Here are some snippets from some events in 2018.
Settle Friends Meeting 2017-2018
Marian and Phil McNichol are resident friends at Settle Meeting House, they live in Quaker Garth and keep a record of the life of the meeting.
Birthdays!
We held a 95th birthday party for Barbara Bowman one of our oldest members and here she is with Walter and Mary two of our youngest members
Flowerpot Festival
Settle has a flowerpot festival every summer where people build a flowerpot sculpture and a trail is produced for visitors. Here is the resident friends’ house with a flowerpot sculpture of a giant leprechaun outside although some people thought he was maybe George Fox because of his hat and shoes . Last year we did a local dialect poet Thomas Twistleton and his sheep. A local charity brings refugee groups to the Dales for a day out and last year they helped to make their own flowerpot sculpture in a small park. Unfortunately it was vandalised on several occasions so the meeting house rescued it and placed it in the meeting house gardens for safekeeping with a poster telling the very appropriate story of vandalism and the move to a safe place.
Social Justice Concerns
In July 2018 a cycle ride was organised by Kendal and Sedbergh Meeting to take a petition down to the prime minister opposing the changes made to our benefit system wi which has created great hardship. The group stayed at Settle Meeting house overnight and we signed their petition.
Marian and Phil took the Settle banner to Faslane in Scotland the nuclear submarine base to oppose nuclear weapons and a Quaker vigil was held on a very cold June day on Pendle Hill opposing the fracking which is taking place locally.
We support a local group who campaign for justice for Palestinians . They hold talks, films and a cafe once a year at the meeting house.
This year was the centenary commemoration for the end of the World War One. We held a workshop making white peace poppies and then decorated a tree with them. Each poppy had a label attached remembering somebody affected by war. We were pleased that several non quakers joined us in this witness to peace and the tragedy of war.
Our most difficult social justice work in the area meeting this year was a workshop on Anti Semitism .
The Meeting House
In winter and summer:
Our meeting house garden is actually our burial ground but the gravestones were moved along the adjoining wall 50 years ago. The local people enjoy our garden but there was a bit of opposition when we cut down a tree recently. It was much too big. We replaced it with a black mulberry, a cherry and a rowan.
The meeting house is used almost every day by different community groups. Settle town organises a folk gathering every year and we have music sessions in the meeting house. Here are some dancers in the town square The Olde Naked Man cafe is very famous, with some believing the original naked man was a quaker or it was a joke about Early Quakers objecting to fancy buttons on their clothing
