Our Activities

PAD is supporting an event called Peace in Our Town on Thursday 21st October 7.30 at Elvet Methodist Church Durham City

Two speakers, Peter MacLellan and Patricia Devline who will help to animate the whole event.

The event will move from a hot discussion about local divisions and the need for peace and harmony in Durham to a cold discussion of the situation in Palestine

1. The "hot" discussion will be about issues which divide Durham at present and to try to determine whether there can be more understanding and perhaps common ground than there seems to be between groups who currently don't talk to each other.

We're thinking of fragmentation between town and gown, between academics and other residents, between members of different political groupings etc and issues such as those posed by the new Durham Plan - do we want Durham to be a historic city exactly as it is or to develop and lead the economy of the region? do we want more relief roads and scope for the motor car, or should we try to be green and emphasise public transport?

We'll do this by having a short provocative talk followed by facilitated discussions at individual tables on

- what sort of Durham do we want? (aim to get consensus, but if not to at least identify different themes and why we can't reach consensus)
and then
- how do we get there (on post-it notes, maybe in different colours if there are different visions, hoping to show that there is common ground)

We'll display the results of this during a break when there'll be cups of tea and nice cakes (I'm not at liberty to disclose whether flapjack will be available)

2. The "cold" discussion will be based on a talk on the realities of building peace in a Palestinian town near an Israeli settlement on the West Bank, to put some of our concerns in perspective.

We will try to summarise the results after the event and circulate these both to participants and to some of the relevant authorities.

Please tell everyone about the event and encourage them to come!