Author: Guest User

Reflections on Yearly Meeting: Bunhill Fields

A member of Bunhill Fields Meeting attended Yearly Meeting and kindly provided this report. Are you still reflecting on Yearly Meeting? We’d love to hear your thoughts quill@quakersinlondon.org.

Yearly Meeting session in May 2026 had main sessions on ‘What unites us as a Spirit-led community?’ and a following one ‘As a Spirit-led community, how can we handle conflict well?’.

There was a lot of ministry both in Friends House and online. The main aspects I picked up were the need for us to be open minded, kind (without condescension), accept everyone’s views, listen attentively, recognise that there are language difficulties with other Quakers and other faiths, know that the Spirit moves through us (but isn’t us), recognise that we can feel battered and vulnerable, and that the fruits of the Spirit are action. We need to find opportunities to describe our feelings on God (which could involve singing). A wonderful analogy was given that when we look up through the tree canopy God is the light flowing through the leaves – we and the leaves are finite, but God is infinite light and indescribable.

What I took away from these sessions is that language for all of us is so important, but slippery and difficult, and doesn’t always communicate well. By chance in the Bookshop I found Jane Pearn’s 2017 booklet on The Language of Leadings, a reflection on faith, action and concern. It is the result of an Eva Koch scholarship looking into the important Quaker idea of Concern. This is a wonderful introduction to slippery language and investigates Quaker thinking on the two main Yearly Meeting sessions. I have bought three copies for Bunhill Library which I hope newcomers will find helpful.

Paul Parker, Recording Clerk, serves as the most senior staff member for the Britain Yearly Meeting, managing staff and supporting meetings. He acts as the senior staff member, often representing the Quaker community on public and social issues. He gave a comprehensive report on the many recent challenges Quakers have faced on the right to protest. Most recently on 21 April 2026 Quakers warned a parliamentary committee that sweeping restrictions on protest are putting British democracy at risk and preventing people from acting on their faith. Several Friends have been charged and imprisoned, with a peaceful Just Stop Oil protester still in prison. This is ironic in the year that we have laid down Meeting for Sufferings (because now we need to tackle this work at Yearly Meeting level). But the hundreds of years old record of Quaker sufferings will continue to be recorded.

3 June, 2026
Goodbye London Quakers – Hello – What?

Submitted by Fred Ashmore – Clerk to London Quakers

At the Close of the JLAM meeting of 13th June, London Quakers (LQ) will hold its final AGM after 15 years of serving The Quakers of London and lay itself down. The London Quakers Steering Group hope that Quakers in London will take over everything that London Quakers has been doing. Of course, the recruitment of Josh Selfe as our local Development Worker has been a huge vitaliser for all of us in London and the Being Quaker courses he has created are a great resource, long needed. QiL has decided
to appoint two Friends to look after interfaith and interchurch work, which is another aspect of the LQ work that will otherwise be missed.

At present the Arrangements Committee are looking after the website and issuing The Quill which replaces (rather better) the monthly LQ mailings that shared news, announcements and events. We don’t yet have settled arrangements for handling
the miscellaneous queries that come in through the website and facebook and email of the Clerk of London Quakers (We‘ve had rather surprising requests, and suggestions believe me). In future staff will help with that but they will need to know who to go to for decisions.

The most important thing that LQ Steering Group hopes as it lays itself down is that there will be a group to help create, organise and support community events for Quakers in London. You can’t dump this on Josh Selfe. It’s got to be us, Friends. There have been regular events for the past decade. Supporting older Friends,
Housing Inequality, gender diversity, Refugee matters, Death and Dying, Assisted Dying. Someone made these happen. Who will do that for the next decade? We hope to pull together a thriving community of Quakers in London. We hope to cater
for varied interests and groups. But none of it just happens.

Over to you QiL!

Fred Ashmore

3 June, 2026
Decision Making at KWAM

Submitted by Susie Paskins (KWAM Clerk on 17th May) & Carol Griffiths (KWAM Clerk of trustees)

KWAM agreed some time ago in principle to join the single Area Meeting for Quakers in London (QiL). We would like QiL to be a success and would like KWAM to participate fully in its arrangements, but there are still areas where further discernment is needed regarding its scope.

We held a threshing meeting in April 2026, facilitated by Rachael Swancott of Woodbrooke, to address the question ’What do we need in order for KWAM friends to be able to make a decision on joining a unified London Area Meeting in a way that is acceptable to us all?

The threshing prompted follow up discussions among us, and a positive re-engagement with the subject. It also highlighted a number of concerns which remain to be resolved, including finances, membership, outreach and community building, and nominations and appointments.

At our May Area Meeting we reviewed a well-argued paper proposing a way forward. This outlined some areas in which we might like to retain responsibilities for activities within a ‘cluster’ of local meetings (as contemplated by the LDG). This included work on outreach/community building for Quakers in South West London; much has already been done in this area and there is a strong feeling that it should continue and be encouraged and funded. The idea of a cluster was greeted with enthusiasm.

Friends are preparing proposals to help us to discern the precise nature of our cluster, including allowing existing KWAM funds to remain available to support this and other aspects of our current Area Meeting that are important to us.

The final decision on whether or not to join QiL will be taken at our July Area Meeting.

28 May, 2026

Author: Guest User

Reflections on Yearly Meeting: Bunhill Fields

Goodbye London Quakers – Hello – What?

Decision Making at KWAM