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Category: Quakers in London

University Meetings as a Gateway to the Wider Quaker Community

Agnes Sales reflects on her experience of the University of Bristol Quaker Meeting

Following the event on the 21^st July about outreach to universities, Agnes Sales, a Friend involved in the Quaker work at Bristol University has shared the following reflections.

If you would be interested in joining with other friends across London in talking about university work in the city, please email Josh (joshs@quaker.org.uk) to be connected.

The meeting at the University of Bristol has been an integral part of my Quaker faith and weekly routine. Before joining, I was already a regular at the Multifaith Chaplaincy and had attended Central meeting a couple of times that year. One day in October, I saw a couple of people sitting in silent worship in the quiet room, decided to join them.

Initially, there were only three of us, but I invited my friends and we steadily grew – I think our biggest meeting had 17 people! Some people came and went and a few of us turned up consistently every Wednesday lunchtime. We started doing ‘Quaked potatoes’ and a few of us started attending Redland meeting and joining the Becoming Friends course. The University meeting has provided a gateway to the wider Quaker community, enabled me to make new friends of all ages and have a consistent way of engaging with my faith when I cannot come on a Sunday morning.

I have always appreciated the more casual nature of our meetings, where we have afterword, food and conversation and where some people move around and minister in ways that they don’t feel comfortable to do elsewhere. We have developed a real community that feels strong and fulfilling.

The chaplains of other faiths in the Multifaith Chaplaincy have also provided great company and support, whether that be pastoral support or simply making tea. I’m sure that a Quaker chaplain would be appreciated not only by the students who regularly attend the Quaker meeting but also other students who who may have questions about Quakerism or need pastoral support.

11 June, 2026
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
Getting to Know: Tim

Name: Tim Heath

Role: Co-Clerk of QiL

Tim worships at Hampstead, but where is he looking?

The role of the QiL clerks was formulated to be more than the servants of the meeting, and to be servant-leaders.

As leaders we are seeking a point on the horizon to which all Quakers might aspire.

One of Tim’s enthusiasms is the London visionary, William Blake who once asked ‘Where shall we take our stand to view the infinite and the unbounded?’ Blake knew it would be in London – ‘a human awful wonder of God’. Tim believes it will be in QiL, where everything that lives is holy.

29 May, 2026
Getting to Know: Chaundra

Name: Chaundra

Role: Member of the Development Group & Governance sub-committee

Local Meeting: Friends House

What parts of your service are you looking forward to?: I feel really blessed to be trusted by Friends to help lay the foundation of the next iteration of our community across London. And I think that’s what most inspires me about this work – thinking and trying to discern what will help Friends thrive to do what we feel truly called to do. To listen to the breadth of experience and to the inner light and to find the openings to be really led.

What’s your favourite quote from QF&P?: Dearly beloved Friends, these things we do not lay upon you as a rule or form to walk by, but that all, with the measure of light which is pure and holy, may be guided; and so in the light walking and abiding, these may be fulfilled in the Spirit, not from the letter, for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.

Anything else to say?: I hope that Friends can find opportunities in the new structure and start to help us in the building of our revitalised community. I really hope over the next year, filling out QiL starts feeling like a “doing it together” endeavour.

29 May, 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
QiL News Sheet 8

Quakers in London News Sheet 8 Download

26 May, 2026
Become a Quill Contributor

The Quill exists because we want to help make Quakers in London feel like one community. A newsletter is one of the oldest and simplest ways a community can hold itself together, sharing thoughts, ideas and events.

We’re looking for contributors, and we’d love to hear from you. Here’s some ideas of ways you could get invovled:

1.Share what your meeting is already doing

Many local meetings have their own newsletters or magazines, full of reflections, news, and stories that rarely travel beyond their own membership. If your meeting produces something like this, we’d be glad to help carry those words to a wider London audience. An article that resonated with your own meeting might speak just as powerfully to Friends across the area – and it costs you nothing extra to share it. If you’ve already written something, or if your newsletter editor would be willing to pass pieces along, please get in touch.

2. Explore your faith in writing

We’re also looking for creative and reflective submissions – pieces that help us think more deeply about what it means to live as a Quaker today. This might be a personal reflection on a meeting for worship, a meditation on a passage of scripture or a Quaker text, a poem, or simply something that’s been sitting with you and feels ready to be shared. There’s no fixed format. What matters is that it comes from an honest place.

Writing for a community like this is itself a form of ministry. It asks us to articulate what we often leave unspoken, and helps us cultivate an important part of a spirit-led Area meeting: to support the spiritual growth of its members.

3. Spread the word about Quaker witness

If your meeting or a Quaker-linked group you’re involved with is doing witness in the world – whether that’s climate action, peace witness, work with refugees, or anything else rooted in Quaker values – The Quill can help you reach a wider circle of Friends who might want to get involved. A short piece about what you’re doing and why, and how others can join or support you, is exactly the kind of thing a community newsletter is for. Wider reach means more hands, more voices, and more momentum.

Why this matters

London is a large and scattered Quaker community. Meetings are spread across the city, and it’s easy for Friends in one part of London to have little sense of what’s happening in another. A newsletter won’t fix that on its own, but it can help. It creates a small, regular point of contact – something to read on a Sunday morning or a Tuesday evening – that reminds us we’re part of something larger than our own meeting.

There’s also something that happens when a community writes to itself. It surfaces voices that might otherwise go unheard. It creates a record. It slows things down enough for reflection.

The Quill works best when it reflects the actual breadth of London Quaker life: different meetings, different concerns, different stages of the journey. That only happens if people contribute to it. At the moment, we’re a small group, and we’d welcome more.

Get in touch

If you’d like to write for The Quill, whether you have something ready or just an idea you’d like to talk through, please contact us at quill@quakersinlondon.org.

We look forward to hearing from you.

24 May, 2026
The Festival of Biblical Literature

The Festival of Biblical Literature will be held in Ealing Meeting House between 12th and 14th August 2026. This is the third year for the festival.

The festival celebrates the Bible as a collection of literature, with seminars, music and poetry. The purpose of the festival is not to convince people of a particular set of beliefs, but to increase the use and enjoyment of the Bible as a common literary resource. The festival is independent of and does not receive funding from any religious, political or ideological group.

All the speakers have an academic background and the artists include Philip Gross, a Quaker and winner of the TS Eliot prize. Lunch, tea and coffee are provided.In his Swarthmore lecture, Stuart Masters reminded us of the importance of the Bible to early Quakers.

The festival provides an opportunity for Quakers to reflect on how they might use the Bible to challenge people who are quoting from scripture to support views and policies that are not in line with Quaker values.
For more information and to book tickets go to https://www.festivalofbiblicalliterature.co.uk/

21 May, 2026
Now Recruiting: Finance Assistant – Quakers in London

Are you an organised financial administrator who would like to be part of the staff team of Quakers in London?

Our seven Area Meetings are merging with London Quakers Property Trust (LQPT) to form a new Area Meeting: Quakers in London (QiL), at the end of 2026.

We are seeking a Finance Assistant to work alongside the Senior Finance Manager as this merger takes place and to support its ongoing operations. As the Finance Assistant, you will be responsible for the day-to-day financial processing and reporting for QiL, supporting both centrally managed and locally managed Local Meetings. You will be an integral part of the finance team.

The role of Finance Assistant will be London based, full-time, and on a continuing contract. The start date will be September 2026.

Closing date: 28 June 2026

Find the application pack, including more information about the role and how to apply in the PDF below.

2026 05 14 – Finance Assistant – Application Pack Download

15 May, 2026

Category: Quakers in London

Agnes Sales reflects on her experience of the University of Bristol Quaker Meeting