Dorchester Quaker Local Meeting
All events take place in the Meeting House in Holloway Road unless otherwise specified. Please see other pages of the website for directions.
Meeting for Worship each Sunday in the Meeting House 10.30am All Welcome.
Worship is followed by informal time together over tea and coffee in the kitchen at the meeting house.
March 2025
2nd March Meeting for Worship at 10.30
5th March 11am Holy Communion in the Celtic Tradition at the Quiet Space, Woodlands Crescent Poundbury. DT1 3RQ.
7th March 10.30 in St Mary’s Church Edward Road, World Day of Prayer (WDP) service with liturgy from the Cook Islands. Dorchester Quakers in the past have had a representative on the World Day of Prayer committee which offers a special service every year from different areas of the world. Coffee and fair trade items on sale after the service. The WDP raises funds and gives many grants to charities, and has supported Quaker work in the past. If you are interested in becoming the Quaker representative on the local committee, please let the Clerks know.
8th March Changemakers online conference to meet and hear about Christian Aid in action Saturday 8 March 10.30 to 1pm https://www.christianaid.org.uk/news/events/when-changemakers-gather
9th March Meeting for Worship at 10.30
9th March Sunday March 9th is the National Day of Reflection across the UK for the Covid -19 Pandemic.
Dorset Council will mark the day with an informal gathering at Memorial Corner, outside County Hall in Dorchester at 11.55am followed by a minute of silence at 12pm. People are encouraged to lay flowers if they wish and stay and reflect. There will also be an event in Borough Gardens to mark the same event led by the Town Mayor at 12 noon.
11th March 6pm First Aid Training – all Friends welcome.
15th March Bingo event at St Georges Church, Fordington to support Christian Aid. Doors open 6pm “eyes down” at 6.30.
16th March Meeting for Worship at 10.30 followed by a bring and share lunch for a discussion about roles and nominations issues in the Meeting. This event, which was agreed by business meeting on the 2nd of February, will be facilitated by the Elders and Pastoral Care team and will end by 3pm. Please read the documents sent on 8th March to prepare for the meeting.
19th March (Wednesday) Mid Week Meeting for Worship 12.30 to 1 followed by shared lunch ending at 2pm (bring food to share) led by the Eldership and Pastoral Care Friends.
22nd March Earth Hour at the Quiet Space Saturday 8.30-9.30 pm
A candlelit hour to share poems, prose and discussion in appreciation of our beautiful and fragile Earth The Quiet Space Woodlands Crescent DT1 3RQ
21st to 23rd March. Area Quaker Meeting residential at the Othona Community. The focus is on the subject of “silence”. Details available from Elders and an email was sent on 20th January with information about how to sign up to attend.
23rd March 9.15 bring and share breakfast and discussion on the subject of Conscientious Objection with particular reference to CO’s from Russia. (Please bring food to share) followed by Meeting for Worship at 10.30
29th March Litter pick, Churches Ecology Group 10.00-11.00am meet at St Mary’s church.
30th March Meeting for Worship at 10.30 followed by local business meeting for 90 minutes. Please try to attend this meeting which has a number of issues for the whole meeting to reach unity on.
April 2025
3rd April 7pm Dorchester Quaker Book Group at the Meeting House. If you would like to join in reading ‘Life After Doom: wisdom and courage for a world falling apart’ by Brian McLaren and to receive the questions being discussed, you can email Anne Ringrose at: anne.ringrose@icloud.com It meets fortnightly.
6th April Community Farm work session 2.00-4.00pm The location is DT13AR Middle Farm Way Poundbury, offered by the Churches Ecology Group.
6th April Meeting for Worship at 10.30
8th April Area Quaker Meeting online
13th April Meeting for Worship at 10.30
16th April Mid Week Meeting for Worship 12.30 to 1 followed by shared lunch ending at 2pm (bring food to share) led by the Eldership and Pastoral Care Friends.
17th April Dorchester Quaker book group 7pm at the Meeting House. If you would like to join in reading ‘Life After Doom: wisdom and courage for a world falling apart’ by Brian McLaren and to receive the questions being discussed, you can email Anne Ringrose at: anne.ringrose@icloud.com. It meets fortnightly.
20th April Meeting for Worship at 10.30 Note that in the Western Christian calendar this is Easter Day and there may be Churches Together activities across Dorchester.
22nd April Truth and Integrity online event 9am (see below for contact details if you wish to register.)
24th Truth and Integrity online event 19.00 (see below for contact details if you wish to register).
27th April bring and share breakfast discussion meeting led by the Elders and Pastoral Care Friends on the subject of a follow up from the AQM residential in March on “silence” followed by Meeting for Worship at 10.30. There will also be a discussion about roles in the meeting on this day.
May 2025
4th May Meeting for Worship at 10.30
10th May 14.30 Beach of Dreams event near Boscombe Pier offered by Hampshire and the Islands Area Quaker Meeting (AQM) and Bournemouth Coastal AQM Quakers – see bottom of diary page for details.
11th May Meeting for Worship at 10.30
19th May Meeting for Worship at 10.30
21st May Mid Week Meeting for Worship 12.30 to 1 followed by shared lunch ending at 2pm (bring food to share) led by the Eldership and Pastoral Care Friends.
25th May bring and share breakfast discussion meeting led by the Eldership and Pastoral Care Friends followed by Meeting for Worship at 10.30
Britain Yearly Meeting will be held in London, at Friends House, Euston Road, London NW1 2BJ from the 23rd to the 26th of May. It is an in-person and online event. Please go to the BYM website for booking forms.https://www.quaker.org.uk/ There are children’s activities available so please book early for these.
Local Quaker Business Meeting
These are held every two months and all are welcome to attend (next one is to be held June 8th 2025). Next Area Quaker Meeting will be online on 8th April followed by July 9th and October 9th. The Clerking team are currently is currently not a team but if you are interested in joining Marigold, to share responsibilities (clerks.dorchester@gmail.com) let her know. Please contact Marigold if you have an item which you want to be included in the agenda for LQBM. Minutes are taken at these meetings so please ask an Elder or Pastoral Care Friend if you would like to see them.
For those who ask about the donation to Britain Yearly Meeting, please see the Charity Commission website which illustrates the finances of BYM which can be found under charity number 1127633.
The Meeting now has a reading group which began meeting in March 2025 The chosen text is “Life After Doom” by Brian McLaren published by Hodder and Stoughton May 2024.
If you want to explore more about Quakers, Kindlers might be for you. Visit the website www.thekindlers.org.uk email admin@thekindlers.org.uk
Message from the Truth and Integrity Group (national) sent 9th March 2025
Dear Friends,
You are invited to participate in a global online meeting for worship to share uncertainties, fears and hopes and to uphold each other.
The radical and swift changes to the political landscape across the world that have taken place over the last few months have left many Friends concerned, fearful and disturbed.
In Britain, the Quaker Truth and Integrity Group (QTIG) have been concerned at the decline in truth and integrity in public affairs, primarily because of its deleterious effect on democracy. We now see Democracy around the world being undermined.
In this changed landscape, we are asking “What are Quakers called to do?”
We will hold two online meetings for worship to share our uncertainties, fears and hopes. We are inviting Friends worldwide to join us in discerning a way forward. We feel that it is important for us to hear a broader, more global perspective because although our (QTIG’s) work is focused on Britain, the global order is shifting and we are aware that the way that looks from other corners of the world will be different to how it looks to us. We do not consider the global order as it was in any way perfect (far from it). And there may be opportunities for the global community in the changes we see, even if (or because) they are so very uncomfortable and frightening. We also offer this opportunity as a contribution to wider discernment in the Quaker world.
To ensure that we capture concerns and ideas correctly, we will record the sessions. These recordings will only be used to help the Quaker Truth and Integrity Group’s Steering Group document correctly the fears, hopes and ideas shared within the meeting and to help us plan our work. They will be destroyed once that exercise is completed.
If there are outcomes from these two Meetings for Worship which might inform future actions, we will summarise and share them with those Friends who participate in the meetings and with the clerks of the 4 FWCC sections and FWCC.
These meetings will be held on Tuesday 22 April at 09:00 and on Thursday 24 April at 19:00. To register, click on the relevant date below.
In friendship,
Anne Wilkinson Co-Clerk
Quaker Truth and Integrity Group
Every Monday at 19.30 there is an online JUST… meeting called One thing you can do this week for peace and justice in Palestine, Lebanon, Israel. Based on the AFSC format, American Friends Service Committee Action Hour, we witness… a minute silence remembering ONE event or person Learn… what’s going on – UPDATE Act…. ONE letter or petition to write or sign Share…what is happening in your area that counts as a small WIN Friend Nicola Grove spends about one day every week gathering and preparing resources for the meeting. You can join on https://www.campain.org/post/join-just-campain-s-weekly-action-for-peace-and-truth-in-the-middle-east
https://www.quaker.org.uk/our-work/international-work/responding-to-the-current-situation-in-israel-and-palestine is also useful
Church events in Dorchester (Our representative on Churches Together in Dorchester is Sarah)
Please remember to contribute to the Food Bank by dropping items off at the Dorford Baptist Church in Bridport Road.
Firm Roots is a Christian cancer support group. Dorchester Family Church Office: 2 Red Cow Business
Park, Long Bridge Way, Dorchester DT1 1YD Join us for friendship, encouragement, reflections, refreshments and prayer for anyone affected by cancer.
Everyone welcome. Email: dorsetfirmroots@admin
Please also get in touch if you would like to go on our prayer list and our group will pray for you.
www.firmroots.org.uk
Acorn Christian Healing Foundation Dorchester Hub The Quiet Space Poundbury DT1 3RG
Second Wednesday and Third Friday of each month 10.30-12.00 All very welcome, any faith or none
OTHER EVENTS OR OPPORTUNITIES YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN
Individual Quakers are involved in a range of social action activities and some are mentioned here.
Quakers are part of the World Wide Family of Quakers and the Around Europe Newsletter has articles from various aspects of Quaker activity across the Europe and Middle East Section latest issue of Among Friends. https://fwccemes.org
For those interested in the demonstrations and protests in relation to Israel and Palestine, there is a Dorset Palestine Solidarity Campaign which can be followed through these links.
Facebook: https://fb.me/e/awqc2ZXll
Twitter/X: https://x.com/dorsetpsc/status/1851643419065532557
Insta: https://www.instagram.com/p/DBwPIBxNFoB/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Contact dorsetpsc1@admin or dorsetstopthewar@gmail.com
The Quaker Socialist Society meets online from time to time – and had a meeting on how we promote Quaker values in state schools and private Quaker schools. Prof Francis Green spoke about his book on private schools: Engines of Privilege. See the Quaker Socialist Society website for further details. Also, a lecture on George Fox by Graham Taylor, which quotes some of Fox’s unpublished work, is on https://quakersocialists.org.uk/
We encourage Friends to see a Lecture by Revd Munther Isaac, a Palestinian Christian on https://quakersocialists.org.uk/.
In June at Salisbury International Arts Festival on Friday June 6th this year, Friend Michael Mears with Riko Nakasono will perform THE MISTAKE – see below from Michael.
It’s 80 years since atomic bombs were dropped on two Japanese cities.
I’m Michael Mears, actor/playwright and pacifist and I attend Wandsworth Quakers in southwest London.
In 2023 I toured THE MISTAKE, the play I wrote about Hiroshima and the first atomic bomb, around the UK, with no public arts funding – just the enthusiastic support of crowdfunders and one or two small organisations. The play was performed by Japanese actor Riko Nakazono and myself. This year, the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings, I feel compelled to take the play further afield to the USA and to Japan.
We will be touring in the USA for six weeks from the start of April, and it’s an expensive undertaking, though in order to help the tour proceed, I have chosen to be unpaid myself, as part of my witness for peace.
Potential sympathetic funding bodies in the UK won’t fund a project that goes abroad. So will you help us bring THE MISTAKE to the USA, to share the urgent themes and message of this play with a wider, American, audience? Join us in our efforts to enlighten, to illuminate, to change hearts and minds, through the emotional power of theatrical storytelling?
Any donation however small will make a difference and help us. Here is a Crowdfunding link for donations which will give you a lot more information, with photographs and reviews.
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/taking-the-mistake-to-the-usa
Beach of Dreams
South Coast Quakers invite you to come together on Boscombe beach to
reawaken connection with the earth and each other.
Meet on beach near Boscombe Pier, BH5 1BN
Saturday 10th May 14.30
Come along for a day out at Bournemouth beach where we can meet up with Friends from across
the South. We are joining with other organisations from across the country, in a community arts
project expressing our hopes and concerns for the coastal environment where we live and globally.
The Beach of Dreams is a UK wide coastal arts festival,
creating a national outdoor and digital creative
programme exploring and activating the UK’s
coastlines. Our local event will be part of a network of
other similar events happening throughout May across
the country,
We will be creating a sixty-foot-wide labyrinth in the
sand near the pier at Boscombe and will invite
passersby to write a word, question, or intention on a
stone that relates to the beach, coastline, climate
change etc. and to place the stone in the centre of the
labyrinth. In our engagement with other beach goers,
we offer this simple activity which invites them to try
the experience of moving slowly inward to a central still
point – giving a taste and echo of what we do in Meeting
for Worship. It is an opportunity to start conversations
with people we meet, and to hold a visible Quaker
presence where we express something of our values.
As part of this nationwide event run by community arts organisation Kinetika, we will form a
collaborative network, linking arms with others to collectively and peacefully demonstrate our
concerns for the environment and climate change. It presents an opportunity to get together
socially with other friends whilst bearing public witness to our concern and care for the
environment.
https://www.beachofdreams.org/about
Hugh Douglas (Local Development Worker): hughd@quaker.org.uk
David Curtis (Communications Coordinator HIAQM): communicationshiaqm@gmail.com
Sue Stanek (Clerk HIAQM): clerkhiaqm@gmail.com
Penny Estall (Clerk Bournemouth Coastal): qmn.bcam@gmail.com