On Saturday 28th June a group of 19 Linkers, pre-linkers and adults met up at the Kindertransport statue outside Liverpool Street station, and boarded an early train for Southend.
Three of our number, over in London for June/July, are normally based at Albuquerque Quaker meeting in New Mexico, USA and we enjoyed talking to them about their life there.
We arrived at Adventure Island just as it opened for the day, Southend Pier and the Thames estuary illuminated by glorious sunshine.
We enjoyed the thrills of various rides and attractions, regrouped for a picnic lunch in the Cliff Gardens, supplemented with chips from the many fish and chip outlets, and cooled off in the shade of the amusement arcades.
Towards the end of the afternoon, we met to head back to the station (via the sweet shop!), with one person picking up an electric guitar in a charity shop.
We returned to London on the train, some catching up on naps.
Everyone is looking forward to seeing each other at FSSE Junior Gathering and Senior Conference in August, and then at the next LLG residential to be held on 27-28 September in Brighton!
The adventure starts at London Liverpool Street at 9.00am where we will catch the train to Southend Victoria train station (which has step free access) for a day trip to the beach, Adventure Island, and perhaps the pier! We will be back at Liverpool Street at around 6pm.
Because of the need to ensure we have adequate volunteers, wristbands and train tickets etc, the deadline for booking is 21 June!
The cost for London Linkers aged 11-18 is £20 – but no-one is to be excluded so please contact us if you aren’t able to cover this.
This year we are also welcoming younger people who are not yet 11, as long as they are accompanied by a parent or adult guardian. We are not able to subsidise these places and estimate the cost will be around £35 per child (£25 wristband and £10.80 train) and £46 per adult (£25 wristband if wanted and £21.60 train) and hope that LMs/AMs will support with costs if any help is needed. Adults – please let us know if you are attending with an under 11, and if you would also like a wristband to go on rides (it is free to enter Adventure Island itself).
On the 8th to the 9th of March London Link Group returned to Welwyn Garden City (WGC), some of the group got up very early (in my opinion) to get a train from Kings Cross. Once the 15 young people and 5 adults we were all assembled at the Meeting House, we introduced the event, the boundaries and each other.
The name game this time was more of a group challenge, partly to understand Michael’s idea and partly because it involved thinking, (quite early in the morning). Each person went round the circle and made up a portion of a story which introduced the person next to them as a character in the story, many fantastical things later we were all well and truly introduced.
Lunch was “make your own baguettes” – with lots of fillings to choose from, (“If Quakers did Subway”…).
After some tidying up we then heard from Alec, a participant who attends WGC Meeting. Alec gave us an introduction to some of the ethos around the Garden City movement, how Quakers were very involved in the development of WGC and how some of its radical (especially for the time) socialist ideas are represented in the planned city (did you know WGC Meeting was the largest Quaker Meeting outside of London).
To wake us from our post lunch slumber and make the most of the very warm weather we went for a walk up the boulevard and back along the old railway line. On returning we had some tea and drinks, some played football, others played games they had brought with them.
In the afternoon we had a themed session “Living in a world that doesn’t always share your values” , we talked about our own views/values that often the people around us didn’t share, such as being anti military, protecting the environment, and many of the Quaker values which might put us at “odds” with the rest of society (or the world). We talked about the concept that Michael likes to use of being “in-phase” or “out-of-phase”, a literal way to think of being “on the same wavelength” as other people around us. This took us to a discussion on what helps us if we feel like a minority, and what the advantages and pitfalls are of being in a community of people who do all share the same values, how do we engage with people who don’t share our values?
As our session came to a close, and our brains fully warmed up, a mystery knock on the Meeting House door presented us with a delivery of a huge box of ice creams! Thank you to a very kind local Quaker who came by with this very divine intervention.
Some free time and a dinner of the classic Broccoli pesto tomato pasta led us into an “Open Mic” session, some brave young people got up to perform and entertain us. Our very own singer-songwriter and volunteer Eli also sang a new song for us, to much applause.
We had some hot chocolate and settled down to an Epilogue to reflect on the day.
Camping beds setup, mats down and sleeping bags out, we all found our designated rooms and proceeded to go to sleep instantly…
Sunday morning we were (mostly) up early to greet the 8:30 Quaker meeting (there are currently two Meetings on a Sunday at WGC), some of the young people built up their breakfast appetite playing football while others did quiet games. With the morning Quaker Meeting over they joined us for a breakfast buffet (Eggs, Beans, Toast, Veggie Sausages, fruit and Cereal). After tidying up and some free time it was soon time to go into 10:30 Meeting, after quarter of an hour those who didn’t want to stay for the full hour did crafts and other activities.
Tea biscuits, lots of interesting after meeting discussions and free time led us to consider Lunch.
For lunch we had a special challenge – the young people themselves had to make a shared lunch! In groups of 4 with spending money of £5, the young people were chaperoned to Sainsbury’s to buy vegan/vegetarian and shareable food to contribute to lunch. As you can imagine a real eclectic mix of things returned back to the Meeting house, in some cases it was thankful we had leftovers from dinner, in others a real innovation and thoughtful sharing items. Good work young people!
We left our whirlwind garden city time with Friendships made and spirits nourished.
We’re heartened by the service that Welwyn Garden City Quakers provided in hosting our event, the fantastic support from the Wardens and all the participants and volunteers for an excellent weekend. – Michael, Tavi, Philip, Amy, Eli
On 26 January 2025, 20 young people and 4 adult volunteers met for the afternoon at Westminster Quaker Meeting for Winterval 2025.
Proceedings began with silent worship. We then had fun doing a Quaker Quiz, and (in Winterval tradition) made our own pizzas. The best quiz round was “Quaker or Quacker” in which we had to figure out if the person shown on the screen was a Quaker, a birdwatcher, or both (turns out Damon Albarn from Blur and Gorillaz is kind of both).
We finished the afternoon and said our goodbyes, and went home feeling ready to start the week (well, after some of us had got over our eventful journeys on the Underground).
It was really good fun meeting up with Quaker friends and we had been looking forward to seeing each other and catching up. We are looking forward to the residential weekend in Welwyn Garden City in March.
14 Linkers from the very new, to the sadly soon to leave us, along with 6 brilliant volunteers, descended on Forest Hill for a weekend of fun.
We started with culture in the Horniman Museum – where a few of us caused chaos by letting cats into the cafe, and others by trying to get pigeons out of the cafe! People were particularly impressed by the spinning globe (more of later), instruments and aquarium.
We ate a picnic looking at the fabulous views over London then, after some tree hugging in the beautiful gardens, headed to the funky Forest Hill Meeting House. Here we played some games to get to know each other (before killing each other – Mafia style – always a popular choice).
Linkers were then set a challenge – in small groups they had to recreate something they were inspired by in the museum.
An exhibition was then set up where the creations were judged against strict criteria including vibes, likeness and resources used.
This took us to a dinner of tasty vege chilli and some down time before Epilogue and hot chocolate.
On Sunday we joined Forest Hill Children’s Meeting where we learnt about Joan Baez, and sang one of her songs, led by Suzy in some very funky dungarees that she had designed for her brother when she was the equivalent of a Linker! The children then considered what helped them feel safe, while the young people explored the power and role of protest music and culture – name checking artists including: Declan Benedict McKenna; The Halluci Nation, especially the track “Sisters”; Billy Bragg; and the Singapore punk scene!
Several families then joined us for another great lunch featuring baked potatoes and a very welcome homemade chocolate cake before we all headed home.
Huge thank you to Forest Hill for hosting us, the volunteers who made it happen, and the Linkers themselves whose ingenuity and contributions never fail to amaze. We look forward to seeing you in January for our annual Winterval (date to be decided soon).
London Link Group is a volunteer-run Quaker group that organises events to bring Young Quakers aged 11-18 together. We are part of London Quakers.
We aim to: help young Quakers to develop their friendships; explore Quaker values; empower young Quakers; put into practice our Quaker ideals to create an egalitarian, safe, inclusive, caring and positive atmosphere at every event. Find out more about us.
