Sorry about the missing newsletter. A couple of weeks ago IT gremlins somehow managed to sabotage our last issue by wiping all the stored images from the website library. However, we are pleased to say normal service has been resumed and provided they don’t strike again there will be a newsletter tomorrow (12 May).
In it you’ll not only find links to a few new stories but also some which if you haven’t visited the website directly you may have missed.
Although some of us might have felt a bit like Brenda from Bristol, when the General Election was announced, it remains a great opportunity for us to build the power of Leeds Citizens and advance our campaigns.
We are running a special action over the next month to make the most of this and are asking for your help to make it a success.
Leeds Citizens is organising meetings with candidates in all Leeds constituencies in the run-up to June 8th. We will be asking them directly to:
1. We need volunteers to join the teams to meet with candidates in their local constituency. The teams will be briefed and supported by our Senior Organiser, Tom. If you live in one of the following constituencies and would like to take part please contact us now:
2. We need organisations who are willing to host a meeting with a candidate on their premises. All we need is a hall or meeting room, nothing fancy. If you’re able to host, please let me know ASAP.
3. If you are a leader in your community, please promote this opportunity to people in your community and send us a list of people who want to join the team. We want to match people to meetings within their own constituency, so please ask volunteers to note their constituency (or post code, if they aren’t sure), so they can meet the right candidates.
4. For those who can’t make these specific events, but are attending other hustings or meet a candidate on the doorstep, we will be providing a short briefing on our campaign areas with key questions for candidates, to help you contribute to this action and keep candidates on their toes!
We are prioritising this action over the next month as it has potential to help advance all our campaigns. Please let us know if you can volunteer ASAP. We need to move quickly.
Please also remind people to register to vote. The deadline is Monday 22nd May. You can register online at: www.gov.uk/register-to-
As much as we seek relationships with elected officials, the most important office is the one which we all share: citizen. Let’s use this election period, through voting and action, to build a bit more trust and participation in our democracy.
There’s an old adage that says “you’re never too old to learn” and whilst that’s undoubtable true four MBC members are proving that there’s also no age limit when it comes to encouraging others to learn.
That’s why each week Jan Brown, Jan Fennell, Diane Sunter and John Sherbourne sign in at Allerton Church of England Primary School to hear pupils read.
Currently the two Jans are working alongside children in Year 5 whilst Diane and John are focussing on Year 6 – that’s the children’s final year in Primary school. The three ladies, as either former teachers or TA’s all have experience in the field of education whereas John who is also one of the school’s co-opted governors comes from a very different world: journalism.
So if you can spare a couple of hours a week and would like to join the team have a word with John because he’s in absolutely no doubt that if you do either Allerton C of E and/or at least three other local Primary schools will snatch your hand off.
Abi Tilley is planning another outing for the Gospel Choir on Pentecost Sunday (4th June). Everyone is welcome to come along and sing in the Choir.
No audition required or need to read music – just turn up and sing!
We will be preparing 2 songs and will meet rehearsals at the following times:
Monday evening rehearsals 7:00 – 8:30 pm in the Music Room.
There are 3 Mondays before the service itself: 8th, 15th and 22nd May.
Two further rehearsals will be on the following dates:
Sunday 21st immediately after the morning service, and a final rehearsal on Pentecost Sunday morning itself before the service, from 9:45 – 10:15 am.
If in any doubt please contact Abi at church.
Thank-you
Many thanks to Martyn Gray and Kate Slater for sending in this brilliant set of pictures, and also to everyone who was involved in organising this great weekend.
Just one year on from its official opening The Barn Coffee Shop, a social enterprise café based in the grounds of Meanwood Valley Urban Farm, is proving so popular that it has been able to give three local community groups grants totaling £5,000.
They are: Stainbeck United Reform Church, InterACT (a joint church and community partnership) and the café’s neighbour Meanwood Valley Urban Farm.
At a party to mark the Coffee Shop’s first birthday project manager Andrew MacBean reminded guests that besides serving some wonderful coffee and cakes The Barn provides a warm and welcoming meeting place for a number of local community groups which in turn gives them the opportunity to develop and promote new and challenging initiatives.
“Today” he said, “on our first birthday it’s not only a real treat to be able to hand over such a significant amount of money, it’s also a chance for me to say a huge thank you lto our directors, our staff and to all our brilliant volunteers.”
I went to London this week and sat in my seat of choice – a table seat, facing forward, next to the window for the view and the socket to power my laptop. Now getting a table seat means that you are in for an adventure as you don’t know who your 3 companions will be. This is the other reason for my chosen seat, because then my good hearing ear is facing the other three seats so I am ready for the conversations that may come.
On this trip, a pinstriped man got on at Leeds, sat opposite and was all computer spreadsheets and mobile calls back to the office. When we got to Peterborough the other two spaces were taken by two extrovert women who were plotting their day’s shopping in Oxford Street. They were incessantly chatty covering topics ranging from the attractiveness of the train guard to how you would remove the emergency window, the strawberry scent in the toilet and the scary things on their Facebook. Their breathless chatter sounded all the more southern on the 08.45 from West Yorkshire.
We never got talking because we all felt so different and didn’t have a clue what we would say to one another. Maybe we were lost in our own worlds.
This is a big problem in our society. We don’t understand people who are different from us. The white working classes are incomprehensible to the upper middle classes, young Asians are a mystery to people who have been living in the same seaside town for generations. When we are faced with this we stereotype or view others with a sense of condescension or threat.
This is only exacerbated by the ways we choose to relate today. Instead of meeting in mixed local communities we interact through interest groups and follow those we like. By definition, this tends to exclude those who are different and only serve to entrench ignorance of the other.
Such mutual unfamiliarity isn’t new. I remember family Christmases in the early 1970s when my paternal grandad from Doncaster would share a week with my maternal grandmother from Kent. He would sit at one end of the lounge smoking his Woodbines as the cloud of nicotine descended to knee height while she would sit by the opposite window, rubbing her eyes as she read her People’s Friend.
Of course, as a middle-class Christian orientated toward inclusion I have the right attitudes and won’t excuse prejudice. On top of this, I will pray and donate to alleviate poverty and discrimination. But doing that doesn’t mean that I am at home with or welcoming to others, it just means that I care at a distance.
We live in a globally interconnected world, yet as individuals we struggle to “get” people in our own country who are different from us. This is important at this time. In an election, we are asked to vote for politicians who don’t really believe or understand us and will “get” us even less when they are sent to Westminster. We are offered policies that often appeal to our differences rather than what brings us together. The people we vote for will have a responsibility to engage with international challenges, like climate change, migration, care for an ageing populations etc. and not just to vote for tribal vested interests.
A local church is a good place to bridge differences and build a common understanding. Finding growing diversity in our church is a good thing. This is fragile for two reasons – people often select the church that meets their taste which works against variety and secondly, the diversity can remain superficial and therefore uninspiring in the long run. That is why it is vital to try to relate more deeply within our church and to interact with other groups.
There are hopeful signs are when we not only meet people different from us, but when we share deeper conversations, laughter, tears and experiences together.
In the past year, I have enjoyed playing local cricket and meeting young Asians and local people from West Yorkshire villages and sharing sport and relaxation after the games. And we don’t just talk about sport!
I imagine we can learn so much by reading widely and watching a variety of films, in order to be stimulated by different views.
I have found it exciting to get involved with groups campaigning for a better Leeds because I meet people unlike me who are not being polite, but engaged in something they are passionate about.
One of the most dispiriting things I see is people lecturing other people, whom they don’t understand and haven’t listened to, on how they should live and vote and what they should believe.
On the other hand, one of the most exciting things is witnessing people coming together, forming relationships and discovering what they care about in the world.
I wonder how we give time to meet people unlike us and take the opportunity to share fun, tears and deeper things of life.
Graham Brownlee
27 April 2017
We hear much about recycling, and everyone in Leeds has a Green Bin into which we are supposed to put all our household waste material that can be recycled. Please read the leaflet on recycling that our City Council has recently circulated. Why is this so important? When our various possessions reach the end of their useful lives, whether worn-out or not, we are faced with the tasks of disposal and replacement. If we take a moment to consider the natural world, we can see that nature recycles all of its materials. Dead vegetation decays, and the compost can be returned to the soil. Even large plants like trees are recycled by fungi when they die. Likewise dead animals are cleared up by scavengers.
Mankind however, produces mountains of waste materials, which can be unsightly and cause nasty, polluting effects. At the outset, we take huge quantities of virgin material from the Earth to make our products, and then discard items when we have finished with them. Increasingly, we discard things well before they are worn out, and they may be perfectly serviceable, but we just fancy the latest model. A large advertising industry now exists just to persuade us to continually up-date and to up-grade our stuff. At all costs, we must avoid filling landfill sites, and discarding useful and serviceable items. We must emulate nature, and ‘close the loop’.
What can we do?
Why is this important?
If we recycle and re-use our materials, we reduce the demand for virgin materials that have to be extracted from nature. The extracting, transporting, and processing of materials consumes huge amounts of energy. If we recycle, we are saving both materials and energy, and cutting down on pollution – we are caring for God’s creation.
John Sturges j.sturges@leedsbeckett.ac.uk;
Julia Hyliger julia.hyliger@hotmail.co.uk;
April 2017
Dr Tan is presently based in his home country of Malaysia, where he is a life member of Trinity Baptist Church and Emmanuel Evangelical Free Church. He and his wife Loun Ling Lee, together with their daughter Chara, also have the active and ongoing support of Grace Chinese Christian Church in Singapore.
