 THE BETTER HOUR Gathering:
Purpose
No matter what your community concern -- unemployment,
illiteracy and education, drugs, prostitution, violence,
human trafficking, or any concern at all -- you can
start a BETTER HOUR Gathering. Even though all know that
one person can make a difference, there is no force so
powerful as people gathered together to effect change.
THE BETTER HOUR GATHERINGS put action to your concerns
and put strength into your resolve. Making Goodness Fashionable
Like most Americans, you care about making
your neighborhood and your world a better place to
live for you, for your children, and for your
grandchildren.
Over 200 years ago, the British statesman William
Wilberforce worked tirelessly to create the “better
hour” for his beloved England. His most amazing
accomplishment was working with friends, his faith
community, and fellow abolitionists to stop the
transatlantic slave trade both in England and in the
United States. But that was not enough for Mr.
Wilberforce.
In addition, he launched or participated more
than 60 groups or “societies” to effect changes for
the better. In an era of tremendous decadence,
together with “concerts” of his friends, he worked
to make goodness fashionable again. He and his
friends came together in dialogue to take common
action in order that life become a “better hour” for
the enslaved, for prisoners, for children forced
into labor, for the uneducated poor, and for many,
many others.
Today, America needs an army of modern day
Wilberforces. It needs people trained to convene
their friends and neighbors and to facilitate
gatherings of people who have the character, the
hope, and the passion needed to change the future
course of their neighborhoods, of their cities,
towns, nation and even of the world.
No matter what your community concern --
unemployment, illiteracy and education, drugs,
prostitution, violence, human trafficking, or any
concern at all -- you can start a BETTER HOUR
Gathering. Even though all know that one person
can make a difference, there is no force so powerful
as people gathered together to effect change. THE
BETTER HOUR Gatherings put action to your concerns
and put strength into your resolve.
THE BETTER HOUR
Gatherings bring together people of good will who,
like Wilberforce, want their lives to have meaning
and who want to make a difference in the community.
Ready to start? Find out why this is part of a long
history of change makers.
| Wilberforce was
associated with 69
societies, what we would
call non-profit public
service
organizations—Wilberforce
was Vice President of
29, on the Committee of
5, Governor of 5,
Treasure of 1 and Patron
of 1.
These societies
included: |
African Institution
Anti-Slavery Society
Auxiliary Bible Society
of Clapham
Baptist Missionary
Society
Bentham Panopticon
Prison Project
The Bettering Society
(a.k.a. The Society for
Bettering the Condition
and Increasing the
Comforts of the Poor)
Board of Agriculture
British and Foreign
Bible Society
British and Foreign
School Society (with
Jeremy Bentham, James
Mill, and Francis Place)
British (later Royal)
Institution
Cambridge Bible Society
Auxiliary
Christian Observer
Church Missionary
Society
Climbing Boy Society
Deaf Education
Education of indigent of
friendless' boys
Elland Society for
supporting candidates to
ministry in the Church
of England
Friendly Society Act of
1793 (legal foundation
of mutual benefit
societies so prevalent
in 19th cent. England
Friends of Foreigners in
Distress (included John
Quincy Adams)
German Relief Fund
[1814]
Humanization of the
English Criminal Code
(with Samuel Romilly)
Intercessions on the
Behalf of Convicts |
Mendip Schools (founded
by Hannah More)
Mohawk Indian Bibles
(printing Bibles for the
tribe)
National Gallery of Art
Penal reform
Potato growing to
relieve hunger among
poor
Religious Tract Society
Royal Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals
Rumford Eating Houses
St. Bartholomew's
Hospital (Wilberforce a
governor)
Sierra Leone Company
Small-pox inoculation,
compulsory urged by
Wilberforce
Society for Agricultural
Improvement
Society for the better
Observance of Sunday
Society for the
Discharge and Relief of
Persons Imprisoned for
Small Debts
Society for the Relief
of the Manufacturing
Poor
Society for the
Suppression of Vice
Strangers' Friend
Society
Sunday School Society
Trustee Savings Banks
Source: F.K. Brown,
Fathers of the
Victorians: The Age of
Wilberforce |
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What is a gathering?
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