Quaker Universalist Group Annual Conference
April 19th – 21st 2024 at High Leigh Conference Centre, Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire and online.
The future of religion worldwide.
- Why is this so important for us all?
- What is actually happening?
- What can we, as universalist Quakers, do about the future of religion?
We are delighted to announce that you can now apply to attend this conference. An application form can be found here in Word or PDF. Please fill in the form completely (though some questions are not relevant to those participating by Zoom).
Please either send the form by email (e.g. as an attachment) or by post to our conference applications secretary, Leonard Newton. His contact details are:
Email: leonardn@qug.org.uk
Post: Leonard Newton, QUG Conference Secretary, Flat 30 Century Court, 1 Wilford Lane, West Bridgford, Nottingham NG2 7TU
Anyone can come to our conference. You do not have to be a Quaker or a member of QUG to attend.
The individual cost of attending is less than last year, and we are offering a discount for couples sharing a room. We have kept the Zoom costs the same as last year.
An innovation this year is to accept bookings with a deposit of £60 per person. But please note that this is non-returnable and that the full amount must be paid 8 weeks before the conference starts, i.e. full payment by Friday 23rd February 2024.
We hope many people will want to come in person to this conference, but we only have a limited number of rooms, some single and some double: so to guarantee your place please apply early.
We also hope to have a good attendance by Zoom: here we ask for £40.00 payment (non-returnable) to secure your place.
We have four main speakers. Three will be at the conference in person, and the fourth, Robert Wafula, will join us by Zoom from Kenya. We plan to have a sharing session on Saturday evening to enable the conference participants (both at High Leigh and online) to contribute. There will also be breakout groups and free time.
High Leigh is a large conference centre, usually with several conferences on at the same time, but each conference using separate facilities. See https://www.cct.org.uk/high-leigh/high-leigh-conference-centre. High Leigh is north of London, 25 minutes on the train from Liverpool Street Station. It is set in beautiful grounds. Travel directions are on their website and you are advised to follow them carefully.
Unlike last year, we are not asking for extra donations for speaker expenses. If you would like to donate to QUG the best way is to join us as a member (see details at https://qug.org.uk/membership/). As a member you can also pay extra in your annual subscription if you wish to.
Speakers at the conference
Jan Arriens is a well-known Quaker who last spoke to us at our conference in 2017 under the title ‘Mysticism – Between Head and Heart’. He has many interests, most recently being a co-founder of QTIG, the Quaker Truth and Integrity Group. He recently gave a talk on the future of Quakerism, so we look forward to his insights on this important topic.
Robert Wafula has been the Principal of Friends Theological College (FTC) in Kaimosi, Kenya, since October, 2014. Robert was educated in Africa and the USA and taught comparative religions, anthropology, cultural diversity and comparative literature at Columbus State College and at Central Ohio Technical College in Ohio. He will talk to us about the future of religion in Africa.
Peter Varney is a member of the QUG Committee and has spoken at several recent conferences, most recently last year on ‘An Overview of Creativity and Spirituality across the world’. He is a Quaker Elder and a retired, but active, Anglican priest. He will speak to us about what is happening with religion in the world today.
Tony Philpott is presently the Clerk of the QUG Committee and has spoken at several of our conferences, for example on ‘Truth – An Introduction’ in 2018. His book, From Christian to Quaker, was sent to all the local meetings in Great Britain. He will introduce the conference and explain why ‘the future of religion’ is so important to us as universalists.