We are delighted to announce that the ‘Playing with Peace’ Toddler Group will held every Tuesday from 1.30 – 3.00pm (in term time).
Join us in Thompson Jones Hall (below the Church) accessed via the car park. The group is a happy and fun place where parents and children can gather to learn ways of playing and relating that build good relationships and peaceful communities.
There is no charge attend, although voluntary contributions to running costs are appreciated.
Saturday, 16th March, 10.00am – 11.30am in the Prospect Suite.
Join us to celebrate and reflect on the Centre’s year in 22/23. We’d love to see you. Please follow this link to see or download the agenda and other info.
Andy and Jo Williams, Centre Directors
Blackley Centre AGM Notice and Agenda 2024
Blackley Centre Charity Trustee Elections
5 Session Course – In-person and online
April 26th – May 24th 2024
This course introduces a 5 stage process that you practise step by step. Although the focus is on transforming conflicts in churches, the skills that you learn can be used wherever there is a role, formal or informal, for mediative intervention by a third party. If you have an appetite for practical peace-making, and you want to be equipped to make a difference using mediation skills, this is the course for you.
Please visit: Events page for full Course & Booking detail
Download: Mediation Skills Course Flyer
The next Peace and Quiet days are on Saturday 23rd March, Friday 19th April, Friday 31st May, Saturday 29th June, Friday 26th July. After a break for August we recommence on Friday 27th September, Saturday 26th October, finishing the year with our Advent themed day on Friday 29th November.
These days have become very popular and much appreciated by past participants. They offer an opportunity for day retreat with loads of helpful resources as well as walks, conversation, and lots of good food. Come and be cared for. Take some space to rest and reflect in the lovely surroundings. Find some peace in the chaos, and some quiet in the storm. More details on our Events page.
We are truly saddened by the death of Richard Kidd. Richard has been a dear friend and colleague for many years and accompanied us through the creation of the Blackley Centre. From the first conversations about the Centre he and Rosemary embraced it – Richard’s infectious enthusiasm for what we were trying to do and be, enabled us to believe that we could do this. His support was not just in words – he offered to help us as a Trustee and to be our founding Treasurer. He created our publicity, our logo and our website and supported us in so many ways, generous with his time, his thoughts and his creativity. Rosemary and he have been close family friends since I was a teenager, and when we worked together at Northern he encouraged me to do more than I thought possible. We were so sad to lose Rosemary last year, and now Richard too. We give thanks for a remarkable man whose insight, creativity, adventurous thinking coming from his considerable brain, was sometimes disconcerting, frequently challenging, and constantly prompting exploration of the new. Rest well now Richard – may you know peace.
Both Andy and Jo really appreciated the opportunity to take a 2 month sabbatical from Church and Centre in July and August. It was a special time of rest and restoration, visiting other retreat and training centres, learning and being inspired by others working in this area of peace and reconciliation.
Friday 17th June and Saturday 30th July
Sometimes in this world we just need to slow down and look for some Peace and Quiet. We need to take the time to pause and reflect upon our role in society and our community. As the politicians of this age seem determined to take us further and further into chaos, we need to stop and reset.
The Blackley Centre are running a series of Peace and Quiet Days both before the summer holidays and then just after, starting on the 17th June.
This is your chance to join us at your own personal retreat day. Throughout the day you are free to enjoy the Centre, Chapel and grounds, a lovely environment in which to spend a day of reflection. Resources are available for you to use to create a personal retreat, appropriate for you.
The prefect place to relax, contemplate any issues that are important to you and hopefully find a path forward.
The first day is Friday 17th June followed by Saturday the 30th July.
All are welcome and to book just call 01422 646803 or email admin@blackleycentre.co.uk.
We’d love to meet you here.
Saturday 11th June at 10am – Zoom Meeting
If you run an Inter Faith Group do you face challenges?
Are there things that you do well?
Join us on the 11th to pass on what works for you and to get new ideas for your group to try. This will be your chance to meet and discuss the future with like minded leaders of other groups.
How can we have difficult conversations and remain in good relationships in our families, faith communities and among faith communities?
In life we often find ourselves in situations where we need to discuss topics that may be sensitive to others or we may hold different views.
How can we have difficult conversations without causing offence and remain in good relationships? At the Dialogue on the 3rd of May you’ll have opportunity to draw from the wide experience of our Director for Reconciliation as we discuss together how this helps us in the situations we face.
A group of fourteen of us, visited this exhibition in the Schwann Building at Huddersfield University. We were offered welcome refreshments and heard an introduction to the museum by two volunteers. Opened in 2018, it is one of the 2 Holocaust museums in the UK (the other being in London.) Cooperation between the Holocaust Survivors Friendship Association and Huddersfield University, plus funding from the Lottery and other sources, led to this remarkable exhibition. It is by no means a ‘fun’ visit but it felt to be a great privilege to share in these experiences.
As we made our way around the exhibition we viewed explanatory text panels, touched screens of life stories, short videos, interactive displays, plus photographs and displays of artefacts and possessions. These included the yellow stars that Jews were obliged to wear in Nazi Germany. The displays were modern, instructive, and compelling. I did notice that as we went around there was very little conversation. I think we were all so completely absorbed.
Some of the background information about conditions and treatment was very disturbing, but there was a positivity about this exhibition because it dealt with survivors who gained a new life locally and a chance of recovery. Elland people in particular will remember Lady Margaret Kagan, a Lithuanian who went into a concentration camp and eventually made a new life in the West Riding. It was heartening to read that the country of Denmark managed to evacuate nearly all its Jewish population to Sweden early on in the war. Also Albanian Muslims, including their civil authorities, refused to co-operate with the Nazis in any persecution of their Jewish population.
One lovely little story was of a young boy unable to speak any English who arrived by train in Leeds. His few possessions were put into left luggage and he was taken off by bus, ending up watching Leeds United playing Everton. The match was a draw, 1-1, but on that day he became a lifelong Leeds fan. Apparently when he was in his 90’s he was invited onto the pitch to meet all the team.
The exhibition finished with a short film and the final speaker said he was still alive only because he had been saved by the actions of a Gestapo Doctor. So there is hope in the darkest situations. I felt that despite the demonstrable horrors of the Holocaust there was a lack of bitterness in the exhibition. It is well worth a visit, open Monday – Thursday. Lots of information on the website, and appropriate for young people aged 14 and over. We intend to make sure our grandchildren go to see it. It will soon pass out of living memory and so these stories must be preserved.’
Jean Whitworth
