While Humanists in other parts of the country struggle to be co-opted onto their county’s Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education (SACRE), I was promoted from being a co-opted member of Suffolk County Council’s SACRE to full membership at its meeting on 5 June, with the agreement of all those present. The reasons given were: There is varied practice with other SACRE membership for Humanists across the country, some of whom have full membership.

E-mail: mail@suffolkhumanists.org.uk Event description: If you’re interested in meeting a group of fellow Humanists for lunch, please email by 30th July. We’ll be at The Seal in Woodbridge. Look for the newsletter on a table. As we can’t book, we need to get there early. Map link: http://tinyurl.com/248duy

E-mail: mail@suffolkhumanists.org.uk Event description: Group meeting at Castle Hill Community Centre, Highfield Road, Ipswich. A selection of books abut Humanism or of interest to Humanists, with extracts of some of the good bits, recommended by Margaret Nelson. Friends and raffle prizes welcome. We’ve been asked to provide a books page on this website – maybe this will get it started. Anyone interested in becoming a reviewer? Copies of ‘A Short Guide to Humanism’, published by the BHA, will be on sale at a discounted price of 4.

When funerals were all (or almost all) conducted by clergy, at least you knew what you’d be getting: a load of old cobblers about being with Jesus and anyone who’d pre-deceased the deceased; the Lord’s Prayer; two or three dreary hymns; and so on. Many clergy did the same funeral for everyone. Some even forgot whose funeral they were doing and got the name wrong. It was all very predictable and irrelevant.

Policies that treat faith-based organisations as separate may be divisive according to the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), the main umbrella body for charities in England. The claim comes as NCVO publishes a new report, ‘Faith and Voluntary Action’. NCVO states that whilst faith-based organisations (such as religious congregations, local community groups and charities) are distinctive, by treating them as separate from secular charities or community groups, there is a danger that policy makers will alienate civil society.

RE teachers must provide children with a more sophisticated understanding of the subject in a post-11 September world, Ofsted says. After a five-year inspection of RE classes which began in the year of the attacks on the US, Ofsted says rote learning of RE is no longer adequate. It says teachers should include ways in which religion is not always a force for good. BBC NEWS | Education | Call for ‘post-9/11’ RE teaching.

Joshua Project Our Purpose … to spread a passion for the supremacy of GOD in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ. Our Mission … to highlight the people groups of the world that have the least Christian presence in their midst and to encourage pioneer church-planting among every ethnic people group. Joshua Project – Unreached Peoples of the World. This is truly scary. These people want to convert everyone to Christianity, and wemean EVERYONE, but especially those who live in far flung places, minding their own business, without the same old gender bias as most of the Christian world that is, religious patriarchy.

E-mail: mail@suffolkhumanists.org.uk Event description: Suffolk Inter-Faith Resource has been asked by Suffolk County Council to organise a Forum of Faiths Meeting on Shaping the Future of Suffolk, a Community Strategy Consultation Document 2008-2028. The Forum will take place on Thursday 5th July at 7:30pm in Lecture Theatre 4 of Suffolk College. (Lecture Theatre 4 is a temporary building located behind the new SIFRE premises next to the Nursery). Members of the Creating a Cohesive County working party will be present to hear your views.