Tag: role-holder

Getting to know: Paul

Name: Paul Keenleyside

Role: Co-Clerk of Joint London Area Meeting

Local Meeting: I’ve been attending Quaker Meeting at Streatham & Brixton in South London since 2005.

Can you tell us a bit about your Quaker journey? Like many, the journey to being a Friend was indirect and at times bumpy, but I was drawn consistently by the Quaker sense of each of our lives being a Testimony and the meaning that this then gives to each of our interactions with others and the world around us. This sense of meaning finding has been an important part of my wider life working in special schools and now helping support school leaders.

What excites you about the QiL project? I feel that there is a huge potential in Quakers in London; developing connectivity and sense of purpose for us across this wonderful city and providing a new way to ‘talk’ to other city-wide organisations (both faith-based and non faith-based). I also know that this journey is likely to be indirect and bumpy, but that may be the point!

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.

7 August, 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
Getting to Know: George

Name: George Barrow

Role: currently assistant clerk of London Quaker Property Trust and nominated as a trustee of QiL on its creation as a charity

Local Meeting: Having worshipped at Hampstead for about 15 years, I’ve recently moved my membership to Stoke Newington, which is considerably closer to home. Originally I was a member of a meeting in Birmingham, where I grew up.

What parts of your service are you looking forward to? Before retirement I was very successful in keeping below the radar in Quaker terms but I’ve enjoyed the last four years as an LQPT trustee – particularly working on the development of the Better Homes strategy. The creation of QiL seems like a logical extension of this work. I believe it is something that will present us with possibilities and opportunities, with the dividend of releasing and redirecting our energy as Quakers into more rewarding work and witness.

What is something you would like people to know about you or your role? I know that LQPT has from time to time been viewed with a bit of suspicion but I’ve found that the trustee group has brought together some really committed, caring people who want to support meetings (with or without Meeting Houses) and see them flourish, while shouldering the real responsibilities that running a charity brings

What’s your favourite quote from QF&P?The extract from QF&P I most commonly use is Isaac Pennington’s “helping one another up with a gentle hand”. The message is not just about helping, it’s how “one another” recognises that any of us might be the helper or the helped, depending on where and when, and what we have to offer.

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) “trustees in waiting” 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.

22 June, 2026
Getting to know: Mary

Name: Mary Stiasny

Role: I am a relatively new member of the London Development Group, having been asked to join it fairly recently. I have also just been appointed to be a Trustee of the new QiL.

Local Meeting: I am a Member of South East London Area Meeting; I attend Forest Hill Meeting – and have done so for a very long time!

What parts of your service are you looking forward to? I see this as the service I can give to London Quakers, having had so much given to me as a lifelong Quaker. My Quakerism is at the centre of my being. I hope we can together build a vibrant Quaker community across London which is outward looking and appeals to non-Quakers – not just to ourselves! It is time for us to grow as a community and as a religious group.

What are you getting up to outside of Quakers? Outside the Society I am retired from working in universities, yet still very involved with higher education in various ways, and I like to spend lots of time with my husband, children and grandchildren.

What’s your favourite quote from QF&P? My favourite piece from QF&P is Advice 17, and I especially love that last sentence; ‘think it possible that you may be mistaken’, because it reminds us that we need to be open to the meanings others bring; that we are not ourselves infallible.

“Do you respect that of God in everyone though it may be expressed in unfamiliar ways or be difficult to discern? Each of us has a particular experience of God and each must find the way to be true to it. When words are strange or disturbing to you, try to sense where they come from and what has nourished the lives of others. Listen patiently and seek the truth which other people’s opinions may contain for you. Avoid hurtful criticism and provocative language. Do not allow the strength of your convictions to betray you into making statements or allegations that are unfair or untrue. Think it possible that you may be mistaken.”

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) “trustees in waiting” 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.

22 June, 2026
Getting to Know: Bernadette, lDG Co-Clerk

This post is part of a short series on getting to know some of our newly appointed Friends to QiL committees.

Name: Bernadette

Role: Co-Clerk to London Development Group

Local Meeting: Brentford and Isleworth

What parts of your service are you looking forward to?: Worship and discernment with other LDG members (and the wider London Quaker community) on how best to bring forward this simplification project for London friends.

What do you wish more Friends understood about your role?: How many elements there are in the merger work and the delicate balance between getting on with it… and taking the necessary time to get it right.

What’s your favourite quote from QF&P?: “For a Quaker, religion is not an external activity, concerning a special ‘holy’ part of the self. It is an openness to the world in the here and now with the whole of the self. If this is not simply a pious commonplace, it must take into account the whole of our humanity: our attitudes to other human beings in our most intimate as well as social and political relationships. It must also take account of our life in the world around us, the way we live, the way we treat animals and the environment. In short, to put it in traditional language, there is no part of ourselves and of our relationships where God is not present.” – Harvey Gillman, 1988 (21.20)

Anything else to say?: My thanks for the upholding and the loving support.

14 May, 2026
Getting to Know: Kate, Co-Clerk

This post is part of a short series on getting to know some of our newly appointed Friends to QiL committees.

Name: Kate

Role: Area Meeting Co-Clerk

Local Meeting: Wanstead

What parts of your service are you looking forward to?: I just have a general “sense of adventure into the unknown”

What do you wish more Friends understood about your role?: I wish only to be a servant of the meeting, but I know that this sometimes requires me also to lead.

What’s your favourite quote from QF&P?: Today it’s “Be still and cool in thine own mind …”

Anything else to say?: I’ll be doing my best, with the help of coclerks and the spirit of worship.

14 May, 2026
Getting to Know: Sam

This post is part of a short series on getting to know some of our newly appointed Friends to QiL committees. The first post is from Sam – co-clerk to Arrangements Committee.

Name: Sam

Role: Co-Clerk to QiL Arrangements Committee

Local Meeting: Westminster local meeting

What parts of your service are you looking forward to?: I really care about making our Area Meetings feel, light, cheerful and fun. I hope they’re times we can come together and enjoy each other’s comapny as we tackle discernment together. For a long time, I’ve heard about lots of Friends feeling tired and fed up with the process of transitioning into a single London Area Meeting. I so so SO hope that we can soon become unburdened by many of the administrative tasks and that we can start to hear from Local Meetings about areas of real Quaker concern.

What do you wish more Friends understood about your role?: I’m here to offer my service to you, the Friends who have appointed me through a process of spiritual discernment into this role. Sometimes Friends will approach me ready for a bit of a fight. To mis-quote my testimony to peace, I’m a lover not a fighter… And I really want What’s best for our Quaker communities too.

What’s your favourite quote from QF&P?: “Creativity is the gift that we were given on the eighth day of creation. In naming and re-making the world we are co-workers with God, and whether we are making a garden or a meal, a painting or a piece of furniture or a computer program, we are sharing in an ongoing act of creation through which the world is constantly re-made.” – Jo Farrow, 1994. This is just a small excert but the whole section (21.38) is great! The mention of the eighth day of creation has left my mind in a tangle a thousand times and has occupied my mind in a lot of Meetings for Worship.

Anything else to say?: Please come and say hi if you see me at JLAM (or anywhere else!). One thing I love about Quakers in London is that it’s been a great source of new f(F)riendships.

29 April, 2026
Getting to Know: Kayla

Greetings London Friends,

I am writing to introduce myself to you all.

My name is Kayla and I have been appointed to be the admin assistant supporting the work in establishing Quakers in London (QiL) through 2026. This is a part-time freelance role and I will be assisting on an as-needed basis.

This will include supporting the work of the London Quaker Property Trust (LQPT), the London Development Group (LDG) and QiL Committees to assist to ensure everything proceeds as smoothly as possible, and relieve some of the administrative burden on Friends who have taken on key roles in this process.

I am available via admin@quakersinlondon.org and can provide assistance answering questions or finding information you may need!

A bit more about me!

Local Meeting: Westminster local meeting (although I am originally from Canberra Northside Meeting in Canberra, Australia).

What do you see as the value of your role?: Often, administration is a significant burden on Friends’ service, and can take up time which may be more fruitfully employed elsewhere, enriching the spiritual life of the meeting and bringing our community together. My hope is that this role will allow me to lighten the load on role holders during this period of transition.

What about your role are you looking forward to?: I am looking forward to getting to know Friends across London to help ease the transition to QiL.

What’s your favourite Advice and Query? So hard to choose! However, a phrase I often return to is “attend to what love requires of you.” I think that this is an important direction toward deep reflection as to how we spend our finite time here at all stages of our lives. Asking simply what love requires of us – love of our community, our world, all life on earth, and also of ourselves can be an important grounding principle where so many different considerations contend to claim our days.

Your Friend,

Kayla

If you’d like to hear introductions from other role holders please let us know which roles you’d like to hear from in the comments!

27 April, 2026