27 young people and 6 volunteers battled the commuters to arrive at Welwyn Garden city for Friday evening, escaping the rain in a very welcoming Welwyn Garden city Quaker meeting house.  Having introduced the event to everyone, we got to know each other a bit better by saying our name and crucially ..what we would do in the case of a zombie invasion…, dinner, an epilogue, some hot chocolate and then bed.

After breakfast we made ourselves a picnic to take to Stanborough Park, where we were graced with a beautiful day for games, ice cream and messing about in the river.

Having the park as a base we split into groups and went on a nature treasure hunt, after all the nature had been found we headed back to Welwyn Garden city meeting house to hear a talk on our theme “Marriage Equality” from Michael Booth (Britain Yearly meeting staff).

We heard about the decision made in 2009 at Yearly Meeting gathering and some of the history of the concern that links to our testimony to equality. This brought about a very open and challenging discussion about the homophobia that young people face and witness in schools and how difficult it can be do help people to overcome their fears and prejudices, especially when they are not supported well by their school, and when the word “gay” is used commonly to mean bad.

After dinner we had some free time and then we continued on our theme by looking at equality further, using a post-it based forum we had discussions on:

“Why are some people against Marriage Equality? Should some people be richer than others? What is the effect on us and everyone if people are treated unequally? Quakers have broken the law before to do what we believe is right, should we do so now? Do you feel equal to other people? and Why?”

After this we had an epilogue, some hot chocolate then bed.
Morning came round slightly earlier than we’re used to for a Sunday but we managed to be up and packed before the special early morning Quaker meeting started. A quick breakfast and then out onto the green to play some Frisbee, ‘Giants, Wizards and Elves’ and more games.

We then went into Quaker meeting and were warmly welcomed. Broadening our theme we heard from Michael Wood about the Occupy movement and the Quaker meeting that was setup at St.Pauls and how Quaker’s had many shared values.

We had a very short meeting about upcoming events and the formation of a Young People’s team to help support the events. Some free time and then back to London.

Thanks to all the Young People, all the volunteers and Welwyn Garden City meeting for hosting us.

Michael Wood (Assistant Clerk)

Having arrived at Watford Meeting house and introduced ourselves and the 7 volunteers, 20 young people made their way down to cassiobury park to play some games and have fun the sunshine.
On arriving back we had some delicious scones and time to chatter before Lucy Colbeck (Oxfam Youth and Schools and Watford Friend) and Owen Everret arrived to run an excellent workshop around explaining the challenges of sustinability and why it is a Quaker consern.

After the evening meal we played some games and then led into an epilogue organised by two of the young people around a bonfire. Some hotchocolate after then bed.

Sunday started with a quick breakfast then into meeting for worship, Simon Colbeck organised an activity on conflict resolution around a Quakerised version of Little red riding hood, which produced some exciting opportunities for acting out the conflict and attempting mediation.

Some freetime, tea and then a short session on how solar panels work and what prompted Watford Friends to install solar panels on their roof and the chanllenges of doing so led by David from Watford Meeting.

A small break then we all met to evaluate the weekend and for London Linkers to talk about future plans and how we formalise the role the young people play in running and planning the link events.

There was a really warm and caring atmosphere at the event, and I’d like to thank all the young people, all the volunteers involved and Watford Meeting for hosting us so excellently.

Previous events – Croydon

24 young people and 6 volunteers made our way to Croydon meeting house on the Friday evening. We introduced ourselves to old and new friends, playing games and discussing our expectations for the weekend. After a tiring week and some lively games we had dinner and an epilogue.

Saturday morning we made breakfast and pack lunches for our trip to Lloyd park, there we had our lunch, played rounders, Frisbee, football as well as some well loved Quaker games. The sun brought the ice cream van out and we contentedly walked back to the meeting house. There we met up with James Nidal Agha who had just arrived back from working as an ecumenical accompanier in Palastine/Israel. He gave a very interesting and dynamic talk on the work he had been doing and the challenges the Palestinians face, he answered and raised a lot of very thought provoking questions and resolved our solidarity in supporting the peace making work and the boycott by BYM.

Thanks to the young people’s help we prepared and ate a lovely dinner, after this we played some games and then got into to small teams for a quiz – the level of harry potter knowledge is somewhere between impressive and mad! After this excitement we went to an epilogue lead by two of the young people.

Sunday we were joined by two more young quakers and this also brought us a chance to discuss ideas for London Link group and get feedback, as well as our current plans to try and involve more young people in the event planning. We were lucky enough to have a talk from one of our volunteers; Inga, about the Quaker Youth Pilgrimage that she attended and how her Quakerism evolved from it. We then joined Croydon Quakers for Meeting, a quick lunch after and then headed home.

Previous Event – Brighton

17 of us made our way to Brighton on the train, meeting two more young friends from Brighton meeting. We went to the beach, played some games, visited the pier and caught up with friends while eating ice cream. With careful help from the young people dinner was made and eaten. After dinner we played a few games such as sardines, we then had an epilogue to reflect on the day and then bed.

In the morning we had breakfast and joined meeting for worship, leaving with the children’s group to have our own business meeting about future London link events, to which we have agreed to start looking at holding an event on *Oct 21-23* and then the Winterval bash on *Dec 17* , we also discussed the new status of London Link Group as an official body of London Quakers and how we hope to get all the Area meetings in London to help London Link group by providing a committee member and financial support (please ask your Area meeting clerk or us for further details) so that we can run even more exciting events.

Sam Walton then lead a discussion on how we perceive some of the “big issues” around organised religion in the modern world which included a look at some of the stories in the bible have been interpreted in different ways referencing Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way by Walter Wink.

We then spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach enjoying the excellent weather and the picnic we brought.