On the 9th to the 11th of October 36 young people and 7 volunteers met at Watford Quaker Meeting house. We were last at Watford in 2013 so we were well due a visit! 

Friday 9th Oct the Young people arrived both directly to the Meeting House and with the group from Friends House, Euston.

Two volunteers arrived early, and with the help of the Meeting House Warden they busied away getting the meeting house ready and loading up the 47 baked potatoes into the oven and cooking the veggie mince topping.

We then ran an introduction session to get to know each other and went over the event boundaries. We then split into our helper groups for the weekend.

Time and energy levels soon ran low, so while the first group was helping tidy and wash up, people hung out, watched Traitors(!) and played games. We went into an epilogue with some music and a few candles to help us center down into the silence. 

Setting up for bed and getting some sleep were the final items left to do after long days, and for some long journeys.

Saturday we woke up nice and late and had a veggie cooked breakfast, cereal, toast and jam. 

After tidying up and some free time we gathered for a theme session on taking action, in this case taking action in conflict situations using NVC – Non Violent Communication . Michael talked about how NVC can help us put our Quaker Peace Testimony into everyday practice by getting out of ‘violent’ communication traps (that we have all learned), and how these lead to conflicts not being resolved. 

We wondered if most conflicts could be reframed in the NVC way as violence being “the tragic expression of an unmet need”.  We split into groups and thought about a few example conflicts to see how we might understand them. [ Shameless plug – Michael runs NVC practice sessions in Welwyn Garden City on Monday evenings and has produced a free quick start guide  ]

Some more free time while “Quaker Subway” was being constructed in the kitchen for our build-a-baguette-sandwich (does that count as fusion cuisine ?) lunch. Some free time and trip out to the local park Tesco metro. Once back we split into 3 different activity groups: newspaper hockey, ‘mafia’ and board games/crafting. 

Dinner was the classic pesto broccoli pasta followed by just about enough time to fit in a film before a lovely epilogue around a firepit in Watford Quaker’s extensive garden. We were fortunate to be serenaded by a guitar based musical contribution from one of the young people.  Sleep time.

Sunday we were up early to get breakfast in and the Quaker Meeting House ready for Quaker Meeting. Those who wanted to, stayed in Quaker Meeting for the whole hour, whilst others either went out to the park or joined a discussion group. Tea, coffee and a lunch of left overs meant we had time for one last game before making our journeys home. 

We came away a little tired, but very much with our friendships nourished, hearts heartened and many happy memories made. 

Michael, Sally, Al, Gwenillian, Annette, Philip, Amy, Tavi, Wasim and all the young people.