Quaker family weekends
Cathy Betoin suggests a formula for a successful weekend
Many Quaker Meetings struggle to maintain an active children’s group. This may not be so much to do with what Quakers are offering or not offering but more to do with the realities of the time pressures on modern families at a weekend, when Sunday morning Meeting finds itself competing with many other demands on time.
This was the situation that a number of families in our community found themselves in. It wasn’t a lack of interest in what Quakers were offering – it was that the Sunday morning Meeting pattern felt more of a pressure than a nourishment in the context of other ‘busyness’. Parents found themselves battling with reluctant children to get to Meeting and then found an unpredictable situation when they arrived. Some of our Local Meetings had no children at all. The snatched conversations over a cup of tea felt too hurried a foundation for building meaningful relationships.
So, one weekend several years ago, a group of us gathered with our families at Rookhow, the Westmorland General Meeting bunkhouse in the beautiful Rusland Valley. The formula was simple – we were families with children of all ages – three to seventeen years. We cooked together, ate together, hung out in the woods, walked, talked, made bonfires, shared epilogue and had time to ‘be’. At the end of that weekend when the question was asked ‘shall we come again next year?’ there was an instant sense of needing something sooner.
So, a pattern of weekends has emerged that now take place three to four times a year. We have come to think of these weekends as a space of all-age nourishment. We have had time to deepen relationships and have continuity. With this continuity our group has been able to support families who have gone through a wide range of challenging events, including illness and the very sudden death of one of our group members, Liz. We have had time for longer conversations and out of these longer conversations Quaker concern and actions have emerged.
Slowly the children have come to understand the power of silence and the epilogue sharings around candlelight or bonfires or Sunday Meeting are special punctuation points in every weekend.
The weekends, which now attract thirty to forty children and adults, have deliberately quite open planning. Sue, one group member, has taken the lead on providing the organisational link for booking and allocating responsibilities for bringing food for shared meals. This assists the continuity. There is a structure of meals and sharing points, and a tradition of double breakfasts. One of the things that children and adults all value is the unplanned time, where some read quietly, others cook and others chat. The surrounding woods create a framework in which children can be allowed space to be, and themes can emerge rather than needing to be imposed. We have all enjoyed the fact that phone and internet access are difficult and therefore, an electronics ban is easy to enforce. In this unhurried atmosphere, we feel we have an experience of getting to know one another in the things that are eternal. We do not force Quaker teaching, rather we seek to live in a Quakerly spirit.
The weekends have been generously supported by our Area Meeting and links with the wider community built by participation of local Quakers in our walks and meals. We feel a strengthened sense of connection and Quaker value, and are confident that our children are taking in these special all-age experiences as a foundation for their own spiritual journeys. We feel, therefore, that this may be a formula that other Area Meetings might want to consider in the effort to make Quakerism more accessible to a younger community. We have created a simple planning pack and should anyone be interested please contact us.
Further details: sueplaysflute@gmail.com or cbetoin@aol.com
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