As we journeyed from the grand St.Pancras International to the ever so slightly less grand East Croydon, much like the early Friends, we grew in numbers from those convinced on the worthy of London Link Croydon II. From 5 to 22.
Having arrived at Croydon Meeting house we introduced ourselves and welcomed new London linkers, gratefully our dinner was already well under way by this point so our next job was to set out the dinning room and eat and then clear up.
After a small amount of free time we went to an epilogue lead by a nominated participant then some hot chocolate and bed.
Croydon meeting house has many advantages, but one that stands out for us is the warm upstairs carpeted rooms. Hooray for Carpets! Small luxuries but we definitely appreciated them.
On Saturday morning we had breakfast and then Liz, a local Quaker came to talk to us about her job running community services for Croydon council, she challenged us to help think of solutions to the problems of building communities, and many ideas came out of this. With some interesting discussions on how strong communities build a sense of home and responsibility to the place you live, as well as providing a valuable support network.
We had some free time before lunch to play some games and relax with friends before we caught the tram to the bowling venue.
Two games of bowling later we were all bowled out and returned to the Meeting house. A bit more free time then dinner.
After dinner we played a new game called Empire where each person gives themselves a new name such as “George Cadbury” and you have to guess who would give them selves that name, guessing correctly gains you that person onto your team/empire.
The down fall of the empires left standing was time, as we then went into an epilogue and then bed.
On Sunday morning we got up and joined the early bird Croydon Quakers for breakfast we had a small amount of free time afterwards to chat before going into meeting.
After meeting we continued some quiet reflection, we came up with a few ideas for next events and gave some feedback on what were the highlights and lowlights of the weekend.
We have an invitation to join LLAM’s link group in 2-3rd March St.Albans (Contact for details/see their facebook page). We also heard about the new initiative for regular events at Westminster meeting house, starting with the 17th March, as we look to make Westminster our base meeting house. Looking slightly further ahead of course the much anticipated MARGATE II on the 19th-21st April! (booking forms now out).
Thank you to Croydon meeting for hosting us so well, all the young people for being brilliant and the fantastic volunteer team – Andy, Michael, Katie and Inga
