The next in the Stronger Loving Communities series of workshops and conferences will on
Saturday 14th November - 10am to 4pm at
Selly Oak Meeting House, Birmingham
The day will build on the two conferences run in 2025 and will focus on the practical things all Meetings and Friends can do to build their capacity ans skills to hold difference in a loving way. A number of Quakers organisations will be participating and the day will include a number of mini workshops to help Friends understand how what each organisation offers helps strengthen our our Quaker communities.
More information will be added to this page as the details for the day are firmed up. If you would like to be kept up to date with this and other initiatives by Restoring Relations, please sign up to our newsletter.
The Stronger Loving Communities programme started in 2025 with two conferences. The inspiration for the conferences was our experience that many meetings struggle to deal with alternative points of view in a positive and loving way. We know too that by building expertise in dealing with these situations, the risk of damaged relationships, conflict and fractured communities can be lessened.
We called the conferences with the intention of working with Friends who have skills and experience in this area to look at what support we might offer Friends. We held two ‘day conferences’ in March in Bristol and York, where we began to explore the practical steps we could take to develop deeper relationships and acquire the essential skills that strengthen our communities to become more resilient and to better hold differences without division.
These conferences were not training days. They were crucibles: intended as safe, brave spaces where interested Friends met to consider the challenge of holding differences in a more loving way. How we might do this better? How we might best prepare and place emphasis on living peaceably together in Quaker community? with the intention to identify the first practical steps that will enable us to become true 'patterns & examples'.
An extensive set of notes is available here: Combined notes from both days