🌟 Discover Edinburgh’s Hidden Gems at Doors Open Days 2024! 🌟

Join us at AUC on September 28th and 29th for a fun weekend of exploration and history.  This year’s theme, “Heritage of Routes, Networks and Connections”  gives us the opportunity to reflect on our connections with the needs and concerns of the networks and communities with which we have worked since our congregation was founded in 1802. The presence of charity partners and building hirers over the weekend will bring those relationships right up to date.

We will also have information about our engagement with the legacies of slavery; and will present our justice-themed Urban Pilgrimages project, which is exploring our connection to women, the environment, the LGBTQ+ communities, and wellbeing in the city around us.

📅 Event Details:

• Saturday, September 28th: 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM
• Sunday, September 29th: 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM

✨ Highlights:

• Stalls from various charity partners and building hirers (Saturday Only)
• Guided tours of the church for which you will be able to see parts of the church that are not normally accessible to the general public (Saturday Only)
• Fascinating heritage pop-up displays
• Light refreshments

Over the course of the next few weekends in the run-up to Doors Open,  we will be providing a spotlight on the various charity partners and building hirers taking part in the event on our Facebook page. You can find a list of them below:

• Comunn Tir nam Beann/Argyll Association
• Global Justice Now
• Christian Aid
• Costume Society
• Society of Antiquaries of Scotland
• The Royal Scottish Society of Arts
• Mad Jam
• Health in Mind
• NHS Retirement Fellowship
• The Friendship Centre
• Old Edinburgh Club
• Scottish Genealogy Society
• The Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland – Forth & Borders Group

For more information, keep an eye our website and Facebook page for updates or contact us directly either by sending us a Facebook message with the words DOORS OPEN at the beginning of it or sending an email to heritage.visitors@augustine.org.uk.

See you there! 📸🏛️

PS: If you would like to see what else is happening during Doors Open Days in Edinburgh,  go to https://www.doorsopendays.org.uk/find-a-building?activeTab=0&keywords=&area=1346&openWeekends=

Looking for Fringe ideas? Don’t know where to start? How about with some members and friends of AUC?

Jo Clifford: Searching for the Sacred
Tuesdays/Thursdays, 6, 8, 13, 15, 20, 22 Aug, 2.15pm, St Mary’s Cathedral, Palmerston Place. (£10) (reflective walk, story-telling)

https://www.cathedral.net/event-details-registration/searching-for-the-sacred-2024-08-06-14-15

Jean Franzblau: My Mother Doesn’t Know I’m Kinky
2-10, 12-14 Aug, 10:15pm, theSpace @ Niddry St (Venue 9 – Lower Theatre) (comedy, true-life, 18+)

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/my-mother-doesn-t-know-i-m-kinky

Carol Joyner: Binocchio, the Bisexual Liar
2-10 Aug, 7pm, Paradise Green at Augustine (Venue 152) (stand-up, 16+)

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/binocchio-the-bisexual-liar

Laurence Wareing: Around the World in 80 Days
12-17 Aug, 6.15pm, The Royal Scots Club (Venue 241) (family-friendly theatre)

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/around-the-world-in-80-days

Anne Robinson: Vox Stars Presents Star Inspirations
12-17 Aug, 8:05pm, the Space @ Niddry Street (Venue 9) (Music – Vocal, Pop)

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/vox-stars-presents-star-inspirations

Tomás Barry: Getting to Iona
 2-11 Aug, 2.30pm, St. Columba’s-by-the-Castle church, 14 Johnson Terrace

https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/whats-on/edinburgh/st-columbas-by-the-castle-church/getting-to-iona/e-plqlej

Paradise Green

In addition to these, we are delighted to have Paradise Green back with us, transforming our city centre church into 5 (yes, 5!) venues. Click the names of the various spaces below to see what the look like during the Fringe, courtesy of Paradise Green.

You can explore the shows on offer using these links:

Paradise In Augustine’s – George IV Bridge
Spaces: The Sanctuary, The Studio, The Snug
https://tickets.edfringe.com/venues/paradise-in-augustines

Paradise In The Vault – Merchant Street*
Spaces: The Vault, The Annexe
https://tickets.edfringe.com/venues/paradise-in-the-vault

*To access Paradise in the Vault from the main entrance of AUC: cross over George IV Bridge, walk past Greyfriars Bobby and down Candlemaker Row and go under George IV Bridge (Merchant Street). This will take you to the Pend where you can access Paradise in the Vault spaces.

By Carol Joyner (From Seeds August – September 2024)

It was by pure chance that, for the second year running, my annual holiday with my younger son coincided with a Pride event in a major city. Last year we found ourselves immersed in the colourful (if somewhat commercial) Berlin Pride; this year saw me visit him in Australia during Sydney’s Mardi Gras.

We arrived at a time of significant tension between the New South Wales police and the organisers of the Mardi Gras due to the murder of a gay national TV star, Jessie Baird, and his partner, Luke Davis, by a serving police officer. This tragedy led to the Mardi Gras committee banning LGBT police from being part of the parade this year.

Despite the signs in Sydney’s Pride Square declaring this site ‘a safe space’, this has not always been the case. Earlier in the week, I had met the gay Christian activist, Anthony Venn-Brown OAM (pictured), founder and CEO of Ambassadors and Bridge Builders International, an Australian organisation that seeks to advocate for LGBT Christians.

Anthony said there were not only tensions between the police and the queer community; there are also tensions between the conservative Sydney churches and the LGBT community, leading Anthony to be labelled in one article as a ‘poster boy for sin’ with ‘demons in his eyes’.

The previous Sunday, I had attended a church service in a Sydney suburb. Despite the friendly welcome, it was clear from the outset that this was a church where women were not allowed in positions of leadership.

Furthermore, the songs were laden with references to hell, sin and addiction. Before we had even entered the building, we were asked our name in the church garden and given name badges, freshly printed from a labelling machine. This felt fraught with potential problems for transitioning or introverted visitors. The social time afterwards was even segregated along gender lines, with the women congregated at tables outside while the men spoke to one another. This was not a church in step with 21st century sensibilities – was this deliberate?

When the associate pastor asked me my views of the service, I communicated my misgivings around the message conveyed by the song lyrics and the patriarchal structure. It did not feel like a ‘safe space’ to me. I later learnt from Anthony that Sydney Diocese is renowned for its conservative views on women in leadership and LGBT issues, and is part of GAFCON, the Global Anglican Future Conference of Conservative Bishops. This puts it in communion with Churches in countries such as Uganda, which still inflicts the death penalty on ‘aggravated acts of homosexuality’.

The concept of Safe Space was to become a motif for the week. Later that week, we witnessed a heavy police presence at a large and noisy Pro-Palestine demonstration. We also visited Sydney’s Jewish Museum, which houses a large display on LGBT Jewish rights.

It was a powerful fortnight where we found ourselves inadvertently witnessing the battle for safe spaces, amid the tension of opposing world views – from the vocal street protests against police brutality, and the actions of the IDF in Gaza, to the more silent advocacy of minority religious, sexual and indigenous rights in the exhibitions we visited in the galleries and museums of Sydney.

I wonder where Matt and I will find ourselves next year…

From Seeds August – September 2024

AUC and Our Tribe were joined by friends and supporters from Northern Lights MCC (Newcastle), Glasgow and North London MCCs, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Edinburgh Methodist Church, and several Episcopal churches. We also welcomed a university Chaplain and the Moderator of the URC Synod of Scotland. There was breakfast, cake, huge appreciation from the marchers, and the great joy of celebrating Inclusive Church.

From Seeds August – September 2024

The Olympics, which come centre stage in August, were last held in Paris in 1924. On that occasion, the Scottish athlete and committed Christian Eric Liddell withdrew from the 100m competition, his favoured discipline, because the heats were to take place on a Sunday. That story, and what happened next, was re-told in the Oscar-winning film, Chariots of Fire, and is the inspiration for this year’s Eric Liddell 100 celebrations.

Liddell later became a minister in the Congregational Church and, like his parents before him, a missionary in China. When back in Scotland, he worshipped at Morningside Congregational Church, now Morningside United.

Carcant – tennis, running, and rabbit

Eric Liddell’s sister, Jenny, married into the Somerville family in 1932, becoming the wife of Dr Charles Somerville, the greatuncle of Robert Somerville and Elspeth Somerville Harley.

Elspeth writes:

Eric Liddell is best remembered through the 1981 film Chariots of Fire, but his name was familiar to me long before that.

Eric was both an outstanding athlete and a Christian missionary. He studied, lived and taught in Edinburgh and represented Scotland in Rugby and Athletics.

At the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, Liddell refused to run in the heats for his favoured 100 metres because they were held on a Sunday. Instead, he competed in the 400 metres, held on a weekday, and won gold.

He returned to China (his birthplace) in 1925 to serve as a missionary teacher. He only came back to Scotland for two furloughs, one of which he spent at Carcant, [an area of land in the Moorfoot Hills in Midlothian, in part owned by the Somerville family]. His sister Jenny was married to Charles Somerville, my great uncle, and I sometimes met her at Carcant when my family visited my grandmother and aunt who lived there.

While Eric was there, I am told he ran on the hills – training? or for the joy of it? or both? He also played tennis with various family members on a rough grass court they tried to maintain in the cow park – where two milking cows grazed.

Robert adds:

There were two relevant Charles Somervilles: the elder was a doctor in Bonnyrigg. It was he who became brother-in-law to Eric. His nephew, ‘Charlie’ Somerville (Elspeth’s and my father), was a member of AUC until his death in 2017. At Carcant in 1940 he remembered Eric as an excellent tennis player too. He also ran down rabbits!

Elspeth concludes:

Eric remained a missionary in rural China until his death in a Japanese civilian internment camp in 1945 [of a brain tumour and haemorrhage].

There he inspired both internees and guards by his cheerfulness and his deep spirituality.

He led physical exercises, taught classes to keep minds sharp, and shared his faith. Even in the camp he lived as he lived his whole life – with passion, compassion and integrity.

Eric said, ‘We are all missionaries. Wherever we go we either bring people nearer to Christ or we repel them from Christ.’

A tartan specially commissioned for the Eric Liddell 100 includes a recurring green stripe, ‘to represent his family holidays at Carcant and his love of field sports’. (The Scottish Register of Tartans)

Life in Tianjin

Kathleen Ziffo recalls getting to know Lorna Cammock, who handed her a photocopied handwritten letter from Eric Liddell to her late father, the Revd Charles Cammock.

Mr Cammock ministered in several churches in Glasgow and the west of Scotland, and had known Eric a little while they were training for the ministry. The letter includes what Eric calls some ‘cameo sketches’ of his life in China at the end of 1934.

My dear Cammock,

It was good to get your letter & hear of your work in Oban. Why, of course I remember you; wasn’t it you who took for his test in the sermon class ‘… that I may know Him & the power of His resurrection…’. Well those days are past now, I often wish I had made more use of them. You want a note from China – it will have to be brief but may help to bring a little interest to some. I’ll write it in two or three little sketches…

1. The fellowship of prayer

I am working in a College [the AngloChinese Christian College in Tianjin, run by the London Missionary Society] as a teacher of Science. This last term I gave a special invitation to several of the teachers to join with me each morning before classes start. At first only one or two did but slowly we have had others adding on. We turn to prayer; we challenge ourselves so as to help us intentionally to keep close to the Holy Ghost [?]. It has brought a fine spirit between us which I hope will spread.

2. The place we work in

Tiantsin [Tianjin] hardly seems like a Chinese city as it is so foreign in many ways. We are situated in the French Concession with all the modern conveniences – electric trams outside our doors etc. There are all the difficulties of a city for education work, especially fields for games. This year we have been fortunate in securing an adjoining piece of ground. It was covered with bricks – stones – boulders etc & with the boys all helping & outside workmen we have been able to clear it so that there is a football field right next to us.

3. The Church

On the opposite side of the road there is the church with all its activities. Two or three days ago they gave a bag of meal each to people who had been selected as desperately in need. My, they were too. We don’t understand such poverty and filth.

….

All the best of wishes for 1935. May it be the best year you’ve had with a rich blessing on your congregation.

Eric finds fandom

A service celebrating the life of Eric Liddell was held at St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh on Saturday 22 June.

The preacher was the Revd Lindsey Sanderson, Moderator of the National Synod of Scotland. She shared stories of how the teenagers at Morningside Congregational Church – where Liddell led Bible study sessions – formed a fan club…

On 17 December 1925, Eric Liddell wrote a letter to Elsa McKechnie, acknowledging the founding of 14-year-old Elsa’s Eric Liddell Club. ‘I do not know what I might be let in for’, he wrote. ‘However, there are times when we have to risk a little’ – and to receive the adulation of some teenage girls was clearly something Eric considered a risk.

Many years later Elsa would recall having heard Eric speak at Morningside Congregational Church, and reflect that it was his sincerity and humility which drew her and her friends to their expression of fandom.

Elsa found in Eric a role model. Fast forward almost 60 years, and the release of Chariots of Fire introduced me to Eric Liddell. A little younger than Elsa, here for me was someone with whom I could identify – someone who was nurtured in the Congregational Union of Scotland that was nurturing me, and significantly someone whose own commitment to not running on a Sunday chimed with my experience growing up – that Sunday was a day for church and family, and not friends’ birthday parties or, the one I did particularly struggle with, school skiing lessons in Glen Shee.

Role models are important for all of us, especially when we see ourselves in others and take inspiration from that.

Celebrating the Revd Eric H. Liddell

Morningside United Church (MUC), Liddell’s ‘home’ church, is proud of its association with the famous runner.

His name, together with those of his brother and sister-in-law, is included on the Morningside Congregational Church Missionary Roll of Honour. ,

The congregation remains involved in supporting The Eric Liddell Community, located across the road in the former North Morningside Parish Church. The Community supports people living with dementia, including through its flagship day care service; runs a wellbeing programme for unpaid carers; and operates a community hub, including a café and office space for social enterprises and charities.

Events over the summer celebrating the Eric Liddell 100 include:

22 July – 4 August:
Around 30 shops and businesses from Bruntsfield to Comiston celebrating the Liddell centenary with
window displays.

25 July – 12 September:
Eric Liddell exhibition at the Scottish Parliament.

6 August (Tuesday), 6.15-7.30pm:
BBC Radio 4 recording a service of hymns and choral music at MUC. To be broadcast at
8:15am on Sunday 11 August to mark the close of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. All singers welcome.

10 August (Saturday), 2-4pm:
Dedication of Eric Liddell Peace Garden & Garden Party, MUC

16 August (Friday), 1.30-2.45pm:
Eric Liddell: The Chariot of Fire – a theatre performance by Searchlight Theatre, MUC.
Tickets £12:50. See EdFringe 2024 (searchlighttheatre.org)

Lots of information about Eric Liddell and the centenary events at ericliddell.org/the-eric-liddell-100/

By Rev Fiona Bennett (From Seeds August – September 2024)

As Julia Cameron has written, ‘Creativity is God’s gift to us. Using our creativity is our gift back to God.’

We are entering the Seasons of Festival (August) and Creationtide (September), both of which invite us to remember and develop the joy and discipline of creativity.

Creativity is not the sole province of those who can draw or make music, it is about ordering and re-ordering our world through the stories with which we shape our existence. To relearn to live without a loved one takes a creative reshaping of the story of our lives. To find a new route home when our train in cancelled takes creative problem solving. To work out what shopping we can buy for the week takes creative planning. Our creativity is about our ability to imagine, reimagine and shape our world, and the stories by which we perceive and express our lives.

The seasons of Festival and Creationtide are reminders that our creativity is a gift of God and a fundamental part of our humanity as God has intentionally created it. In Genesis chapter 1, God created patterns of life from the chaos of existence. Later, Jesus re-ordered the world around him, welcoming those deemed dirty or dangerous and adapting the rules and expressions of faith. There is a clear sense that God’s call to humanity is about creating and re-creating abundant life for all. Creativity is a divine gift which can offer deep joy and satisfaction, but is also a discipline involving risk and growth.

The season of Festival is a time in Edinburgh to encounter human creativity expressed in the Arts (see p.10). As they have always been, the Arts use the discipline of creativity to express highly condensed pictures of Life. As humanity grows increasingly anxious and desperate in the shadow of the environmental crisis, conflict, and the divisions between rich and poor, we are in emaciated need of nourishing, truth-filled stories of Hope, Love and Faith to honour and steer us. If we can value, nurture and support them, the Arts are the tellers of these stories. There are challenges in the Festival and Fringe of cost and crowding, which need creative consideration and perhaps reordering, but it is still an incredible opportunity to catch imaginative glimpses of those pictures of Life which the Arts offer.

The Season of Creationtide invites global humanity (us!) to use the discipline of creativity to re-order our world so that all may live. Taking the wisdom of our faith story (that each and every life and species is divinely intentioned as critical parts of a healthy whole), Creationtide urges us to use the discipline of creativity to re-imagine what as Christians we treasure, and re-order our world to reflect those values and treasure. Julia Cameron (author of The Artist’s Way) said: ‘Creativity is God’s gift to us. Using our creativity is our gift back to God.’

Whether or not we can paint or write, using our creativity to re-imagine, reorder, re-shape our minds, lives and world, to bring fullness of life to all.

By Moira Holmes (From Seeds June – July 2024)

Readers may remember that I was blessed, in February/March 2023, to spend six weeks at St Elijah and St Enoch Monastery (Seasem) in New Zealand (Seeds, June-July 23).

On returning to Scotland, I found myself longing to go back, which I did last December, staying three months, as a postulant.

I was convinced that everything was in alignment for a future life there. Not long after I arrived, Prior Rob described how most monastics, in the beginning, often feel like they are in a coffin. I thought, That’s not me, I’m where I’m meant to be. After all, Jesus had already knocked on my bedroom door to welcome me! Slowly, however, the discernment process brought me to realise that my time in NZ was to be only for a season.

The photo is one of the cross-stitches I completed while there and it is a wonderful visual representation of my discernment process. The nature of the pattern made it impossible to hide. Any mistake had to be unpicked, and often in the unpicking the thread broke. However, by God’s grace I was able to pick up the pieces and move forward.

While there were many challenges, there was also much joy. This manifested gloriously one morning a couple of weeks before I left. I was sitting in contemplation at the start of Lauds, the sun beating down on me. I opened my eyes and noticed that my robe looked like millions of stars against a night sky. I was looking at God’s wonderful cosmic creation; clothed in the glory of Christ.

I now believe that I was called back to Seasem as a holding place to allow me to deepen my relationship with our Lord; to heed that knock on the door and open my heart to Jesus; to become better equipped for the challenges ahead; and to help me become the person God needs me to be. I trust that her great plan for me will continue to unfold, and I just need to keep saying ‘Yes!’

By Hanna Albrecht (From Seeds June – July 2024)

What are you hoping to gain by the end of this week?’ our instructor Colin asks us on the first day, and the silence lingers heavily in the room.

I don’t know how to answer. I’ve come here tired and exhausted.

In the last year, I’ve struggled with the lack of response the world is giving to the climate crisis. I’ve witnessed an increasing amount of hate poured out against people who are different, particularly the trans and nonbinary communities. I’ve seen the death toll in Palestine climb every day for months. I’ve wrestled with the fear that no matter how much I advocate for peace through justice, it will never be enough.

When I look around the room, I can see the same tiredness in the faces of the people around me – public health workers, diplomats, religious leaders, educators, all gathered here because they have gotten stuck, one way or another, in working for peaceful change.

‘I’m hoping for hope,’ I answer when it is finally my turn. We’ve gathered in a sunlit room at the edge of Northern Ireland, in a place that has dedicated itself to building peace and connection between people and fostering the hope that I am searching for so desperately.

For five days, we have come together in the Corrymeela Community to learn about ‘Dialogue for Peaceful Change’ (DPC), a mediation model focused on understanding the nature of conflict and facilitating mediative dialogue. We spend a day exploring our own attitudes towards conflict – a difficult one for me, as someone who loves to avoid it as much as possible!

I scribble furiously as we turn towards the neurobiological foundations of conflict on Day Two. What happens in our brains when we go into conflict with one another? How can we make sure that people stay open to being in relationship with one another, to empathise with one other?

For three days, we practise our mediation skills by working through difficult conflict scenarios from around the world. I am still tired because it’s tiring work, and the days are long. But I am no longer hopeless.

With every passing day, we grow closer as a community. When someone gets stuck, another person steps in to help out. We watch each other grow in confidence, admit our fears to one another during early morning walks along the coast, belly-laugh together during evening social times around the fireplace. And by the end of the week, it really does feel possible, sometimes, that conflicting parties can find common ground. That people can be courageous and empathetic despite pain and fear clawing at their hearts. That a new story can be told.

As part of the DPC model, we never mediate alone. That is what sticks with me more than anything else. We are not supposed to be doing this work by ourselves, we are part of a community. When I lose hope, someone else will be able to offer it to me with an outstretched hand. Which is also the way that we live out our faith, not in isolation from God and others, but in messy and authentic community, ready to tell new stories, waiting with an outstretched hand.

With grateful thanks to the communities who made it possible for me to attend this training: The URC through the Discipleship Development Fund, AUC’s Our Tribe, and a dedicated Family Group of the Iona Community.

From Seeds June – July 2024

A summary of AUC’s 2023 finances from the Centre, Property & Finance Church Life Ministry Team

The traffic lights are back, swing-o-meter style! Below is a consolidated comparison between 2023 and 2022.* The 2023 results are largely influenced by two factors: cost of living challenges and a return to pre-Covid level usage of the building, which is welcome but increases costs.

Booking and rental income

Booking and rental gross income was up by £17k (13.75%).

Offering income

This was about £6k (10%) down. We are very grateful for everyone’s contributions, whether financial or otherwise, and recognise these are challenging times.

Gift Aid (including the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme)

This was down by about £3k (19%), but this is misleading and mainly due to a very generous donation in 2022, without which the underlying position was broadly comparable.

Building repair costs

Costs were down by about £5k (15%). Augustine being an old building routinely provides maintenance challenges as was particularly the case in 2022.

Utility costs (electricity, gas, water and phone/BB)

Costs went up by about £1k (5%) (reflecting the improved usage of the building). We have been shielded from the worst of inflationary energy charges through a fixed term contract which is nearing an end. We are actively looking for (a) a competitively priced green energy replacement contract, and (b) ways to improve the energy efficiency of the building, and associated grants.

Building running costs

These are proving particularly challenging and went up by circa 16K (over 16%).

NOTES

• Swing: each segment of the chart represents a 10% change for better (green) or worse (amber/red).
• *Indexation: To provide a like-for-like comparison, the 2022 figures have been adjusted by CPI.
• Gift Aid declaration forms are available on the website: www.augustine.org.uk/gift-aid-declaration

By Lewis Reay and Carol Shepherd (From Seeds June – July 2024)

This year Transgender Day of Visibility fell on Easter Sunday. It always falls on 31 March but this year it seemed particularly fitting as Jesus was coming out of the tomb in resurrection.

Building on the successes of last year, this year we held an event to celebrate transgender joy, mark the first birthday of Resisting Transphobia in Edinburgh (RTiE), and listen to speakers from local transgender community and campaigning organisations.

RTiE is a community-based organisation which collaborates with progressive organisations, champions trans liberation, joy and a safer future for trans youth, and aims to foster unity within the transgender community and beyond. AUC provides meeting space for RTiE and several members of AUC regularly attend. Find out more about them at www.rtie.org. We had a diverse cross-section of around 70 people at the event. For some, this was their first time in our building. This provided a safe space to mark our collective achievements and find energy to continue in the action towards transgender liberation.

Vic Valentine from Scottish Trans spoke about their work, and the current climate of transphobia in Scotland and Edinburgh in particular. Kit from RTiE spoke about how the group came into being after anti-trans speaker Posie Parker held a rally in Glasgow in February 2023, and the realisation that counter-protestors needed support to keep themselves safe from far-right elements. This was in the context of the murder of Brianna Ghey on 11 February that year.

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence spoke about their work as a group of radical drag nuns, who have been LGBTQ community activists since 1979. We had spoken word poetry from Amy-Jo Philip and Lewis Reay, with work written specially for this Transgender Day of Visibility, and Laurence Wareing played a selection of wonderful show tunes. Several local clergy were present, as was the Revd Lindsey Sanderson, Moderator of the Scotland Synod of the URC.

Ashley also made a wonderful rainbow cake to celebrate RTiE’s oneyear anniversary and a very excited Leslie Cunningham was invited to blow out the candles, making us all smile with a jig of joy in the sanctuary!

February also saw Our Tribe mark LGBT History Month with a Human Library organised by Maxwell. It proved a rich learning experience as we walked in the shoes of others and listened to stories of suffering and redemption. This was followed by a time of eating cakes and partaking in a rather challenging quiz run by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. (So challenging that the winning team scored 5/20!)

The evening was given over to an Open Mic event compered by Carol (who also premiered her stand-up routine), and featuring Steve’s remarkable storytelling in highly expressive Scots Gaelic, Bill’s Ministry of Magic (especially the sock trick!), Christian’s vocal and guitar performance of well-loved numbers by Joan Osborne and Billy Eilish, and an impromptu rendition of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ by some assorted Sisters!

AUC also provided a safe space and place of quiet reflection for the queer community on 6 April, during a demonstration on The Mound against trans rights, held by radical feminist group Let Women Speak. A counter demonstration was organised by RTiE involving singing, dancing and music. Trans siblings and allies had the choice to attend the rally or be with us at AUC. It was pleasing to see a good number make use of the latter.

Following feedback from the queer community, AUC plans to host another Open Mic event, alongside further collaborations with RTiE and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, so watch this space!