The 2006 Residential Conference was held at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre

in  Birmingham from Friday 31st March to Sunday 2nd April 2006.


THE SPEAKERS

   Isabel Clarke                  David Boulton              Alec Davison

Fifty- six of us worked together at Woodbrooke to explore 'My Truth - Its Source and Direction' in a lively, challenging Quaker Universalist Group Conference. We listened to each other’s accounts of the mystical or spiritual experiences that had shaped our lives, while three speakers offered different ways to interpret these experiences.

Isabel  Clarke, clinical psychologist, committed Anglican and author on spirituality, developed an interest in connections and disconnections- ‘bits that don’t hang together in the story,’ and offered a useful model for understanding and working with spiritual experiences, given depth by her vivid account of her own life.

David Boulton described his upbringing in the Exclusive Brethren, life as a journalist, social activist, in television, and later, well-known writer and speaker on Quaker themes. He described his recent travels among Friends in USA, Australia and New Zealand, and the production of his latest book of essays from non-theist Friends worldwide, Godless For God’s Sake.

Alec Davison, well-known to us for a prodigious working life of drama teaching and writing, youth theatre and conflict resolution programmes, worked out his own credo of spiritual beliefs which led him from Congregationalists to Quakers. He has evolved a story -a new ‘meta-narrative,’ underpinning his Quaker Vision for our time, soon to be published as a QUG Pamphlet- Friends of Truth. He is convinced that Quakers now have something special to say and hopes to form a new group of ‘Kindlers’ to publicise this message.

 These ideas offered us a continuum of choice between a God that exists inside us, outside us or not at all, and helped us understand our different stories in new ways. We value this diversity as a rich source of new insight; as ‘yeast in the dough,’ and are inspired to continue our work to hold the Society to its mission of openness to new light from wherever it comes.

John Sturt, QUG Secretary.

THE DELEGATES

FREE TIME IN THE GROUNDS

All photograhs taken by Andrew Cowan