Autumn Event 2006

A very big thank you to everyone who helped make this year's Autumn Event such a success. It was lovely to see so many people turn up to the Friends Meeting House on Sunday 29th October to share in an afternoon of friendship, serious reflection and food together.
This year our format was a little different in that we had invited a panel of representatives from different faith backgrounds to give a short presentation on the theme of "Do we need religion?". Some very diverse views were then followed by an opportunity for the audience to ask questions.Our panelists included Swami Ambikananda (Hindu), Bob Tutton (Humanist), Munawar Karim (Muslim) Rabbi Hadassah Davis (Jew) and Professor John Cottingham (Christian), They were supervised by our patron Stephen Cottrell, Bishop of Reading who is very good at time-keeping and would probably make an excellent referee! It was also lovely to welcome Bet Tickner, Mayor of Reading and Beverley Ruddock, a Deputy Lieutenant for Berkshire.
Our audience asked some challenging and enthusiastic questions. The time passed very quickly as we shared different perspectives and faith traditions together.
Afterwards we shared in our traditionally very large bring and share tea. Thank you to everyone who contributed, and in particular the team of Friendly washers-up who were kept extremely busy.