It’s that time again to welcome in the new year officially at London Link, by having our now annual Winterval party! 21 Young people and 4 adult volunteers enjoyed an eclectic shared lunch. We then had a great quiz, played the chocolate game and wink ministry. After that we went into an epilogue. What 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 Sunday 23rd November 11 young people and 3 volunteers joined Westminster meeting house for meeting for worship, followed by a bring and share lunch. We had a particularly lovely spread with homemade pizza as well as homemade bread. After filling ourselves up we walked along the Strand to Somerset house. In a classic setting we spent an hour skating across the beautifully lit ice, overlooked by an enormous Fortnum and Mason Christmas tree. At first clinging on to the sides of the rink, but we all steadily gained confidence. Some of us even managing to skate backwards and try out jumping. After our time was up, we walked back to Westminster in our soggy clothes and enjoyed a cup of hot chocolate to warm ourselves up.

– Inga

Ealing Quaker Meeting kindly hosted 24 young people and 6 adult volunteers from London Link Group during a weekend of glorious Indian summer sunshine. With the event hot on the heels of Southern Summer School and Senior Conference, many attendees needed no introductions to each other – but we played some name games anyway.

The meeting house garden at Ealing, equipped with swings of several varieties, a climbing frame and particularly climbable tree, has a wonderful lawn which suited us perfectly for games of football, Lazy Frisbee, and slightly less lazy games of Ultimate Frisbee. There was, of course, plenty of time for singing songs, reading books and playing other games.

Soon after we arrived we were split into cooking/clearing teams named after famous Ealing Comedies – the Ladykillers, Lavender Hill Mob, (Passport to) Pimlico and (Kind Hearts and) Coronets. We competed skilfully (OK, perhaps that’s overplaying it) through five rounds covering history, pop culture, current affairs, Quakers and general knowledge, for the title of LLG quiz team of the month.

Battling it out in the Quiz

After a sandwich lunch and some more time in the garden, we headed for nearby Walpole Park which has a museum, duck pond, and – crucially – an ice cream vendor. Well, those of us not requiring X-rays went to the park, anyway. The weather remained divine.

We were therefore in high spirits when returning to the meeting house for a talk and workshop from Crispian Wilson and Lydia Strachan of Ealing Meeting, both diplomats at the Foreign Office in London. We were able to think about and question the challenges and competing priorities facing British embassies around the world, using a fictional country case study that Crispian and Lydia had prepared.

In the evening, fuelled mainly by fruit, we played an epic game of ‘Empire’ and gathered for Epilogue before cups of cocoa and then bedded down on the meeting house floor.

On Sunday, some of us joined Ealing Quakers for their normal meeting for worship whilst the rest of us enjoyed a beautiful, sunny and remarkably still (other than the occasional passing 747 from Heathrow) worship-sharing with extracts from QF&P in the garden, serenaded by the birds. The meeting room was big enough to accommodate us all in the closing minutes of MfW, and the ministry talked about precious gifts of creation, conjuring up the image of a small and fragile bird being cupped by human hands and turning into a flower.

After more singing, swinging, eating, playing frisbee, football and turning the pages of our novels we said our goodbyes and returned home feeling spiritually nourished and having thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

– David

London Link was kindly invited by Teenage General Meeting to come to their Manchester event, 10 (and 1 joining on Saturday) Young people and 3 adults from London Link crossed the road from Friends House to Euston station where we promptly got on the train – Which then stood in the station for another 40 minutes while we waited for a “train manager” to arrive, Virgin trains having turned down all of our offers to be train managers, finally got going.

We arrived at Manchester Picadilly station where we were met by some of the TGM group who showed us the way to Manchester meeting house with the rest of their group making 34 young people in total. We joined them for some traditional northern cuisine (tacos) and introduced ourselves with a game and allocated our “secret friends” for the weekend.  After that we went to epilogue run by the TGM group and a story telling then bed.

After breakfast we headed out to the local tram stop with our packed lunches and were whisked across Manchester to Salford Quays/Media city where we visited the Imperial War Museum North. Through the exhibitions and the immersive film screening we learnt from stories captured by local people about the impacts of war on people’s lives.

We ate lunch and headed over the Quays to the Lowry centre where we were able to look at the art work on display by L. S. Lowry. He holds the record for the most honours declined, one “honour” he didn’t get a chance to decline was having a shopping centre named after him, and this is where some of us also went.

We took a tram back to the meeting house and had some free time while dinner was being prepared. After dinner TGM and London Link took turns in running some fun games; pulling out the stops on the much loved classics like Sardines and Watch the finger.

The home groups that had been set up for the week then met to do a creative listening activity, after this London Link then lead epilogue and story telling. We had some hot chocolate and then bed.

Sunday morning we had breakfast and started some cosy glows. After Meeting we had an exciting treasure hunt around Manchester city centre where we had to find captions from plaques and signs around the historic parts of the city centre.

We had some lunch and did an evaluation of the weekend, tidy up then home.

London Link would like to thank TGM for inviting us to their event and for all the organising and time they gave to help make the event run so well. We’d also like to thank Manchester Quakers for allowing us to take over their Meeting House, the London Link volunteers and finally all the young people for creating such a great community.

– Michael

Next event – Interval Sept 27-28th 2014

On the 21st of March 22 young Quakers and 8 Quaker adults met up in a youth hostel in Littlehampton for a weekend of fun and games. After dinner we introduced eachother and established the boundaries so that everyone could have a fun safe weekend. After a freezing cold visit to the beach in which some were foolish enough to submerge themselves in the water, we headed back to the meeting house for epilogue, cocoa and bed.

This event was also highlighted by the featuring of secret friends in which each person selected a name from a bag and be nice to the selected person with gifts and hugs, without revealing who they were.We believe this creates bonds between people who might not otherwise communicate at these kinds of events and helped some first timers feel welcome.

After breakfast on Saturday morning we were treated to an informative workshop on drones in which we learnt about the horrible drone programme that the U.S and the UK is working to cover-up and the mental health effects of drone warfare on the pilots, who at first glance seem isolated from their work, but in reality can suffer from post-traumatic stress-disorder just as easily as other combatents. The U.S drone programme is estimated to have killed nearly 3000 people since it began in 2004, with incredibly high numbers being civillian casualties.

We made and flew kites in solidarity with those around the world who campaign against these programmes, and even made onto the website “Voices for Creative Non-Violence UK”.

After free-time in the town and some games back at the hostel, dinner was served before the evening game of “Empire” a memory based skill game which requires patience, skill and memory. Keith then treated us to a very relaxing epilogue before we settled down for bed.

On Sunday Morning we vacated the youth-hostel and joined the members of Littlehampton meeting house in morning worship. After lunch we had more free-time in the town of littlehampton, which was cut short by a hail-storm, we had time before a few more games before we headed home on the train.
I’d like to thank all the Young People who came and all the volunteers who worked really hard to make this an excellent Quaker event.

Theo