Archive for November, 2009
Trust publishes findings on Thought for the Day
Posted by: | CommentsWhat is missing from the photo above?
17 November 2009
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/news/press_releases/november/tftd.shtml
BBC
The BBC Trust today announced its findings on a number of appeals about the broadcast of Radio 4′s Thought for the Day and BBC editorial policy on non-religious content.
The Trust found that the editorial policy of only allowing religious contributors to participate on Thought for the Day does not breach either the BBC Editorial Guideline on impartiality or the BBC’s duty to reflect religious and other beliefs in its programming. However, the Trust confirmed that Thought for the Day must comply with requirements of due impartiality and that any future complaints on particular broadcasts of Thought for the Day would be judged against these standards on a case-by-case basis.
Academy threat in Oxfordshire
Posted by: | Comments
From the Secretary of Oxford Humanists.
ULT is the so called United Learning Trust – a Christian-backed organisation which likes to manage Academies as, essentially Christian, institutions. It has recently been found wanting [by some government-backed watch-dog] in several of the schools the government has [incautiously] allowed it to take control of.
ULT has managed to persuade Keith Mitchell, the Conservative leader of Oxfordshire C.C., that it would be an excellent choice to take over Oxford School [a non-religious secondary school in East Oxford] and turn it into a faith-based one – thus depriving children in East Oxford of the possibility of attending a non-religious secondary school.
From the local paper the Oxford Mail
Parent governor Anna Thorne, who has two children at the school and opposes the academy, was disappointed the study and consultation were going ahead.She said:
“We have to make the most of this consultation and ensure as many people as possible get a full picture of what the options are.When parents have had an opportunity to really look at all the options I believe they will feel a ULT academy is not a good option for Oxford School.”
Oxfordshire NUT president Gawain Little said: “We don’t believe an academy is the right decision.”
But he added: “The most important thing is what parents actually want because at the end of the day, it’s their school.”
Please spread this news to anyone you think may help.
Hampshire Skeptics in the Pub
Posted by: | CommentsBerkshire Humanists may be interested in Hampshire Skeptics in the Pub. They say:
Looking around at the Skeptics in the Pub groups it’s pretty obvious that there’s no group in the middle of the South of England.
There are groups meeting regularly in London, Bristol and Oxford but nothing in the middle of the South. This area of the country is a skeptical vacuum just begging to be filled with insightful and informed comment from those driven by science, reason and critical thinking.
If you live in Hampshire and the surrounding area in or near places such as Basingstoke, Winchester, Southampton, Portsmouth, Guildford, Farnborough, Reading, Newbury, Andover or Salisbury and you would like to join a Skeptics in the Pub group that potentially could move along the M3 corridor for meetings, please let us know.
We already have some awesome skeptical luminaries who have offered to speak. So we need to generate as much interest as possible in order to plug the hole in the dyke of reason and do something to hold back the flood of woo washing over us.
Also, if you do know of a small skeptical group or happen to be a member of one in the South please let us know so we can get in touch with them.
For more, see http://www.hampshireskeptics.org/?p=188
Hospital Chaplains again
Posted by: | CommentsThere has been a new round of letters in the local press about the payment of Hospital Chaplains salaries by the NHS. Those published on the 5th and 12th of November are shown below together with an as yet unpublished reply on behalf of Berkshire Humanists.
Original posting Chronicle, Thursday, November 5, 2009
IS idea an answer to cutback prayers?
IT was recently revealed that chaplains operating in the National Health Service are funded by the NHS and not the respective churches that they represent.
The NHS pays £32m annually in salaries for this service. Training costs, chapels and other overheads brings this figure up to about £40m. This sum would pay for 1,500 nurses or 2,300 cleaners. The statistics further showed that The Royal Berkshire NHS contribute annually £130,000 in salaries alone at this single hospital. In the current economic situation we must accept cutbacks in many areas including the NHS.
It would seem reasonable that consideration should be given to asking the churches to pay for their own chaplains to visit and provide spiritual needs to patients as and when required. Clearly there is a limited need for chaplains and the NHS has a duty to make this facility freely available, but not available free.
Surely the churches should provide and pay for their own chaplains. I am sure that most people believe this to be the case anyway.
I have contacted the Chief Executive of The Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust on this matter and enquired whether they will consider asking the respective churches to pay for their own chaplains.
The reply that I received was no.
Apparently the Royal Berks is happy to retain its present policy of subsidising the churches with NHS funding at the expense of providing extra nurses or medical care.
When cutbacks and priorities are being considered, I find this a most curious reasoning.
Alan Stuart Purley-on-Thames
3 Replies on November 12th
1. STAR LETTER: Wards ran on Christian charity before NHS
Re: ‘Is idea an answer to cut back prayers?’ (Alan Stuart , Letters, November 5)
THE NHS was only set up in 1948 and took over the established hospitals. These institutions had been built up over many centuries by the Christian charity, in perpetuity, of our ancestors. For example, the foundation of the Royal Berkshire Hospital is on land given by Henry Addington and family as a Christian duty (`noblesse oblige’). Sidmouth ward is named after him and Adelaide ward after the Royal Queen of William IV which dates this event to 1830. Our present monarch is still the head of the Established Church of England and defender of that faith, so a Royal foundation still remains entirely Christian. The Christian chaplains provide a vital ministry to both patients and staff and are an essential constituent of the English way when caring for the injured and the seriously ill and sick people.
Mary Field
2. Have faith in hospital chaplains
WHEN an anxious patient is lying in hospital, with cancer, facing a difficult operation not knowing what the future may hold, then they need all the help they can get from whatever quarter.
Therefore in my view, to argue about who should pay the small amount for hospital chaplains is being callous and small-minded.
So I take issue with Alan Stuart’s letter (Chronicle, November 5) objecting to the cost of supporting chaplains at the Royal Berkshire Hospital – £130,000 per annum — which by the way is less than one twentieth of 1% of this hospital’s annual budget.
As a matter of fact I shared John’s view until quite recently when I became an emergency patient at this very same hospital and had the opportunity of watching the chaplains at work in my ward and talking to fellow patients.
That experience changed my mind and I now think that, in the case of apprehensive and even frightened patients, chaplains can make a valuable contribution towards the healing process.
I don’t pretend to know how this healing process works or to understand the complicated relationship between mind and body when a patient is fighting against sickness.
As an atheist I doubt that it is divine
intervention, but more likely something called the Placebo Effect that has been proven many times over to be a most powerful and effective medicine that actually works in many circumstances – although it is still hardly understood.
But what about non-religious patients? Surely all patients, agnostics and atheists as well as theists, need chaplains of some sort with whom to talk?
If only our excellent consultants and doctors at the RBH had more time to communicate with patients, explaining things and reassuring them about their fears; then I am certain that their success rates would improve even further. But sadly they appear to be rushed off their feet sparing only a few minutes for each patient.
So I do not resent the money spent on chaplains in the least; I would just like similar treatment for all patients.
David Bazley
Hamilton Road, Reading
3.
I MUST respectfully disagree with my good friend Alan Stuart’s suggestion that hospital chaplains should be paid for by the churches (and presumably the synagogues, mosques and temples for other faiths).
There is abundant evidence that people who are ill need more than physical treatment.
Healing of the body is quicker and more complete when the patient is supported by people who have the experience and skills to listen and talk sympathetically about emotional and spiritual needs.
Those who are dying often need to share thoughts about what happens after death, whether or not they believe in a personal God or an afterlife.
Sadly, medical and nursing staff do not have the time, and may not always have the skills, to offer this kind of care.
That’s what chaplains are for, not just for patients who share their faith, but for everyone.
I believe that the cuts Alan suggests would be a false economy, leading to slower recovery and more work for the medical staff and I am relieved that the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust does not plan to make them.
If Alan finds himself in hospital and I hear about it, I hope I will be able to visit him – not to convert him to my faith (although I pray that the Holy Spirit will one day convert him), but just to show love and support.
Those who have no family or friends to do that have to rely on hospital chaplains, or on the non-existent spare time of doctors and nurses.
Robert Dimmick
Lowfield Road Caversham
Letter to Chronicle sent 16/11/09
REPLY by Alan Stuart PUBLISHED ON 18/11/09
Hospital prayers letters answered
I WAS interested to read the replies to my comments on hospital chaplains and am happy that your columns have balanced the views on the subject (ChronicleNovember 5 and 12).
I would like to point out that I am not opposed to prayers being uttered in hospitals. I am deeply concerned that your . readers and my friends should think that I would hold such dictatorial views.
I made the point strongly that the NHS has a duty to make this facility (chaplain service) freely available. I am very much in favour of the NHS making it possible for patients to have the spiritual comfort of prayer when they are in need. It matters . not to me, that this comfort may well be a placebo effect.
I reiterate the need for prayers being said in hospitals when a patient requests it, provided that there is no proselytising and that this service is provided by the churches and not (paid for by) the NHS.
****************************************
Taking this as part of a wider problem we see that the churches are very keen to take over many public services (including prisons) even where they do not have a history and there are dangers (as with the hospital) of not everyone’s needs being covered in a balanced and fair manner. What makes it more dangerous is that the churches are expecting to get the government to fund these schemes and the government is a little too keen to offload them without putting in place the correct oversight of inclusive coverage. Even the Archbishop of Canterbury has warned aid agencies working abroad about the dangers (which are just as real in this country).
“[There are] perfectly real” dangers of working with faith-based activists and groups in developing countries. Dr Rowan Williams encouraged secular agencies and NGOs to maintain a “steady vigilance about proselytism, manipulative use of favours, exclusive focus on people of the same faith and other practices that distort the goals of liberation for a whole community”.
The Guardian Nov 12th
The problem of religions and atheists competing for resources will be with us for a long time until all religions decide to join with other religions or beliefs in full interfaith discussions and are prepared to devote as much thought to other beliefs as their own.[This week is National Interfaith week] The British Humanist Association endorses this kind of approach. The government needs to show much more determination in standing up to the churches and seeing that everyone gets what they need in these areas.
Remembrance Day Tribute
Posted by: | CommentsBerkshire Humanists have for the past two years taken a small portion of their meetings in November to pay tribute to the past and present members of the Armed Forces. This year we have no meeting near Nov 11th so we offer the transcription below as tribute to one particular Reading son whose family have touched the heart of people well outside the town limits. Although he talks about a possible ‘after-life’ many of Cyrus’ sentiments and attitudes to life resonate with Humanist views.
Cyrus Thatcher was killed on 2 June 2009. This is the letter he wrote to be delivered to his family if he died: Interspersed with this are the comments from his mother Helena Timm as broadcast on Broadcasting House Nov 1st.
Hello its me, this is gonna be hard for you to read but I write this knowing every time you thinks shits got to much for you to handle (so don’t cry on it MUM!!) you can read this and hopefully it will help you all get through. For a start SHIT I got hit!! Now Iv got that out the way I can say the things Iv hopefully made clear, or if I havent this should clear it all up for me. My hole life you’v all been there for me through thick and thin bit like a wedding through good and bad. Without you I believe I wouldn’t have made it as far as I have.
MUM :We didn’t find the letter until the day before he was buried buried.It was actually after we had been to see him at the funeral directors. My eldest son Stevey found the letter. He had hidden it. We found it in his bedroom It wasn’t posted to us or anything . Stevey actually found it –and it was the day before the funeral –which in retrospect gave us the strength to go through that Gave us the strength to hold our heads up he was even more because we knew he had died doing something he believed in and that he died doing something he absolutely loved. He was always good with words. He could put his points across very well, but I was just gobsmacked, I suppose that he had the ability to sit down and write a letter like that. I don’t know that I could write a letter like that. I think that I would find it very difficult to try to give people the tools to carry on after I had died which is what he had tried to do for us.
I died doing what I was born to do I was happy and felt great about myself although the army was sadly the ending of me it was also the making of me so please don’t feel any hate toward it.
MUM : I know that other parents who have lost their children are very angry at what happened, but for me I feel that he chose this life. He went with his eyes wide open. He knew the risks. He knew it was dangerous. He hadn’t been dragged out of bed kicking and screaming and told to go to war. It was a job he chose to do. He was so set on going to war and we were very proud of him and we still are proud of him and we will be proud of him until the day we die
One thing I never made clear to you all was I make jokes about my life starting in the Army. That’s wrong VERY wrong my life began a LONG time before that (Obviously) but you get what I mean. All the times Iv tried to neglect the family get angry when you try teach me right from wrong wot I mean to say is I only realised that you were trying to help when I joined the army and without YOUR help I would have never had the BALLS, the GRIT and the damn right determination to crack on and do it.
MUM : I was actually more concerned about him when he was in town in Reading than when he was in the army. I think the British arm are trained to such a high standard. It was tough – a tough training course that he was on. They take them in as boys, beat the street out of them and turn them into men. That’s exactly what he was and that’s exactly what he wanted to do and no I didn’t really worry about him going into the army and he knew when he joined that he was going to Afghanistan.
If I could have a wish in life it would to be able to say Iv gone and done things many would never try to do. And going to Afghan has fulfilled my dream ie my goal. Yes I am young wich as a parent must brake you heart but you must all somehow find the strength that I found to do something no matter how big the challenge.
MUM : In a way it is just nice to think that he was to say comfortable with the possibility of his own death I don’t think was quite the right way of putting it, but I think that he had come to terms with the fact that it was a possibility. And I .. He didn’t go out there ‘gung ho’ -he was scared. Of course he was scared and you hope that nothing awful is going to happen, but I think that he was also a man enough to face the fact that there was a possibility that he could die and he had to just come to this realisation that he might not come home.
As Im writing this letter I can see you all crying and mornin my death but if I could have one wish in an “after life” it would be to stop your crying and continueing your dreams (as I did) because if I were watching only that would brake my heart. So dry your tears and put on a brave face for the rest of your friends and family who need you.Just remember do not mourn my death, as hard as this will seem. Celebrate a great life that has had its ups and downs.
MUM : I don’t know how he managed to write that and I am not quite sure what he expected us to do and I don’t know how easy it is to follow his advice. At the age of 19 I don’t think that you have any concept as to how you impact on other people’s lives. I don’t think he realised how much he would be missed. I don’t think he truly understood the impact of his death. He knew that we would be upset but I do not think he realised the devastation it would cause. It seems very raw and every time you think about it it is like being kicked in the stomach again. Before he left he said “If I die Mum , to be killed in action is the greatest honour and he said don’t be sad for me”. I am sad for him because I wish that he had lived longer and I wish that he had the opportunity to further his career. I think he would have gone far in the army. I think that he was definitely army stuff – but its our sadness that is hard to cope with. It is the ‘never’. The fact that we will never see him again it is the hardest thing to do on this earth. It is still too difficult for me to read really. I know that I will read it in time. And I know that I did read it when it was in the Newspaper . I certainly don’t re-read it. I have the paragraphs in my head really.
I want each and everyone of you to forfill a dream and at the end of it look at what you have done (completed) and feel the accomplishment and achievement I did only then will you understand how I felt when I passed away.
[To his brothers:] You are both amazing men and will continue to be throughout your lives you both deserve to be happy and fofill all of your dreams. Dad – my idol, my friend, my best friend, my teacher, my coach, everything I ever succeeded in my life I owe to you and maybe a little bit of me! You are a great man and the perfect role model and the past two years of being in the army I noticed that and me and you have been on the best level we have ever been. I thank you for nothing because I no all you have given to me is not there to be thanked for its there because you did it cause you love me and that is my most proudest thing I could ever say.
Mum, where do I start with you!! For a start your perfect, your smell, your hugs, the way your life was dedicated to us boys and especially the way you cared each and every step us boys took. I love you, you were the reason I made it as far as I did you were the reason I was loved more than any child I no and that made me feel special.
Your all such great individuals and I hope somehow this letter will help you get through this shit time!! Just remember do NOT mourn my death as hard as this will seem, celebrate a great life that has had its ups and downs. I love you all more than you would ever no and in your own individual ways helped me get through it all. I wish you all the best with your dreams.
Remember chin up head down. With love Cyrus xxxx
Presenter :Our thanks go the men of second Battalion , the Rifles and of course to Mum of Cyrus Thatcher Helana Timm There will be readings at services next week to raise funds for The Mark Wright Project.
The Mark Wright Project was established as a charity in July 2009 with a very clear vision to support our ex-service men and women, ALL branches of the Armed Forces, in addressing post-conflict issues, and to provide hands on, active and practical support to help ease their transition to civilian life.