3 February 2024 at 10:00 – 16:00
Venue: Friends House
This joint blended meeting of the London Area Quaker Meetings is taking place at Friends House on the morning of Saturday 3 February. We do hope you will be able to come along and take part.
There will be an in-person children’s meeting held in parallel to the main session, looking at ways to build a sense of community across London.
While the meeting won’t have any formal status (as yet), it will provide an opportunity for Friends to learn a bit more about what is happening, and feed in their thoughts to the newly set-up Development Group, who are tasked with doing all the detailed design work.
More details of the meeting are in the draft agenda below. We expect to send registrants a more detailed agenda in a week or two.
While the meeting will be blended (Zoom coordinates will be sent to all registrants on Eventbrite), being there in person will enable Friends to meet others from across London and so begin the process of building the sense of a cross-London community.
Regstration is on Eventbrite. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/moving-forward-on-a-single-london-am-tickets-791056610617?aff=oddtdtcreator
4 February 2024 at 17:00 – 18:00
Venue: Westminster Quaker Meeting House, 52 St Martin's Lane, London WC2N 4EA
3 March 2024 at 17:00 – 18:00
London Young Adult Quaker Meeting provides a supportive and nurturing space for young Quakers aged between 18 and 35 to connect, reflect, and share in silent worship.
It's also a great way to meet others who share our Quaker values and beliefs.
Takes place the first Sunday in every month at Westminster Quaker Meeting House
6 February 2024 at 18:30 – 20:30
Venue: Wandsworth Quaker Meeting House, 59 Wandsworth High Street, SW18 2PT
A leading expert on artificial intelligence will speak about how developments in the field force humanity to reframe how it sees itself, in the latest in a series of public events exploring Quaker concerns in South West London.
In the talk, Ghost in the Machine: Artificial Intelligence and Human Spirituality, Kenneth Cukier, an editor at The Economist and bestselling author of books on technology, will discuss how the breakneck pace at which artificial intelligence is developing poses a challenge to humanity. The technology already exceeds people's cognitive abilities -- but can it develop a sense of the transcendental that defines human experience? In a humorous, accessible talk, Kenneth will explain how AI works and why cognitive science underscores that people are even smarter.
Kenneth says: "AI replaces the mind as the fount of all that is knowable, overturning the Enlightenment and humanist traditions. However AI has inherent shortcomings that make individuals the masters of the technology not its servants. AI is unable to develop and use 'mental models' of the world, which people do by nature. AI is all rationality, no spirituality. People possess both -- but we need to bolster the latter in counterpoise to the machines.”
Kenneth Cukier is the deputy executive editor of The Economist, and co-author of several books on technology and society, notably "Big Data", a NYT bestseller, and “Framers” on the power of mental models and the limitations of AI. He attends Richmond Quaker Meeting.
24 February 2024 at 10:00
Venue: Friends House
This is a follow up meeting to the Sex and Gender Diversity blended meeting held at Friends House in February 2023 (To Thine Own Self Be True IV) where we began work on a draft
epistle reflecting on BYM minute 31.
You are invited to be part of a worshipping group collaborating for the shared purpose of finalising the epistle and considering how it might be shared with others, including Quaker
bodies, area meetings and Yearly Meeting Agenda Committee.
This will be a blended meeting: Friends are welcome in person or online.
Registration is essential - please use this link:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/invitation-to-to-thine-own-self-be-true-v-tickets-827316645357?aff=oddtdtcreator
We will send the file of the draft epistle and the Zoom link to those who have registered by Close of business on Thursday 22nd February.
3 March 2024 at 17:00 – 18:00
Venue: Westminster Quaker Meeting House, 52 St Martin's Lane, London WC2N 4EA
3 March 2024 at 17:00 – 18:00
London Young Adult Quaker Meeting provides a supportive and nurturing space for young Quakers aged between 18 and 35 to connect, reflect, and share in silent worship.
It's also a great way to meet others who share our Quaker values and beliefs.
Takes place the first Sunday in every month at Westminster Quaker Meeting House