Richard Seebohm
I reported on a meeting of the Oxford Council of Faiths in the May edition (no. 516) of Forty-Three. A particular concern of the Council was the lack of Oxford burial spaces for communities with specific needs.
So far this year, I have also been to two meetings of Churches Together in Central Oxford. At both, Elisabeth Salisbury was held in prayer. At both meetings we also recalled the Interfaith Friendship Walk on 19 May, which was very well supported (including by Friends). A service was held on 4 June for the Oxford Pride event.
The next agenda item both times was the shared use of a live donkey at Palm Sunday events, successfully this year. I did not feel called to speak. We hoped that Christmas carols this year could be ecumenical and not church by church
Our main concern now, however, was for Oxford rough sleepers. The current Council estimate for numbers of rough sleepers was 40, but one suggestion was more like 70. The main coordinating person was Mary Gurr, not able to come to the current meeting.
The Oxford Winter Night Shelter (OWNS), for which St Mungo’s acted as intermediary, had run during March and into April this year. It was for discussion what the (City) Council would be doing this winter, but the night shelter’s normal period was January to March. (In fact, our Friend Tany Alexander is their staff coordinator.)
In the current year, while still under COVID restrictions, the government had run an ‘Everyone In’ programme for January and February to place street sleepers in hotels and other places. We were told that in the various forms of emergency accommodation, female users and volunteers had sometimes felt apprehension, given the mainly male clientele.
In the meantime, there was the ‘Living Room’ at St Clements, a daytime provider of comfort and counsel. It now functions all five weekdays. Volunteers would be welcome.
There is also the Oxford Gatehouse, 10 Woodstock Road, which provides a walk-in service in the early evenings for a wide range of the needy requiring food, toilet necessaries and showers. Volunteers are needed here too. In the coming cost of living and fuel crisis, we should be thinking of more initiatives, such as ‘warm hubs’ and emergency food parcels. Perhaps we should find relevant targets for any unneeded winter fuel allowances. (I perhaps should have spoken of OxFAP, though its role is slightly different.) We didn’t talk about refugees.
We noted that the County Council’s proposals for traffic filters, coupled with raised City parking costs, would be a serious deterrent for out of town congregation members. Hospitals would also face this problem, as well as churches. The consultation would end on 3 October. (Oxford Meeting, of course, has a car park.) I mentioned the Bodleian 1871 Project. This invites dissenting denominations to report on their involvement with Oxford
University after 1871, when the Universities Test Act made it unnecessary for students and academics to accept by oath the Anglican 39 Articles of Religion. The response of those present was muted. (A Quaker submission is now in draft.)
Finally, I found myself talking to one of the Jesuit priests who ran the Catholic student centre in St Aldates. He was familiar with us Quakers and, in the context of falling church attendances in this secular age, he wondered whether it was with the Quakers that the spark of the Spirit now resided.
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Forty-Three Newsletter • Number 522 • October 2022
Oxford Friends Meeting
43 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW
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