SOUTH BELFAST QUAKERS

That of God in everyone

Welcoming Our New IYM Youth Support Worker

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Hello Friends!
My name is Alex Collins, I’m a member of Enniscorthy meeting but am currently living in Belfast. It’s a pleasure to have been appointed as the Youth Support Worker for Ireland Yearly Meeting. This is a new post for IYM and in the coming months I hope to be able to take this new role and take it in a constructive direction.
Over the first lock down I started a regular game night with some fellow young Friends online, which was a great way to keep up connections. Now, within this role, I hope to bring more young Friends online and connect them across the whole island, also keeping them updated about relevant and interesting upcoming events. In addition, I will be organising a programme for young people at IYM.
I’ll also be looking at ways of connecting those working with young people online, so that we can pool together our various strengths. When everyone runs events for young Friends in their region they will have the best tools, resources and support that the Society can offer, which will include being the Designated Child Safeguarding Officer and carrying out vetting of those getting involved.
I look forward to working with you all in the future. If you have any queries, you can contact me at +353 87 134 7114 from September 13th or at Youthsupport@quakers.ie.
In Friendship, Alex Collins

Thinking About God

Thinking about God – a session exploring God in Junior Meeting for Worship

This morning (Sunday 23rd May) the young people were exploring the language we use to talk about God and how we think about God – I thought I would share one of the activities we did to generate discussion, conversation and reflection.

The activity was based on the question ‘If God was…what would God be?’

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(Adapted from Journey’s in the Spirit – Youth Work edition issue no. 14 2012: Theism and Non-Theism
https://together.woodbrooke.org.uk/resource.php?r=JY accessed 23/5/2021)

When looking at colours white, silver, transparent and clear were talked about but also the idea of all colours being one. Interestingly for one young person the colour was ginger, as a young child they always thought of God as ginger and this has stayed with them – this generated conversation around our relationship with God being personal and individual.

Silence came out as the main sound and we talked about Silence in worship not being the absence of sound but something else. Rushing of leaves and birds singing were expressed as an important part of hearing God in nature. Listening for the voice of help and guidance, a holy whisper (Thomas Kelly), were also ideas that were explored.

God can be found in many places and for this group one found God in their bedroom as this is where they pray or talk to god, their ‘God pillow’. Nature was important with one drawing an analogy of a hedge maze – we discussed finding God in the complexities of life and sometimes being too small to see over the top of the hedges. One young person shared how people who are very ill and who might die, sometimes experience a feeling of going down a bright tunnel towards a field of grass and later when they recover describe this experience as walking towards God or heaven, so they thought if God was a place maybe it would a field of grass. Another young person used the analogy of God being like Asgard (Viking heaven) as described in the Thor Marvel movie - Asgard is not a place, it’s a people.

Animals are an important part of biblical imagery and if God was an animal they saw God as an Owl, often unseen but wise; a dove, the symbol of peace; a peregrine falcon as it can speed through the air to be with us; and a Tiger instead of a Lion, because it is strong but not tied up with ideas of power and omnipotence. Finally, a vole also came up as it knows the working of the ground underneath us that we cannot see – the analogy being that God knows more than we can see or comprehend.

I’d like to finish with a quote from Martin Lynn’s book Encountering the light: “For early Friends…..here was the central message of that Quaker Pentecost: that God’s love mediated through the experience of the spirit of Christ, lay within the individual, in the individuals capacity to understand the promptings of God within him or herself” (Lynn, Martin, 2007 p45). The personal relationship we can all have with God means there are many ways we can encounter God, using the full breadth of our language, experience and understanding. Our young people have looked outside the box and seen God in the colour ginger, in a hedge maze, in an owl and peregrine falcon, a holy whisper – the voice of help and guidance.

Megan Corrigan with the Older Group of South Belfast Meeting.

Christmas Family Sunday 2020 Video

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Each year we hold 2 all age Meetings for Worship, generally one in Easter and one around Christmas. These are different from our usual Sunday worship in that they are semi-programmed and the young people of the meeting take the lead in ministry. This year we held our Christmas Family Sunday on the 20th of December. The theme for this year was the Nativity Story. As numbers in the meeting house had to be limited due to social distancing requirements, we made the decision to film the full meeting so that family and friends could also take part remotely. The family and children decided it should be shared on the general website also.

You will find the video which has been edited to 18 minutes on our
YouTube channel and also on the video page of this site.

Job Opportunities

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JOB DESCRIPTION FOR THE PART-TIME POSITION OF YOUTH CO-ORDINATORS WITH THE IRELAND YEARLY MEETING OF THE RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIEND
JOB TITLE: Youth Co-ordinator x 3

RESPONSIBLE TO: Yearly Meetings Committee in Ireland, through the Youth Co-ordinator Support Group

HOURS: There are 6 hours allocated per week to be worked flexibly over the year to meet the requirements of the post ie. some activities will require greater time while other times of the year will be quiet

JOB PURPOSE:

The Youth Co-ordinators within the Yearly Meeting of Ireland will work in partnership with parents and Preparative Meetings to support the spiritual growth of our young people. They need to be sensitive to all viewpoints among Friends and as such need to be able to promote the spiritual journey and exploration for all. The outcome of a Youth Co-ordinator’s work should include the nurturing of our young people both socially and spiritually in an environment of openness and integrity which we hope will strengthen the Yearly Meeting in Ireland’s future.

Key Tasks

Develop consistent and regular contact with Young Friends in Ireland, identifying their needs and responding to these through the provision of events, gatherings and other opportunities for them to feel and be part of the Society of Friends in Ireland.
To provide space for the spiritual development and exploration of Quakerism among Young Friends.
To attend relevant meetings of the Youth Support Committee, Education committee and IYMC on a rotational basis
To be a leader on ensuring our responsibilities re Child Safeguarding are followed
To facilitate and provide training to young adults, parents and others who wish to become youth leaders
To assist with national events, including Youth Programme at IYM and other residentials, ensuring Young Friends from all over the country get to meet, have fun and explore their Quakerism in an open, trusting and fun way.
To ensure all records and administrative tasks are carried out including providing reports when required.
To liaise with the other two co-ordinators in the carrying out of this work.
To establish links with other Churches, organisations and relevant agencies
Informal enquires should be made to: Sheilagh Reaper Reynolds :
hillcott12@gmail.com

Application form is available by
downloading here.

Closing date for receipt of application forms and cover letter is: Friday 25th September 2020

Junior Moyallon Camp Update

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Dear Friends,
We are writing to you about Junior Moyallon Camp. As you are aware due to the present pandemic this year’s camp has had to be cancelled.
With the committee being disappointed about this situation, we have been considering how we might find ways to engage with the young people who would this year have come to camp, and we are particularly concerned not to lose this age group from future events.
Because of this we decided to create a Facebook page in the hope of informing and encouraging 9- 14 year old Young F/friends and their parents with regular posts.
We hope to launch this page over the weekend of the 19th -21st of June which is when Camp was to be held.
If the virus situation was to clearly improve at some point later in the year, our plan would be to bring Young People together for an overnight stay at Moyallon.
We are aware that many younger Friends will not have a Facebook account for themselves so we ask parents to keep their young people informed of anything that might be going on.
If you would like to be added to the new Junior Moyallon Camp Facebook group please send your request to the Junior Moyallon Camp page on Facebook. Also please send an email to cherith.boyd@hotmail.co.uk to confirm you are requesting membership of the group.

Thanks,

Your Friends in God’s Love,

The Junior Moyallon Camp Committee

Corrymeela Photos Added

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A new album of photos taken at our recent gathering at Corrymeela has now been added. The theme of the gathering was "Quaker Essentials" and sessions were held on a range of issues from the testimonies to discernment. You can see the album
here.

Global Strike 4 Climate - New Photos Album


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A number of South Belfast Quakers recently joined the young people in their global strike for climate change issues. The peaceful protest involved a "die in" around the Spirit of Belfast statue in Cornmarket, Belfast. We have added a new photo album to the Photos page which you can check out here.

Banner Designed By SBQM Kids Featured On Belfast Live

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The Climate Change banner which was designed by the young people of South Belfast Meeting, was featured on a recent Belfast Live article. The link to the article is below. Well done to our younger attenders for helping to get this important message out there.

https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/belfast-news/climate-strike-events-planned-belfast-16922798

Young People's Overnight Gathering

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The young people (and a few adults for practical reasons), held an overnight get together this weekend passed. Reports are that there wasn't a whole lot of sleep involved but certainly the young people had lots of fun and spoke in Meeting for Worship the following day about the bonding affect the evening had had on their small group. A few more photos of the event can be found on the photos page

All Age Meeting - March 2019

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For the All Age Meeting this year the young people had been learning about gardening, and how being in a garden can be a way of making us feel good, creating hope, offering a chance to be peaceful, a space to think about our spirituality and be close to God. In the bible gardens were important to Jesus – they were places he went to walk, be silent and pray. Our own gardens can be places to relax and enjoy nature. In our communities disused urban land has been turned into gardens, and hospital and prisons gardens are used to bring people together and to make them feel better both about themselves and each other.

The young people shared their thoughts and asked everyone to consider the question “How can being in a garden or working with plants and flowers make us feel good?” Thoughts were noted down on the paper decorations available on each seat.

Everyone was invited to come up and decorate the tree with their thoughts about gardens as a source of comfort during the playing of a piece of music, by one of our young people, called “Rain”.