London Development Group’s Legal Subgroup shares the draft Articles of Association for Quakers in London, with opening notes putting the Articles in context: giving their legal background and highlighting the main changes which have been made.
Legal background
Every charity has a governing document of some kind that sets out the legal rules that govern how the charity operates. The draft governing document for Quakers in London (QiL) is based on the Articles of Association of London Quakers Property Trust (LQPT). That is because Friends agreed in October 2025 that QiL should use LQPT’s legal framework rather than setting up a new charity (which would have cost considerably more in legal fees and taken much more time).
LQPT is a charitable company and so its governing document is in the form of ‘Articles of Association’. There are a few other area meetings in Britain Yearly Meeting that use this legal form too. The Articles act as the constitution under both charity and company law.
If you would like to know more about why and how this structure was chosen, a summary of the legal advice taken to JLAM in October 2025 is available here.
You can also view Minute JLAM 2025/19, which agreed to use LQPT’s registration as a charitable company. This can be found in the full minutes of the meeting of 4 October 2025 here.
The process for revising the Articles of Association
The London Development Group has tried to make the minimum necessary changes in order to create a document that will work for QiL. Most significantly the Charitable objects (article 4) are good enough to allow QiL to function so have not been amended though Friends may choose to make changes at some time in the future. Certain types of changes to governing documents require Charity Commission permission and it can take a long time to get it. The London Development Group has not suggested any changes that require permission. They expect that QiL trustees will review the Articles again and may consider making further changes in the future.
The draft Articles of Association have been reviewed by Solicitors because some clauses need a particular wording to ensure they are legally compliant.
All Quakers in London are invited to be part of the process of agreeing the new document and so it is being shared widely. We need Articles that are good enough to serve. All feedback is welcome (directly to the LQPT Clerk on lqptclerks@quakersinlondon.org or via your AM’s trustees).
Formal agreement of the revised Articles of Association is for the Representatives of each of the LQPT Members. The Members under the old Articles are the seven AMs (KWAM, LWAM, NETAM, NLAM, NWLAM, SELAM, SLAM) and the representive of each is usually the Clerk of Trustees. The members have already commented on an earlier draft of the Articles and will be asked to agree a resolution to change the Articles of Association at their next meeting on 13th October 2026. Send any questions or comments to LQPTclerks@quakersinLondon.org or to your current AM Clerk of Trustees.
A quick guide to the changes in the articles
The thee main changes are:
Name of charity: the charity will no longer be LQPT but Quakers in London. It will have the same company and charity number as before so that it is clear that QiL is a successor charity.
Membership: the structure of LQPT was that the seven London Area Meetings were the members of the charitable company. For QiL, individual members of the Religious Society of Friends will be the members of the charitable company. From 1 January 2027 all the current members of the AMs who give their consent will be the charitable company members. From then on, all new people admitted into membership by QiL in session will also be charitable company members.
Types of meeting: in company law, a “General Meeting” is a meeting of members that complies with all legal formalities including sending written notices to individuals. Certain types of legally binding resolution can only be passed by a General Meeting, properly held, so the Articles need to cover the formalities. Most of our regular meetings of Quakers in London in session will not be General Meetings held in accordance with company law because we do not need them to be. We have tried to make this clear in the Articles so that we can continue to hold business meetings in the normal way without unnecessary bureaucracy.
Other changes:
Many of the changes are needed because QiL will operate as an area meeting of Britain Yearly Meeting and so will meet and work in a different way from LQPT.
And most of the other changes are not ‘real’ changes as they are to move points previously covered in a document called a Memorandum of Association into the main Articles of Association. At the time that LQPT was registered, some important information was contained in the Memorandum, but it is no longer possible to amend this type of document and so the information now needs to be included in the Articles.
Changes that haven’t been made though it looks odd:
The winding up clause (article 54) refers to Meeting for Sufferings, which has been laid down, and to the current London Area Meetings (which will be laid down). Ideally, we would amend this clause to remove that reference. However, this would require Charity Commission permission. Although it looks a bit untidy, the current wording is functional because if the first option cannot be used then the second and third options are still available.
There are also some definitions that have been left in the Articles even though they may not be needed, because they are linked to clauses that cannot be changed without permission.
View and download a PDF of the draft Articles of Association below:
You can also download a copy of the draft Articles of Asociation with covering notes here:
Do you have Questions about the Articles of Association? If you have further questions about the draft Articles or the covering note, please feel free to send them to admin@quakersinlondon.org.
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