It seems that Quakers have already been partying in readiness for National Quaker Week.
In Chelmsford they started early to celebrate their fiftieth anniversary with a garden party. Friends and guests enjoyed circle dancing, story-telling and games, but the piece de resistance was a monster bouncy castle which brought out the spirit of challenge in the older Friends. Wendy Trump, at eighty possibly the oldest 'bouncer' in the county of Essex, found it an exhilarating experience and was heard to say afterwards 'if only I had one of those in my garden.'
After this, Chelmsford Friends felt ready to take on Quaker Week. They have an Open Day on 15 September when the mayor will plant a commemorative tree, a public talk on 26 September and an exhibition of Quaker history in Chelmsford planned for October in the County Hall. And a talk on the Tapestry for 11 October.
Brian Wardrop tells Eye the Meeting has coped with considerable administration, a familiar tale with outreach activity. 'The number of flyers, posters, press releases and invitations that have been generated has stretched our computer artwork to the limits - not to mention our inkjet printers - we have got to know our local cartridge re-filler very well!' he says. Eye wonders about all the recycling that is going to be needed after Quaker Week - have any of you environmentally-aware Friends any suggestions for what can be done with all those leaflets, flyers and posters?
The Chelmsford Meeting House is a popular venue for local groups and the Meeting has cleverly woven their activities into the Open Day, so that group members will visit and learn something about Quakers.
Chelmsford Friends also set up a new web site, set up for National Quaker Week, at www.QuakersMidEssex.plus.com

Interesting to hear that the Meeting for Worship held by Cheltenham Quakers at the Greenbelt festival attracted 116 visitors last week. That's impressive, as most of them were new to Meeting for Worship. The Cheltenham Friends also managed to shift fifty copies of Advices & Queries to visitors. After Meetng for Worship many people stayed around to talk. Some stimulating questions were asked and that pleasing expression 'positive feedback' was recorded. One enquirer introduced herself as a direct descendant of William Penn! Eye wonders how many Meetings will have the nerve to hold a Meeting for Worship during their Quaker Week events.

A reader drew our attention to a Radio 4 comedy show, Armando Iannucci's charm offensive, in which Quakers made a brief appearance, albeit as fall guys. Eye was able to manipulate the 'play again' facility on the office computer and listened to comedian Armando Iannucci and his guests Dave Gorman, Will Smith and Jo Brand exercise some black humour concerning Muslims, a familiar target these days. Considering that this was just too sensitive a subject to pursue, the host Iannucci decided he would only make jokes about Quakers – 'because they won’t fight back.' But, readers, the gags were pretty poor: 'An Englishman, Irishman and a Quaker go into a bar. Says the Quaker - 'it's nice to get on, isn't it?'; 'How many Quakers does it take to change a candle?' Hmm, that's what we thought. We might have heard a reference to 'porridge jockeys' but our hearing for off-mike comments is not so good these days.

A rather cheeky bit of page positioning by sub-editors on the Irish Times gave the paper's Triennial coverage a risque look. Above the story 'Quaker Summit Starts in Dublin' sat a photograph of three male strippers in a charity talent contest in Dublin. Well, not really strippers. It was that boisterous scene from The Full Monty where singers dressed as cops divested themselves of their uniforms to a heavy rock beat. Eye thought the picture might have drawn readers' attention to our event. Maybe.

Our resigned but still Friendly Friend Ken Hartford, now eighty-one, amused us greatly by introducing a whole new angle to the slavery issue. 'It is perfectly possible,' he declared to us, 'to be a willing slave. Most of the members of the Meeting I attend are slaves to the Society as a whole and particularly to their PM, MM and YM and I admire them enormously. This applies to all the sixty-odd Meetings in various parts of the world that I’ve visited.'
Ken says he withdrew his membership eight years ago because 'I'd had enough of willing slavery in the years between 1934 and 1947 when I was in an orphanage and then in the Army with little or no choice of occupation.' Since then he has always selected his own employment. 'I don’t wish to return to slavery even on behalf of the Quakers, much as I profess to love them!'

The Heathrow Climate Camp has had some odd consequences. Roland Carn, who restores furniture, was stopped by police on a slip road of the M4 as he drove his white van to the airport to pick up his wife Trish, our sub-editor, on her return from covering the Triennial in Dublin. They were quite polite, reports Roland, as they checked his van, paying special attention to the ropes he uses to secure furniture. Did they think he might lasso some airliners with them?

Did we hear that right? The Vatican running a budget airline to transport pilgrims to shrines? Eye hastily checked the websites. Sure enough, God's own airline will be taking the devoted to Lourdes (eight million visitors a year), Fatima and other holy places. The Vatican will charter the planes from the Italian Post Office and at night the seats will come out to deliver mail. The first trips are apparently a sell-out. We wonder what the Climate Camp will make of this.

Friends have continued to castigate Eye for what they feel is a slur on the Scottish national wonder, the Falkirk Wheel. Summer Gatherers went to see this feat of waterway engineering on their day out at the gathering. We ran a picture caption in the 3 August issue, slightly tongue in cheek at the Wheel's extraordinary appearance, but we see it has offended Scottish sensibilities. So, to make amends, we'd like to tell southern Friends (presumably all those of you in Scotland are familiar with this technological wizardry) a little about the Wheel.
It is a rotating boat lift – the only one of its kind in the world (Cheshire Friends please note this is an improvement on your one) which unites two canals, the Forth & Clyde and the Union. These two canals were connected by eleven locks, but the locks were filled in and built over in the 1930s. Boats are lifted from one canal by the rotating wheel and placed in the other canal in a remarkably short time (five and a half minutes) and with low energy expenditure, a point made in the Wheel's defence by Alison Burnley of Edinburgh. 'The amount of energy used to raise one of the gondolas and get the boat going on up the canal is the same as is used by one light bulb,' she tells us.
However, we mustn’t overlook the cost to build it - £17.5 million. The whole restoration project cost £84 million, although some £32million of that came from Lottery funds.
If you want more technical detail, we recommend you look on the Wikipedia free encyclopaedia site, or at www.falkirkwheel.info

You would think, with all the work in the world that Quakers do, they would be a household name, but not a bit of it. Eye does not need to remind readers of how the general public views us (through a sepia-coloured lens, mostly).
We can just imagine, too, how some Quakers are viewing the approaching turmoil – pretending it doesn’t exist or hoping it will quickly pass. Eye has been drafted in to take a sneak view of preparations in a small Meeting faced with a big task. The one we know best of course is the editor’s meeting in Northumberland. We have been overhearing the odd outburst of nerves in the office in recent weeks – ‘it’s nervewracking!’ ‘how can it cost that much?!’ ‘Can’t the MM cough up?’*
So we decided to look in on those preparations, curious to see what Alnwick Friends were up to. They’ve gone for an exhibition in two locations with the lure of homemade cake and proper coffee. ‘You know that trick estate agents recommend of having coffee brewing when buyers view your house? Well we hope it works in enticing people in off the street,’ said the editor hopefully. ‘We’ve put out a call for cafetieres and filter pots and we’ll have two orchestrated baking days.’ Alnwick Meeting has a serious reputation for mouth-watering delicacies such as drop scones, fairy cakes, flapjacks and brownies.
‘Appealing to the British love of high tea is right on target, we feel. So what have the Friends to show the public once they’ve got them inside?
‘We have several eye-catching displays’ says the editor proudly, ‘starting off with the excellent modern eighteen panel exhibition from Friends House Quaker Communications Department which we’ve splashed out on.
‘Then we have some mounted prints of etchings from the Spence Collection, sent electronically to us from FH Library, showing some of the awful things people did to Quakers in the early days.’
Nothing too gruesome we hope?
‘Poor George being swiped with a Bible outside a church, in the stocks, being attacked with a rapier sword, that sort of thing. It’s a wonder how he survived it all.’
The Northumbrian Friends have also been researching Quaker history in their patch, which proved to be rather sparse. ‘The trouble is, they were mostly Presbyterian around here.’
The Meeting has provided a profile of themselves for visitors, with photographs and comments on what it is they love about their Meeting. ‘We copied that idea from Hexham,’ the editor owned up.
The Meeting admits to a lack of skill in presenting material in an attractive modern style and so has commissioned a designer to put it all together.
‘After all our efforts over the past months we deserve an expert to guide us on style,’ she said. ‘We want people to discover something about us and we need help to do that imaginatively.’
Is there a special exhibit?
‘Two etchings in the Spence Collection are my personal favourites. One shows naval lieutenant Robert Foster, a Friend, visiting Brigflatts Meeting in his uniform. What a stir that must have caused! And the most endearing entry in Samuel Pepys’ diary after he watched Quakers rounded up: ‘Met several poor creatures carried by constables for being at a conventicle. They go like lambs without resistance. I would to God they would either conform or be more wise, and not be catched.’’

*It did.

This post is from 24 August.