) are enabled. Please comment!

I’m now up to 400 words and will submit for review – hope it’s useful.