| Description | In February 1926, a group of Cotteridge Friends felt that there was a need for young Quakers in Birmingham to be brought closer together. Cotteridge Preparative Meeting asked them to arrange a United Meeting of Young Friends once a month at Cotteridge meeting house at which well-known Friends were asked to speak on particular subjects. After the talks, there was time for socialising and refreshments. From 1930 onwards, Birmingham Young Friends became attached to Warwickshire Monthly Meeting rather than Cotteridge Preparative Meeting. Initial members of the committee included Frank E. Butler, Constance Benjamin, A. Margaret Graham, Hubert Ll. Rutter, Llewellyn C. Rutter F. Marjorie Watts and Frank Westlake.
Talks were given on a wide variety of subjects including those relating to Quakers and Quakerism, as well as to international and national affairs of the time. Examples of these are: 'Friends and the modern world', 'authority and the Quaker ideal', 'Quakerism and modern thought', 'Quakers in industry', 'Friends' work in Europe', 'psychology and religion', 'abolition of capital punishment', 'social evils of today', 'the redemption of the criminal', 'reconstruction work at Brynmawr', the situation in 1930s Spain, peace, education, penal reform, Elizabeth Fry, John Woolman, India's contribution to world peace. Speakers were from within Warwickshire Monthly Meeting as well as from further afield.
In addition to talks, the Committee arranged visits to various Quaker schools such as Sidcot, Ackworth and Sibford, and to Kingsmead to meet students from India, Africa, Madagascar and China. There were also conferences arranged at the Manor House, Bewdley. Other activities included an annual garden party and tennis tournament, the development of the Swarthmore hockey club, and the performance of plays.
In later years, Monthly Meetings were held at different meeting houses in the area, and individual Young Friends also became involved intervisitation of Preparative Meetings both within and beyond Warwickshire Monthly Meeting borders. They raised money for the International Voluntary Service, sent representatives to the Young Friends Peace Committee, were involved in the Conference of Midland Young Friends (see SF/2/1/1/17/4), took part in the packaging of parcels for European refugees in the years after the war, as well as the Community Justice Group's (previously Penal Affairs Group) annual parcel campaign for the families of prisoners. |