Category: Quakers in London

Friends House Childrens Meeting: an update and upcoming vacancy

This article is a contribution from our Friend Lucy Dodgson, who is the current Children and Young People’s worker at Friends House Meeting.

Friends House Children’s Meeting is an opportunity for young Quakers to gather, create, and engage with topics in the spirit of the Quaker Testimonies. Held in the Elizabeth Fry Suite of the lovely Friends House building, we welcome all participants aged 0-18 every (yes, every) Sunday of the month!

As some Friends may know, our Children’s Meeting had to go on a brief hiatus this past Winter, but I am happy to report that we are back up and running and we are thriving! Since February we have welcomed many young people through our doors, both London-based, and visiting Friends.

We have had easter egg hunts, written stories, made friendship bracelets, painted, coloured and generally got very messy, all in the spirit of loving exploration. Suggestions from participants on themes and activities are key; we are building a meaningful community here, where everyone has a say.

Childrens Meeting Art – Pink Butterfly

Childrens Meeting – Art Supplies

Childrens Meeting Art – Palm Trees

Some upcoming topics for the next couple of months include “Take the adults for a walk”, “A puppet show” and making things with clay. We warmly welcome any who would like to join us, and you can contact cypworkerfh@gmail.com to be added to the mailing list, to be kept up to date on what activities are happening when.

While I am delighted to tell everyone about our wonderful Children’s Meeting, it is with a heavy heart that I also announce that I will be leaving London later this year and so there will soon be a vacancy for the (paid) role of Children and Young People’s worker at Friends House. The Meeting would very much like to hear from anyone interested in taking up the role. The job description is attached below, and in the meantime please do reach out to the Clerks at FHMClerk@outlook.com or me at cypworkerfh@gmail.com to enquire about the nature of the role or express interest. The rate is £20 per hour.

The deadline for applications to this role is 23 August 2026 (although this may be extended as needed)

2026 07 – CYP Worker Role Description Download

22 July, 2026
Changes in the Responsibilities of Local Meetings within Quakers in London
A paper has been prepared by the Governance SubGroup of the London Development Group, bringing together the work of many Friends, to give a summary of how Local Meetings will work within a single London-wide Area Meeting.

At the end of 2026, the seven current Area Meetings of London will merge with each other and with London Quakers Property Trust, to form Quakers in London (QIL). After that, the 33 Local Meetings will continue to operate in much the same way as now, guided by chapter 4 of Quaker Faith and Practice. This paper sets out the few exceptions, where there will be changes in how things work. Most of these are changing either because the new Area Meeting will be much bigger than our current ones or because QIL will provide a little more staff support to Local Meetings than currently. As LMs vary in the details of how they do things, the degree of change for each LM, compared with current practice, will also vary.

This paper covers the following areas:
- Local Business Meetings
- Clusters
- Local Nominations Committees
- Eldership and Pastoral Care
- Membership
- Finance and Treasurers
- Premises
- Outreach
- Community and Witness work
- Provision for Children and Young People
- Safeguarding
- Advice to Friends on funerals
- Care of burial grounds
- Websites and IT
Read and download the Changes in the Responsibilities of Local Meetings within Quakers in London paper, below:

Changes in the Responsibilities of Local Meetings within Quakers in London – v5 Download
22 July, 2026
Kingston and Wandsworth Area Meeting decide to join Quakers in London

After some deep discernment, Kingston and Wandsworth Area Meeting (KWAM) made this minute on Sunday July 19th:

“…we confirm that we would like to merge with the other London Area Meetings and become part of QiL. We appreciate that there is more work to be done regarding this transfer in January 2027; having made the decision to join, we will be able to address the various issues raised going forward in a positive and joyful spirit.

We also confirm that we would like to form a Cluster comprising the five Local Meetings that are currently constituent meetings of our Area Meeting. We thank Mike Stanger for the paper on clusters, which will provide a useful reference point for future discussions on the practicalities of the operation of the Cluster at September Area Meeting.”

This merger – which includes the seven London AMs and London Quakers Property Trust (the body which holds and deals with London Quaker Property) will take place at the beginning of 2027. While this project was undertaken with a view to simplifying Quaker governance, the project also seeks to merge seven separate worshipping communities into a single spiritual home for 1500 Quakers in London. The new Area Meeting’s role (like all other Area Meetings) is ‘to develop and maintain a community of Friends, a family of local meetings who gather for worship and spiritual enrichment.’ (Quaker Faith and Practice, 4.02)

The full minute is available to read and download below:

KWAM minutes July 2026.docx Download

21 July, 2026
Quaker Peace Vigil

Silent Walking Vigil for Peace being held in central London on Saturday 19 September 2026. You may already be aware of the vigil, as Quakers have been spreading the word within Quaker meetings, communities and organisations across the UK.

There now have more than 300 people indicating that they will be attending the vigil and the organisers are encouraging anyone who hopes to be there to sign up on their website https://quakervigilforpeace.org/ to help with planning.

Additional information about the vigil has recently been added to the website, including details of the walking route, with the start and end point.

We know of various complementary events being arranged by local and area meetings around the country, to coincide with the vigil enabling those who are unable to travel to London to be in solidarity. Events include a local peace vigil, a peace run, a simultaneous meeting for worship to uphold the silent walking vigil.

If your meeting is organising anything as part of this event, please let us know at quill@quakersinlondon.org and we can share the details on our email newsletter.

21 July, 2026
QiL News Sheet 10

Quakers in London News Sheet 10 Download

21 July, 2026
A 21st Century Kind of Service: Join the JLAM Tech Team

A submission from our Friend Chris Martin

Interested in how tech can help London Quakers meet more effectively?

Technology is playing an increasing large part in our meetings – in the room where microphones make sure everyone is heard, to online where cameras, sound and zoom allow those not able to attend to take full part in our discernment. It also hugely increases accessibility, with subtitles and remote access to enable everyone to participate.

To make all this work, we are looking to build a QiL Tech Team – a group of Friends who are curious, want to learn some new skills, and are willing to help set up and run all the exciting tech. You can learn a lot, helps you get to know other people, and is a useful transferable skill in all kinds of areas.

No experience needed (we mean this!): enthusiasm is the main qualification. Whether you’re drawn to audio mixing, camera and streaming setups, sorting out which cable goes where, or just enjoy troubleshooting a fiddly problem with good company, we can show you how everything works. Over time, as people pick up different bits of kit and knowledge, we’ll grow a team that can share the load – and it will be fun!

Interested?

Join our WhatsApp group to find out more. We’ve also heard that some local meetings are looking for advice about tech arrangements. QiLAC is in a lucky position to be able to pool expertise across London and we’d love to hear your questions!

20 July, 2026
Reflection on Helping Run London Quakers

A reflection from our Friend Fred Ashmore

We laid down London Quakers after our last QiL Meeting for business on 13 June and approved the final annual report. So, no more mailings, no more conversations with Friends House hospitality, no more flyers furtively scattered around the cafe, no more smiling Friends arriving with “was I supposed to register”.

Closing down included archiving a set of the Annual Reports from the beginning in 2011 until now. How nostalgic that was. If you’re interested you can have a look at them at this link Annual Reports. They included lots of familiar themes and thoughts such as chaplaincy, death and dying, sex gender, racism, reparations. A good proportion of these were the meetings that went into pulling together the present Quakers in London and its structures. LQ has run 7 or 8 gatherings for the Quakers of London every year for 12 years and each and every one of those was organised for you by some Friend or several Friends. Best of luck going forward! I’m going to find a deck chair.

Without London Quakers, Quakers in London will miss lots of the incredible service that Friends gave to help build our London Wide community. The baton has been passed! If you’d like to organise or create something for London Friends, please contact QiLAC arrangements@quakersinlondon.org.

20 July, 2026
Getting to know: Gerry

Name: Gerry Millar

Role: Member of Arrangements Committee for JLAM (not to mention other roles within Local and Area Meeting!)

Local Meeting: Westminster, currently within London West AM. I’ve been attending for 28 years, and love our community. I find it very exciting how many new younger Friends are becoming part of that community, and choosing to apply for membership

Aside from Quakers, how do you like to spend your time? I share an allotment with a friend, which gives me space and time outside, and also the chance to grow nice produce when things go well. My friend loves tomatoes, so we always have a glut of a wide variety of shapes, sizes and colours in summer. Our plot is dominated by a huge old oak tree, covered in ivy, so we do our bit for biodiversity without even trying. I also love reading, and re-discovered local libraries for borrowing almost any novel and a variety of other works.

What parts of your service are you looking forward to? I’m looking forward to a time when we have got to grips with the role and everything that it entails. We are still grappling with what shape the Area Meetings should have and how to balance all the elements which make a successful Area Meeting thrive. Of course, that’s not all down to us, but we do need to do more to make the meetings feel like enticing and attractive events, for example to encourage parents to bring their children, and for everyone to want to take part as we grow.

What is something you would like people to know about you or your role? I wish we understood more about it! It’s quite hard to tease out what responsibilities belong to us, which to the clerks of QiL/JLAM, and which to the meeting as a whole.

What’s your favourite quote from QF&P? 26.70. “Give over thine own willing, give over thine own running, give over thine own desiring to know or be anything and sink down to the seed which God sows in the heart, and let that grow in thee and be in thee and breathe in thee and act in thee; and thou shalt find by sweet experience that the Lord knows that and loves and owns that, and will lead it to the inheritance of Life, which is its portion.”

Isaac Penington, 1661

I like it because it challenges me to turn my life over to God, though I find that very very difficult. But I also like it as a centring down practice, reminding me to “give over [my] own desiring to know or be anything, and sink down to the seed which God sows in the heart”. I sometimes say it over to myself at the beginning of meeting for worship, to help me settle.

Bonus: Gerry’s Book Recomendations! I love detective stories, currently a fan of Simon Mason who has also written such books for young adults as well as the adult market. I recently read a couple of Willa Cather novels for the first time, and a memoir by an exiled Palestinian queer writer called Tareq Baconi. Oh, and the poetry, novel and memoir by another queer writer, Seán Hewitt, whose work I fell in love with.

To get to know our community better, we are publishing a series of posts introducing Quakers in London including (but by no means limited to) staff members and role holders! If there is someone you would like to learn more about, or you would be interested in introducing yourself, please email us at quill@quakersinlondon.org.

9 July, 2026
Getting to know: Christine

Name: Christine Downes-Grainger

Neither of these last names is the patriarchal name I was registered with at birth. My husband was born as Downes and then adopted by his aunt who had married a Mr Grainger. In some ways I helped him understand his identity. He asked, as he developed contact with his birth parents, if we could change our family’s name to D-G. He felt he was a hybrid of two families.

Role: NE Thames representative to the London Development Group (and NET AM clerk)

Now a member of the QiL Arrangements Committee

Local Meeting: Epping, which I first went to in 2010. I joined the Society at Middlesbrough Meeting (NE England) in the mid 70s. There were six years in the 2000s when I took no interest in Quaker matters as my husband had worked his way out of unwitting dependence on tranquillisers, antidepressants, sleeping pills and painkillers, plus numerous other prescriptions to offset the side effects of the first drugs.

Aside from Quakers, how do you like to spend your time? I was accepted as a member early on, in spite of having very little time and energy to contribute to the meeting, and no money to support it. I applied partly because the identity of being a Quaker seemed very important to me, and because I felt the need for a supportive network. I knew that were I to be left on my own, I could go to a Quaker meeting in any town and be welcomed. This situation happened in 2009. I am glad of the many opportunities for learning and service that my local and area meeting has offered me. I enjoy a weekly U3a singing group and walks in nature.

What aspects of your service are you most looking forward to? Other people finding they can support our structures in large and small helpful ways. I firmly believe we can achieve more harmonious outcomes if we work together. This takes time as we understand where we have made assumptions and are excluding certain people or favouring certain viewpoints. I want to enable the spirit of Quaker meetings to thrive among or alongside the regulations of the 21st Century.

What’s your favourite quote from QF&P?

Seek to know one another in the things which are eternal.

In the 1970s version of A & Q (blue cover) this was the opening sentence of the second paragraph. It disappeared from the green trial of Questions and Counsel and I did not see it in the red version that was issued. I wrote to my LM clerk in dismay. He pointed out it had been retained but had been merged into Number 18. As a young mother when I first attended, the statement told me that I had found an organisation that accepted all the ages and stages of life and what we did not know about anything beyond it. That was anchoring.

To get to know our community better, we are publishing a series of posts introducing Quakers in London including (but by no means limited to) staff members and role holders! If there is someone you would like to learn more about, or you would be interested in introducing yourself, please email us at quill@quakersinlondon.org.

9 July, 2026
QiL News Sheet 9

Quakers in London News Sheet 9 Download

26 June, 2026

Category: Quakers in London

Interested?