On the 10th to the 12th of March, 32(!) young Quakers and 7 volunteers stayed at Brighton meeting house.

With the Friday London commuter traffic behind us we emerged in a very foggy Brighton. Introductions and ‘getting to know you’ were followed by our tried and tested Pasta dish. We played some fun games like sardines and then settled down to an epilogue. After that it was time for bed.

Saturday we had a cooked breakfast (veggie) and had a relaxing morning playing board games and chatting with friends. We then walked down to the beach and pier, after getting into groups we had some free time to explore Brighton town.

Once we had all gathered back in the meeting house we made our own lunches, think “sandwich buffet/factory”. A short bit of free time and then we went to visit the Waste House.

Brighton Waste house

We were really inspired and amazed that an entire house could be constructed from almost all waste materials. Cat Fletcher from the project talked us through the construction and some of the things they learnt building it. For example how the lower eastern wall cavities are filled with 4,000 VHS tapes which is a product that is very difficult to recycle and will sit in landfill for years and years otherwise.

Back at the meeting house we split into groups to play a number of different games, there was Empire, Mafia and boardgames to choose from or just chilling out.

Much curry was consumed

For dinner we tried something new; we all went to a vegetarian restaurant in Brighton called ‘Bombay Aloo’ where they do an Indian style buffet (they had been warned! – we had booked the whole of the upstairs). This allowed us to expand our menu for the weekend to some new foods, go somewhere different and gave the volunteers a break from the kitchen.

Doing some light painting on the beach

After we were all filled with curry we went for a night walk along the beach. Epilogue then bed.

Sunday we were up bright and early (OK, it was just me) for breakfast. Before going into Quaker Meeting we talked a bit about the Fly kites not Drones project.

This Sunday was different to the normal Quaker Meeting. Rather than the children and young people having a separate children’s group after 15mins into the meeting, they join the main Meeting for the whole hour and were lead in a guided activity that the whole Meeting was doing, (often this referred to as an “All age Meeting”).

This was also on the theme of Fly kites not drones. During the Meeting Friends wrote messages of hope, peace and solidarity on kites and we heard some of the struggles of those affected by drone strikes.

After lunch we said our goodbyes and made our way home.

It was fantastic to see everyone at the event and to welcome a number of new faces too. We’re very grateful for the support from Brighton Quakers, to Sia and Georgina for coordinating the event and Amy, Phil, Sam, Eli and Michael for all their help.

A new event on the calendar of London Link in 2016 was helping Quaker Homeless Action set up their one week shelter that runs over Christmas.

About 10 young people and 10 adults from London Link spent four hours – including a pizza lunch – sorting and folding good quality clean clothes into relevant piles, lugging heavy crates of food (that had filled two large Sainsbury trucks!) up a flight of stairs to the hall, and arranging the cans, bags and containers into a “shop”. A few moved a large decorated tree and others helped putting up two tents. The tents provided privacy for basic medical care and acted as as changing rooms to try on the donated trousers, shirts and coats. All this was contained in one hall. Elsewhere, camp beds were shifted and piled up and tables set out for the hot evening meals. 

With the industrious help of the London Link young people, “the shelter was set up faster than any previous year and was better organised,” said Mark, an overseer for the day, when he thanked and expressed gratitude to all who helped. During the week the shelter was open, adult volunteers expected to provide a hot evening meal to about 70-100 people each day for the week, and beds for up to 25 people every night.

The Quaker Christmas shelter runs the last week of December every year, and is open 3pm – 10pm for people requiring hot food, showers, clothes and medical and social support. For those who rough sleep, are street homeless, there are a limited number of beds for both men and women, and a hot breakfast before 10am.

During the induction to the shelter, we were told how this Quaker shelter differs from many other mostly volunteer run Christmas shelters. Respect guides all that is offered. Volunteers sit and eat with the guests, and chat and drink tea, coffee, juice or water with them. The tents provide privacy that all of us would expect if seeing a doctor or trying on clothes. But probably the most unique aspect of the Quaker shelter is the “shop”. Guests are invited to walk through the shop, accompanied by a volunteer, to choose foods they like and fill up to three bags. The trained volunteers chat with each guest to learn of food likes and dislikes and any allergies, and to offer recipes or suggestions on how to make the chosen food last longer. In many shelters, prepacked bags of non-perishable goods are simply given to the guest, so that they have no choice or control over what they receive.

It is hoped that London Link Group will assist in the set up next December. So, if you missed out, you’ll have a chance next year. If you did attend, share your experiences so others know what it was like!

Augene

On 1st 2nd of October London link group didn’t go to Salisbury!

With the lead organiser of the advertised Salisbury event put out of action by a London hire bike accident (he’s on the mend), at the last minute we called upon our Friends at BYM/Friends House and Muswell Hill Meeting to come to our aid and help us create a new event. And that they did!

24 young people and 5 staff volunteers gathered at Friends House, London. We used the main meeting room for name games and a bit of re-introductions for the weekend. After this David Irving showed us around the library and took two groups down into the archives to look at some of the huge collection of books, leaflets and other documents going back to the 1600s that have been lovingly preserved.

A highlight was seeing the original books of sufferings, which are the records of all the Quakers who ‘suffered’ for their Quaker beliefs, such as not paying their tithes to the Church and ending up being fined or imprisoned for it.
We also took a quick tour of the offices of BYM and heard a bit about all the different programmes and work from Sam Walton and Georgina Bailey …and from unsuspecting members of staff passing through!

We had a good lunch at the Quaker Cafe and then a treasure hunt game around Friends House, looking for answers to questions such as “Which other Quaker organisations have offices at Friends House” to “What time is the fire drill practice”. Once all the answers were found we headed up to Muswell Hill meeting.

From there we made the short walk across to Highgate Woods where we played Frisbee, messed about on the swings and generally let off a bit of steam. Back to the meeting house and it was time for dinner. After we cleared up, we split into two groups, one group played the cereal box game and another played my new favourite: newspaper hockey.

On Sunday we had a great cooked breakfast which set us up well for either going into Quaker meeting or for a walk around Highgate woods. The sun came out and we were able to sit outside with our lunch and play a few more games before it was time to go home.

Thank you to Friends House and BYM staff and volunteers, Muswell Hill meeting, the London Link volunteers and all the young people for making it such a great weekend.

The short film produced at the Leaveners and London Link Animated Voices workshop was premièred at Britain Yearly Meeting at the end of May and… here it is:

direct link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFaet7Tq6Cs 

Great work! Check out the other short films made by young Quakers on the Leaveners’ youtube channel

On the 30th April London Link Group hosted the Leaveners to run a workshop called ‘Animated Voices’. 2 workshop facilitators from the Leaveners,  3 London Link Group volunteers and 9 Young people met early on the Saturday at Hampstead Meeting house.

The aim of the day was to try and create a short film using stop motion techniques. The first job was to decide on a story to tell. After much deliberation a concept was born. The story was then worked out further by making story boards.

After lunch and a quick walk on Hampstead heath, we split into two groups; each with different parts of the story to film. To create the characters we used craft materials and improvised with various things around us to build up the scenes. Each person in the group had different roles, for example, camera operator and director. Each frame was then set out and photographed. At various points during the process we checked on the animation by rendering the frames together into a video.

It was a challenging but rewarding process seeing our scenes come alive! We hope to have an edited version of the film out soon and ready for screening at BYM.

“And the Oscar goes to… “

We’d like to thank all at the Leaveners that made this workshop possible, all the young people for their creativity, London Link volunteers for hosting and Hampstead meeting for the use of their Meeting house.

Following on from the great success of our first visit two years ago to Littlehampton, this year on the 11-13th March 17 young people and 6 volunteers visited Littlehampton.

On the Friday evening we squeezed onto a packed commuter train from Victoria and made our way down south to Littlehampton, West Sussex. We were met in the Youth Hostel that we hired out by Keith accompanied by the welcome smell of baking potatoes, dinner was soon on the way.  After finding our rooms and settling in we had a intro session and played some name games. We then went out to have an epilogue by the sea in one of the sheltered wiggles in Littlehampton’s mega bench (which is apparently still part of the UK’s longest bench).

CC by-nc-nd https://www.flickr.com/photos/dhedwards/

In the morning we had some breakfast and made some packed lunches. Sam then ran a workshop on the campaign called ‘Kites not drones‘ this is a campaign to raise awareness of the use of armed drones and the impact they have. We did a role play Q&A to  explore the different sides of the arguments, with special guests Barack Obama, Donald Trump, a Quaker peace activist and a drone operator. A lively debate ensued!

In solidarity with the many children who can no longer fly their kites safely we made many kites our selves with slogans and wishes written on them.

In the glorious sunshine we ate our lunch, flew our kites, ran around on West beach and some even braved a paddle in the sea. We came back to the Youth Hostel had some drinks and cups of tea and then got into groups to have a wander around town, including have a look in on the Life boat station which houses Blue Peter 1.

Bluepeter 1

In the evening we played some games, the well loved classics; wink ministry, sardines, empire and mafia all run by the young people.  Dinner and then an epilogue again by sea.

On Sunday we joined Littlehampton Quakers for meeting and lunch. A last opportunity to sit in the sun, play games and pop down to the beach before we headed back to the station and back to London.

Thanks to volunteers Keith, Sam, Katy, Tavi, Olivia and Michael and all the young people for a fantastic weekend.

– Michael

To celebrate the start of the New Year, about 20 young people and 5 adults came together over great food, fun games and lots of catching up to do! We had a great time and it was great to reconnect with people we haven’t seen for a bit and to make new connections. What a better way to start the year!!

Thanks to the Young people committee and adult volunteers for organising a great party also thank you to Westminster meeting for hosting us again this year.

On the 12^th and 13^th of September 15 young people and 4 volunteers arrived at South London Scout Centre in Dulwich for a weekend of Quaker camping.

Even before everyone arrived, the most important task of any camping trip was already under way as tents were constructed at a rapid (and, in other cases, not so rapid) pace with everyone pitching in to ensure all had a cover against the elements.

When all the shelters were constructed, Friends gathered together for some camp side games. This began with everyone, old and new, introducing themselves by saying their name and something interesting about it. To really hammer this home, Friends lined up in alphabetical order. Then we went geographical with Friends House (a bag) at the centre and Friends positioned themselves according around it. In order to expend some energy we played some high speed games of chain bulldog and stuck in the mud. After some recovery time friends showed some amazing skills as they tried lifting an ever smaller cereal box off the ground with their teeth.

With games done, a lovely BBQ veggie dinner was prepared over two wood fires. After the main meal we chatted, sang songs and toasted marshmallows on the fire until our local hosts arrived for a night time bat walk. Unfortunately we did not find any bats but we did fully explore the dark suburban forest that surrounded our camp site. When we got back to our tents we had a simple epilogue and retreated to our camp beds.

On Sunday we woke early and had a good breakfast before we started the central task of de-constructing our tents. We set off for Forest Hill meeting house and before joining our local friends in worship we did some energetic and more relaxing activities. After a powerful meeting for worship we shared an amazing lunch that Forest Hill meeting prepared and in return we did the washing and drying up. And we had just enough time for a big group photo along with some musical interludes before we all went home.

Huge thanks to Forest Hill meeting & the South London Scout Centre for having us, all the volunteers, parents/guardians and young people for another brilliant weekend.

– Laurence

 

People say marching and campaigning and protesting can’t achieve anything. Well, the legal position of LGBT people has changed out of all recognition in the UK but there is a lot to do.  Being gay is against the law in 80 countries and ten of those execute LGBT people.  Same sex marriage is still not legal in Northern Ireland and people are still bullied in schools.

– Stephen Cox