Eye - 02 December 2016
Peterborough Meeting celebrates eighty years
Parties in Peterborough
Peterborough Meeting marked its eightieth anniversary with an array of community activities over the weekend of 8-9 October.
Local Friend Jo Weedon gave Eye a flavour of the celebrations: ‘We had a fine ceilidh on Saturday night, followed by Apple Day on Sunday, which started with an All-Age Meeting for Worship, where everyone joined with the children and young people to act out a little play of Something Else – a story to make us think about how important it is that everyone is included.
‘This was followed by a wonderful shared lunch where we were joined by some Friends who may have been at the original opening day celebration – certainly having attended as babies and young children – and they shared with us many memories from the Meeting’s earliest days.
‘It was a double celebration, as it was also our friend Cynthia Green’s eightieth birthday on Saturday! It was lovely to be joined, too, by some Friends from our wider Area Meeting.
‘Friends enjoyed seeing pictures of the Meeting through the years – and spotting themselves and others – in a variety of displays put up for the occasion.
‘We finished our meal with a specially baked celebration cake, based on an original recipe from the 1640s. We then spent the afternoon bringing in our harvest of apples, as has been our tradition for many years.
‘My son Eddie declared that Apple Day was one of the best days of the year – he’s always liked an excuse for climbing trees!’
Jo added: ‘I was particularly prompted to write in after reading [Ian Kirk-Smith’s] “Thought for the week” in the special Quaker Week edition of the Friend (30 September), entitled “Being Encouragers”.
‘After our Meeting for Worship our friend Beryl Bell shared such encouraging words with us all about how those first Friends of Peterborough Meeting would have been so pleased and amazed to see the Meeting as it is today, and how it has grown. And she should know because she was there!’
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