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  • Quaker in Business

    Are you vigilant against earning undue profit at the cost of the community?

    by Quaker in Business about 18 hours ago

  • Quaker in Business

    If asked to support a local activity, try to find some way in which you can participate. How does your reputation stand locally?

    by Quaker in Business Saturday, 04 September 2010 07:45

  • Quaker in Business

    Are you actively involved in working for the improvement of the community in which you work?

    by Quaker in Business Friday, 03 September 2010 07:40

  • Quaker in Business

    Try to manage your business affairs so as to be an asset to the community and not an annoyance.

    by Quaker in Business Thursday, 02 September 2010 07:40

  • Quaker in Business

    Although it is easier to be recognised for what you do in a small community, in a large city the same concern for the community applies.

    by Quaker in Business Wednesday, 01 September 2010 07:40

Getting to New Light (5pm 2 November 2010)

Spirit founded Coaching skills for owners and managers

We get most from our learning when it is based on everyday issues balanced with practical content. This 24 hour workshop is highly interactive providing a shared productive and fun learning experience. Download the full programme

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Quakers and Business
What are we for? Who are we? PDF Print E-mail

We promote Quaker principles in business and the workplace, because we believe they are good in themselves.  This way, business earns a surplus and spends it - ethically.   And, charities and public bodies deliver their services with ethics at their cores, too.   Ethics means a practical, loving concern for the common good, physically, mentally, spiritually, rooted in collectively seeking the right way forward.

We are a growing network of Quakers and others;  most of us are Quakers presently in membership and all of us are in sympathy with what Friends stand for in the world. We are ever open to the truth, wherever it is found. Some of us work in the charity and public sectors at various levels of responsibility, others in the profit making sector, where we are either self employed, own and manage our own business, or work for manufacturing or service companies.

We are widely, thinly spread across Local Quaker Meetings (there will be one in your area). The Quakers & Business (Q&B) Group is the network through which we find each other easily when we need. It also facilitites our collective voice.  We welcome all as members, not just Quakers, who are in sympathy with our aims.  You can join online here.

Q&B is a listed informal group within Britain Yearly Meeting, and a registered Charity regulated by the Charity Commission. We have members in other Yearly Meetings and are in touch with similar networks elsewhere in the world.  You can find our Constitution in the Documents section.  We have a set of business principles, and work to realise our vision, mission & priority goals, which can be seen here.

What do we do?

We publish: i) our business principles summary statement, ii) our book Good Business: Ethics at Work - Advices and Queries on Personal Standards of Conduct at Work:  available from Friends House Bookshop. A portion of the proceeds go to support Quaker Social Action.

We meet: at three events in 2010.  You can: learn relevant stuff, meet new Friends sharing your interests - and make new business friends too.  The events are:

1.  The Quakers Non-executive Directors network, 24 - 25 May at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre, Birmingham, UK.  A content rich, professional networking event for all in NxD or charity Trustee roles or who would like to be.

2. The Quaker Business Conference 2010, 17 November, at Friends House.  We'll tackle: Prospering ethically in uncertain times.  Watch this space...

3. The Q&B Spring Gathering including our AGM, Saturday 2 April 2011, Edinburgh FMH.

We now have a Quakers & Business group on Linkedin.  Join here.
 
Cadbury - Letter in the Financial Times 17 Nov PDF Print E-mail
Written by Paul Whitehouse   

A successful and sustainable business model

From Mr Timothy Phillips.

Sir, Lombard’s comment (November 12) that “it would be tragic if a cogent defence of Cadbury ... was undermined by traditional fund managers selling out in order to pad their end-of-year returns” is an understatement!

The Quakers & Business Group is naturally taking a close interest in the future ownership of Cadbury. While Quakers are proud of Cadbury’s heritage, it is what the company is doing today and planning for tomorrow that excites us most. The current standalone Cadbury would seem to be making a success of combining shareholders’ and other stakeholders’ needs in meeting tough economic, social and environmental objectives in both the short and long term.

Cadbury’s recent strong third-quarter results, achieved despite the high trading levels of cocoa and sugar, demonstrates a management team acutely aware of delivering shareholder value. The “performance driven and values led” culture has, in recent years, seen the establishment of the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership, the Purple goes Green commitment to climate change and most recently the move into Fairtrade certification for Cadbury’s Dairy Milk. These initiatives are not about getting an ethical “badge” but securing Cadbury’s supply chain on a sustainable basis and in a principled way.

George Cadbury founded the business in 1824 to make an economic return but to do so in a principled manner. Early 19th century philanthropy became 20th century corporate and social responsibility and now has become 21st century sustainable development. In a global business environment, where in recent times some sectors and companies have failed to show their economic and social value to society, Cadbury has demonstrated a successful and sustainable business model. We hope it will be allowed to continue to do so.

Timothy Phillips,
Clerk,
Quaker & Business,
Bristol, UK
 
Doing Business The Quaker Way PDF Print E-mail
Written by Jo Poole   

Forbes have published an article by Mark Lewis suggesting that office meetings might be more effective if the participants emulated the Society of Friends.  Read it here.

 
Quakers understand how to treat people properly PDF Print E-mail
Written by Paul Whitehouse   
The Editor of The Tablet (a Roman Catholic newspaper) used Thought for the Day on Radio 4 Today to extol the virtues of Quaker business people!  The podcast is here.
 
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Something to consider

‘Life becomes simplified when dominated by faithfulness to a few  concerns.  Too many of us have too many irons in the fire.  We get distracted by the intellectual claim to our interest in a thousand and one good things, and before we know it we are lulled and  hauled breathlessly along by an over-burdened programme of good committees and good undertakings … Undertakings get plastered on from the outside because we can’t turn down a friend. Acceptance of service … should really depend upon an answering imperative within us, not merely upon a  rational calculation of the factors involved.  The concern-oriented life is ordered and organized from within.  And we learn to say No as well as Yes by attending to the guidance of inner responsibility.’

from ‘A Testament of Devotion’ by Thomas Kelly

Copyright © 2008 Quakers and Business Group.

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