These fire jugglers were part of a community event in Huddersfield recently which saw a procession of glow band-waving participants - including a Quaker accordionist - finish up at the Meeting House where they were greeted by the co-clerk with a lantern.

David Robson tells us that Huddersfield Meeting is one of seven faith based groups in Paddock Village working together with a one year Home Office grant.

'Our aim is to learn to co-operate more closely and to reach out to meet identified needs in the whole community,' he says. 'Activities such as this celebration are offered particularly to those who may be isolated either by age or social circumstances.'
This Friday evening event, he says, 'offers a different slant on the challenge to be "open to new light, from whatever source it may come".'

Do other Friends suffer the same embarrassments as Wellington (Somerset) Meeting because their Meeting house is at the end of an alley? The local paper recently reported that a cheeky passerby had relieved himself in the alley and then telephoned the Friend whose name appeared on the noticeboard to announce his behaviour. As it was 2.45am, she was not happy. The Meeting had posted a notice to ask people to desist from this practice, which no doubt provoked the rogue. Our Friend, who stayed nameless in the story, told the paper, 'I instantly dialled 1471 so have the telephone number of this gentleman.'
'I lay in bed for the rest of the night thinking dark and un-Quakerly thoughts...' Indeed.

Eye is nervous about the upcoming special Friend on sustainable living. Even the readers are keeping an eye on us. Some of the suggestions reaching the office smack of war-time restrictions and austerity. Not all of us in the office are in the utilitarian age group that can remember rationing and these ideas of saving energy are frankly disturbing to the younger ones!
Sheila Colbeck writes from Dunstable to remind us that a lot of the necessary behaviour change was practised during the second world war. 'Unless it is dark, keep lights off except when shaving, when getting up in the morning, in the dawn/gloaming and over breakfast,' she advises, 'and do without toast for breakfast.'
Sustainable cooks make sure that the oven is fully booked every time it is switched on. This requires forward thinking on quite a scale ­ and Eye wonders how many of the extra meals cooked at the same time will end up in freezers or dustbins. Either way it will be a waste of energy.
The editor has been to see Al Gore's environmentally alarming film An Inconvenient Truth after hearing that it was a 'must see' for Quakers. She and the advertisement manager have been overheard plotting to offer the DVD (when it appears) to readers. We wonder whether there will be compulsory viewing in the office.

It's extraordinary how stories in Eye have a way of jogging Friends' memories from way back. Our recent trip into Woodbrooke's past visitors such as Gandhi and Jomo Kenyatta has had former Woodbrooke students scurrying to their lofts for old pictures and diary entries.

Juliet Batten, of Stockport, tells us that her aunt Isabel Evens was at the college in Spring 1932 when Kenyatta was there. They appeared in a photo together which was included in Isabel's life story, A journey in living, which Juliet edited. In her book Isabel refers to Kenyatta as 'another rare bird in our midst for a term'.

There was an ongoing problem at Sufferings on 4 November with feedback from the large Meeting House's PA system - mostly confined to a sort of vague droning. However, at one point it broke out into a quite audible question, to which the MfS clerk wondered, amidst much laughter: 'Is that the Voice of God, or something?'

And who says that Quakers are wedded to setting up endless committees? When a Minute commented on the work of a MfS group being 'wonderful', this was considered a touch too fulsome for one Friend - who suggested that the word 'interesting' be substituted instead. It drew from a long-suffering member of the group in question the dry observation, received with considerable mirth, that 'It would be "wonderful" if Meeting for Sufferings would lay the group down!'

Rex Andrews sends us a poem from Baume-les-Messieurs, France, hoping to have better luck with it than he did in 1998, when he first offered it to The Friend. 'Maybe it was considered too blatant and hard-hitting then?' suggests Rex, 'but in the current situation – especially with the DESO and the Trident issues – it might be more appropriate?'
Absolutely Rex. We hope readers agree!
Three wise men of the West

I'm an engineer with a safe career
I set up factories everywhere.
A government grant provides the plant,
And I get business where others can't
Because our work’s hush-hush, you see,
For a certain secret ministry.
Some people think the work's a sin;
But, by gum! It brings the profits in!

(refrain)
We three kings of Occident are,
Bearing gifts we travel afar;
Honest traders to invaders,
Furnishing every war.

I’ve a physics degree and a PhD
In some esoteric chemistry;
My inventive mind can always find
Some new device – at a suitable price –
To maim, or gas, or cut, or burn.
It's amazing what a chap can earn
Once he gets himself a plummy perch
In secret armament research.
(refrain)

I'm a marketing man. The world I span
Is from Argentina to Yunnan.
With my business flair, I'm always there
With military ironware.
Wherever there’s a scrap in sight
I’ll sell the goods to help them fight,
From single duels to genocide;
You’ve got the cash? Then we’ll provide!
(refrain)

Have you met a 'froogle' yet? Eye has yet to encounter one of these contemporary lifestyle persons who make a statement with their behaviour. Eye assumes the name to be a play on 'frugal', and the phenomenon was brought to our attention by Rosemary Emmett of Bournemouth Meeting.
These new Froogles, she says, who number quite wealthy people amongst their ranks, are boasting about how they can make a pair of shoes last for years ('amazingly, you must take them to a cobbler for repairs,' laughs Rosemary). Another froogle tip is to put your bar of soap in the airing cupboard between uses – it prolongs active life!
Eye has heard of some daft environment-saving techniques but these new folk are obviously going to cause quite a few tabloid headlines.'Friends,' says Rosemary, 'who have been practising voluntary simplicity for centuries will surely be delighted at this news. Is now the time to rush out publication of a Froogle Friends' Factfile?'