The Society campaigns to encourage high standards of written and spoken English, which have been found to be lamentably low among school-leavers and even university graduates. One of its principal campaigns is for better and explicit English language education and regular constructive correction of errors in English language in schools. The Society arranges meetings, lectures and courses, promotes research, publishes members’ work and provides media comment. Rhea has taught drama, English and psychology.

It’s our AGM with the usual reports and election. We’re hoping that members will have lots of bright ideas for the coming year’s activities. If there’s any time left over, we’ll find a way to fill it with stimulating something or other. [Click here for an AGM newsletter with the agenda](http://www.suffolkhands.org.uk/files/1/SHANDS Newsletter April 2012.pdf “2012 AGM newsletter”). [Click here for the online activity report that was omitted from the newsletter](http://www.suffolkhands.org.uk/files/1/SH&S online activity report, 2012 AGM_0.

Our latest newsletter is here for you to download. [Just click here](http://www.suffolkhands.org.uk/files/1/SH&S News Mar 2012.pdf “SH&S News March 2012”) (pdf).

Cardinal Keith O’Brien, leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland, has said that plans for gay marriage were a “grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right”. He’s a funny idea about what “human right” means. Article 16 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights says: (1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family.

The liberal Christian think-tank Ekklesia reports on a claim by Christians in Parliament and the Evangelical Alliance UK that British Christians are victims of prejudice, and finds that they’re seeking to retain privileges rather than submit to equal treatment with everyone else. Simon Barrow, co-director of Ekklesia, commented: Initial impressions from this report are that it raises significantly more questions than it answers. For example, it seems to assume that most people who are convinced Christians automatically share, or should share, a range of prejudices – notably against LGBT people – which make them unwilling to comply with requirements to act in a non-discriminatory way in the provision of public services.

From today’s Telegraph: He has railed against the evils of religion, and lectured the world on the virtues of atheism. Now Richard Dawkins, the secularist campaigner against “intolerance and suffering”, must face an awkward revelation: he is descended from slave owners and his family estate was bought with a fortune partly created by forced labour. One of his direct ancestors, Henry Dawkins, amassed such wealth that his family owned 1,013 slaves in Jamaica by the time of his death in 1744.

Do we want it or need it? Alain de Botton has written a book about it, our member Michael Imison has heard him talk about it, and Michael’s going to tell us about it. Usual place – the Inter-Faith Centre, West Building, University Campus Suffolk.

Found on Facebook – source unknown.

I was asked to contribute to a discussion on James Hazell’s Saturday Show on BBC Radio Suffolk. James introduced the slot on Facebook as follows: The Warr Zone at 11 – Are we losing our religion? Rows over prayers at council meetings, falling church attendences and an MP who says Europe needs to ‘get comfortable’ with christianity. Do you need religion in your life? The “Warr” in the title is Simon Warr.