Whanganui

Jeff Dean and Annette Morris write about the Quaker Settlement at Whanganui, New Zealand

It is twenty minutes past seven on a balmy New Zealand Monday evening. People arrive in ones and twos and slowly the hexagonal ‘quiet room’ fills with ‘settlers’, who sit in silence until the clerk of the week welcomes all. So begins the weekly management meeting at the Quaker Settlement in Whanganui that, alongside the Sunday shared meal, provides a key community focus.

The Settlement at Whanganui was started forty years ago by four Quaker couples who wanted to set up a New Zealand version of the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham. The Settlement now has sixteen houses, plus accommodation for guests, a communal kitchen, library, a dining/meeting room and the quiet room, where a Meeting for Worship is held daily. There are around twenty-seven settlers of all ages, from three months to over ninety years of age.

The community has developed in many ways. It still provides weekend seminars, mainly for Quakers, but in addition the facilities are hired out to other groups. There are bed and breakfast facilities, again mainly for visiting Quakers, and twenty acres of land are maintained along broadly permaculture lines. Remarkably, there are no paid staff. On occasion settlers with the requisite skills can tender for work, such as painting, that would otherwise have to go to an outside contractor. In essence, the settlers undertake the whole operation as a service to the Religious Society of Friends. Given that the settlers all have full lives outside the Settlement this is some achievement.

About two thirds of the people living at the Settlement identify themselves as Quaker; the others, to quote one settler, are ‘Quaker compatible’.

First and foremost, the Settlement is about community living. Each individual or family has their own house, which is completely self-contained (it is community not communal living). If a person was not geared to sharing and social interaction on a pretty intense scale, life at Whanganui would be hard, and not for them. The whole project is underpinned by Quaker spirituality and this is reflected in the way people interact, the way the land is managed, and the way business is conducted. There is opportunity for a great deal of physical labour – twenty acres do not look after themselves, even when ten of them have been developed by the settlers over the years as native bush. In addition, Whanganui needs to be administered and managed, which requires a good deal of brainwork and planning. This can be challenging, given the completely flat structure.

Of course, it is a human enterprise and there are faults: for example, obvious things sometimes do not get done or get done in a way that is inefficient. Some proposals for minor change (from within the settler group) can meet with resistance. Equally, the vision that created the place and the long-term vision, which is being developed for the future, are mind-blowing and beautiful.

It was an honour and a privilege to be resident Friends at the Settlement – a life-changing and life-enhancing experience. Certainly one of us (Jeff), having come from a life in business where time is seen as of the essence and tasks have to be completed with optimum ‘efficiency’ and focus, struggled in the early days. It was one of the younger members of the community who set him straight. Henry is three years old and most afternoons would seek us both out, spade in hand, to help us work on the land. Productivity dropped! Of course it did, as three-year-olds need time and attention, but together we explored digging, soil, worms, insects, birds, seed planting, manure, compost and storytelling. We all three learned so much and, surprisingly, the work still got completed.

Further information: www.quakersettlement.co.nz

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