It’s safe to say that there was enough bread. Helena and Gillian were kindly teaching us to bake bread, but they were worried the bread we’d be baking wouldn’t be ready on time, so even before we’d started we had two loaves of bread. First, learned about the bloom method, which is a way to feed the yeast overnight and provides a dough elastic that you can knead it without using your hands. However, Helena and Gillian wanted to get our hands dirty so we made a simple recipe so everyone who wanted to could practice kneading and throw the dough around a little bit. We also had a go at making gluten free buns. As you might imagine, we had too much bread to bake and many of us ended up taking dough home to bake later.

With all this wonderful bread, our shared supper was scrumptious. I was especially enamoured of the garlic butter and the garlic pesto that were perfect accompaniments to freshly baked bread.

With the eating and cleaning done we settled down to our worship sharing which was centred around a podcast recalling the story of a Jewish family finding, befriending and eventually welcoming into their household a member of the KKK who had harassed them. This led to worship sharing on the challenges posed by our testimony to tolerance and we explored some of our own relationships with that testimony.

Ben Boo

On Saturday the 6th of May the Nottingham Young Quakers group (NYQ) went on a trip to visit the ‘Viva Vegan Festival‘ at Nottingham Conference Centre. It was delightful day out, and busy with over 3000 attendees, during which we sampled a significant proportion of the fine vegan fares on offer. From delicious hot dogs, smothered in ketchup and mustard, to piping hot plantain, exuding aromas one can only describe as divine, we tried it all. Needless to say, we very much enjoyed ourselves and being in each other’s company as we meandered through the seemingly never ending congregation of vegan businesses.

This day however was not only filled with guilt free indulgence (although I’d be lying to say that it didn’t play a significant part), it was also an educational and moving experience reminding us of our role as custodians of the planet we call home. The whole experience stimulated reflection and thoughtfulness about the impact of our actions, however small, on the world around us. From how we nourish our bodies and dress ourselves, to the way in which we treat the animals which cohabit our planet, the stalls we found ourselves amidst left us thinking about the way in which we live.

One particularly interesting experience at the event was attending a talk on the parallels between veganism and feminism. This talk compared the battles and issues faced in the feminist movement to those faced by animals in meat/dairy industry. From the loss of control of their bodies to being treated as property, a number comparisons were made. The most striking for me being the graphic depiction of the process through which cows are made to produce milk. More information on some parts of the talk is available here.

One thing however that this festival made us reflect upon is the relevance of veganism, or even vegetarianism, to Quakerism. Veganism, in essence, is based around the fundamental principles of equality, sustainability and compassion, all of which are cornerstones of Quakerism. This is an idea that stimulated discussion between us as a group and managed to add another dimension to the trip. Overall I think it is safe to say that we all very much enjoyed ourselves and took something away from this day out.

Walter

It emerged that we had all had a tiring week when gathered and shared our favourite moments of the week as is traditional. We started the evening in Thaikhun, a trendy Thai restaurant with some lovely smelling raw spring rolls. Abi had bought a couple of books from an outreach event, which were free but for the price of an eventual review, and worked very hard to find them good homes.

After the meal, we took a short walk down to the Dice Cup, a board game café, and almost called it a night there as it was packed. We decided to wait a while and a table quickly became free. We played a quick game of exploding kittens before trying our hands at crashing dragons into each other.

We didn’t stay long, but a couple of conversations we had during the evening struck me. First was a few friends discovering a shared passion for the collectable card game Magic. Second was a conversation about camping in which people have very different opinions. I am glad that Young Friends can find so much in common, but it is also a real pleasure to know that we inspire each other to try new things and reconsider our opinions. I cannot speak for anyone else but I came away from this event feeling a little reinvigorated and readier to take on the rest of the week.

Ben Boo