A recent photo (May 2009), by Susie FitzSimmons A recent photo (May 2009), by Susie FitzSimmons
Photo for
dinner invitation, 28/5/11.
I'm Stephen Petter, born Chatham, 10 May 1937. Divorced (but on good terms with my ex-). Two children, three grand-children. Four sisters. Happy with life though inclined to complain.
Now retired, I live in Bristol. I am a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers), taking an active interest in its spiritual life and its social witness and its administration. I regard my spiritual development as the most important part of my life. I spent three months at the Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham and some weeks in an Ashram in India. (Quaker CV)
I'm a member of the Alister Hardy Society which is closely associated with the Religious Experience Research Centre.
I am also a member of the Green Party, seeing this as part of my Quaker witness.
I was taken out of Grammar School when aged 15 to be a trainee chemist. I did not succeed at that, and as I was one of the last to have to do National Service I joined the Royal Air Force for five years as a Radar Fitter. While in the RAF and later I studied Electrical and then Mechanical Engineering and later I did a Diploma in Management course at what is now Coventry University. At the age of 34 I commenced working for a degree from the Open University, starting in its first year, 1971. This took me longer than it should as I became Vice-President, Finance in the Open University Students' Association. My BA was not a specialist degree; it was mainly in the field of socio-technical systems, which included the study of organisations and urban development.
My RAF training enabled me to become a computer engineer, from which I progressed to diagnostic programming then went over to being a commercial programmer and systems analyst, a job which I enjoyed greatly, to the extent that I avoided promotion to management. I also spent some years in Management Training then in Employee Participation and Communication. For the final 20 years of my paid-working life I was an independent computer consultant working mainly in multi-national corporations in several countries. I have good experience of small businesses and charities. (Full CV)
(My OU Student number is etched in my brain, as is my RAF number: A0096502 and 4185537.)
I retired in May 2002 but was then busier (and more stressed) than when employed! I am Administrator (and a Director and the Company Secretary) of a Charity: Friends of Sangam Foundation that supports a school in India. I have completed the Facilitator's course in AVP (Alternatives to Violence Project ) and I was also its Company Secretary. In Quakers I was until recently the clerk of the Finance Committee of Bristol Area Quakers Trustees. (Bristol Quakers).
Currently (September 2011) my appointments include: Local Quaker Meeting Overseer and also on its Premises Committee; Area Quaker Meeting Clerk to Area Meeting Overseers; Convenor of the Quaker South Asia Interest Group; Trustee, Administrator and Company Secretary of Friends of Sangam Foundation; Trustee and co-founder of One Wing Trust (currently setting it up); Prospective Green Party Candidate for Filwood Ward, Bristol City Council; Allocating Site Represesentative of the Redcatch E Allotment site; Governor of Oldfield Acacemy School.
Childhood in British Columbia, Canada
Overseas posting to Hawaii. (RAF, 1961)
Family holidays in Ireland, France, Italy
Employment in /New York, Orlando Florida, Paris, Den Haag,
Conferences in approx 10 overseas cities
Sleeping under the stars in the Western Desert (Egypt) in
2000.
Our 2001-2002 round the world
journey
Palestine in 2003
Sri Lanka and India for six weeks early in
2004
Sri Lanka as an International Monitor of their Presidential election,
2005
America in 2009 (including Virgin Is., USA, Canada)
Sri Lanka and
India (N and S) 2011
Sailing - Dreams, Plans and Qualifications.
Other sites created by me.
Long Term Plans .
1. Written in 2000: My intention is to devote much of my time to the formation and development of organisations to address some of the world's major problems - deforestation and the persecution of indigenous peoples that live in them, conflict between powerful states and minorities seeking independence, and economic injustice seen in the widening gap between nations that consume and pollute at the expense of those many of whose citizens starve.
2. Written in 2009: The fact is I've been retired over 10 years but have not found time to get started on these three big projects. However, the dreams have not quite disappeared.
But now I accept I will not move from my present home, am too old to do any serious sailing, and will never be rich. I hope to spend more time with my extended family, also much more time travelling cheaply in my region, in Britain and Europe, and (by surface transport) to and in India. In fact I hope to stay in India for some months, more than once. I dream of a bungalow on a hilltop in the foothills of the Himalayas.
I have become very keen on my garden and allotment, which bodes ill for travel plans! I've reduced my Green Party and local political activities but am still spending much time on Quaker and FOSF administration. In June 2009 I spent a month in the Caribbean and North America and expect it will be my last time there partly to avoid air travel and partly due to cost. Though I greatly miss the woman's touch and need company I probably will not get a partner, mainly because I am not prepared to devote the time to any one person to the extent that most women seem to demand.
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This page revised: 2006-12-31, 2009-07-18 (major) 2010-09-16, 2011-04-14, 2011-05-29, 2011-09-25
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