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 to the Meeting House.
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.
June 2025
1st June Meeting for Worship at 10.30
8th June Meeting for Worship at 10.30 followed by Meeting for Worship for business at 12 noon until 1pm. Please send items for the agenda to clerks email (clerks.dorchester@quaker.org.uk) along with reports from your working groups.
9 – 14th June 2025 Week of Prayer for Churches Together in Dorchester:
Join us in our churches as we come together to pray for Peace and for the People of Dorchester.
Monday 9 th June: The Storehouse Church 7.30 pm
Tuesday 10 th June: Family Church 8 am (including Breakfast)
Wednesday 11 th June: St George’s Church Fordington 9.30 am (Pastries and Coffee)
Thursday 12 th June: St Peter’s Church (tbc)
Friday 13 th June: United Church Dorchester 4 pm
Saturday 14 th June: Salvation Army 9 am (Breakfast)
13th June 6.30pm at Rachel Celia’s House. Please contact the Clerks for the address or ask Rachel directly. “Whole meeting looplet to discuss who wants what in terms of a looplet”.
15th June Meeting for Worship at 10.30
18th June 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. After lunch Friends are encouraged to stay and help with simple garden tasks such as weeding the paths and the car park, making sure that the gravel is not on the pavement but in the car park, picking up any rubbish in the car park, watering any pots and the bird bath and walking on the grass free lawn. Thank-you from the gardening team.
22nd June 9.15 bring and share breakfast discussion meeting led by the Eldership and Pastoral Care Friends followed by Meeting for Worship at 10.30
June 27th 5.55pm at Meeting House. Bring food to share social led by the Eldership and Pastoral Care Friends.
June 28th 10-12 Outside St Peter’s Church Fundraiser for Medical Aid for Palestinians.
29th June Meeting for Worship at 10.30
July 2025
5th July 10-12 noon Dorset Poverty Action Group Coffee morning in the United Church. Please bring quality items which can be sold at that event to the United Church on the morning of the event to help with fundraising for this local charity.
6th July Meeting for Worship at 10.30
9th July Area Quaker Meeting at 7pm on zoom.
13th July Meeting for Worship at 10.30
16th July 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.
20th July Meeting for Worship at 10.30
27th July 9.15 bring and share breakfast discussion meeting led by the Eldership and Pastoral Care Friends followed by Meeting for Worship at 10.30.
August 2025
3rd August Meeting for Worship at 10.30
August 9th at Springhead. Area Meeting “away day”. Social gathering for all. More details nearer the time.
August 10th Meeting for Worship at 10.30
August 19th Meeting for Worship at 10.30
August 25th Meeting for Worship at 10.30
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 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. A copy is available to borrow from the library.
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
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