Quaker queries

Finding a Quaker Meeting for Worship

Quakers in Australia hold silent Meetings for Worship which are open to all. To find Quaker meetings within Australia click:  Contacts - Find a Meeting for Worship, or click on the state where you hope to worship:

• Australian Capital Territory
• New South Wales
• Northern Territory
• Queensland
• South Australia
• Tasmania
• Victoria
• Western Australia

Quaker News

 Yearly Meeting 2009—Canberra

Yearly Meeting 2009 will be at Australian National University (ANU) from Sat 3^rd to Sat 10^th January. Dcouments in Advance for YM 2009 are available as a pdf document by clicking here.

Accommodation and meetings will be at ANU, in two colleges: Burton & Garran Hall and Bruce Hall. The venue provides good facilities for our YM, with comfortable spaces for meeting, for information sharing and for socialising. Bedrooms are single rooms, though there will be the facility to put a second mattress into some of the rooms, providing for a child to share a room with a parent, etc.

Canberra Friends have been working hard to set up YM so that it will be a significant enrichment to the life of Quakerism in Australia, as well as an enjoyable experience. For full details of Summer School, click here. You need to select your Summer School choices while registering for Yearly Meeting.

ANU is close to the city centre, and close to Lake Burley-Griffin, providing opportunities for exploring Canberra, and engaging in some active recreation. We hope this will provide a suitable break from mainly cerebral activities of YM. YM 2009 is also being planned to have a strong arts theme, encouraging both visual arts and performance arts. Wireless and wired internet facilities will be available, so that Friends can make use of their laptops, if they bring them. (more details)

Who we are

The Religious Society of Friends began in Britain in the 17th century with the teachings of George Fox, and has spread to most regions in the world.

It has always been clear that George Fox was not unique in his spirituality, but an eminent member of a community experiencing an outbreak of mysticism. … Early followers were never George Fox's 'adherents', but were already spiritual 'finders' in their own right.
(O'Shea 1993, quoted in this we can say; Australian Quaker Life, Faith and Thought , AYM 2003)

There are a quarter of a million Quakers worldwide; in Australia, we have around 2000 people who worship in Meetings for Worship, of whom 1000 are in membership.

Quaker beliefs and testimonies

Quakers share a way of life rather than a set of beliefs. Guidelines for living the Quaker way can be found in Australian Advices and Queries .  Quaker practice within the past four centuries has given rise to a number of testimonies  —

• Peace testimony
  
• Testimony of Simplicity
• Testimony of Equality
• Testimony of Integrity

Quakers and Social Issues

• Quakers and the environment
• Quakers and development aid
• Quakers and Indigenous peoples
• Quakers and the death penalty
• Quakers and homosexuality
• Quaker peace lobby — Action alerts!
• Quakers and other religions
• Quaker nonviolence calendar

For media comments on these issues, contact the national office (email YMsecretary@quakers.org.au or telephone 07 3374 0135).

Read public statements from Quakers in Australia on these and other topics. Also check out our FAQ page.

Quaker issues for action in 2008

Issues for action agreed at Yearly Meeting in January 2008:

• Global warming
• Earthcare —Earthcare
• Indigenous justice
• The Middle East conflict
• Restoring peace in the Pacific

Quaker Voices in the 21st Century 

 Do Quakers belief and actions speak to what is relevant to the needs of the 21st Century?

Full details can be found at http://voices.quakers.org.au/index.php/