Our Autumn event on the theme of “Hope”

This year on Sunday 24th October we welcomed Reading’s mayor, Cllr David Stevens, Bishop Olivia of Reading, Nick Harborne from the Reading Refugee Support Group and Mustafa Chaudhary from Reading Muslim Council as our Speakers.

The wonderful Universal Voices Children’s Choir led by Julia Berkley and her students provided fantastic entertainment. It was also lovely to welcome the children’s families to this event.

Our friends at the Dialogue Society provided some of their wonderful Noah’s Pudding. We also very much appreciated Furkan Han Mert coming to take photographs. This would have been a challenging undertaking as we wished to convey something about who was present whilst also protecting the children’s identities.

All the organisers were quite taken aback to see the Reading Quaker Meeting House so full. It seemed the theme of “Hope” appealed to a considerable number of people thoroughly fed up with isolation or else just speaking to heads through zoom.

Keeping everyone safe was quite a challenge for the organisers. Fortunately everyone acted very considerately and firmly stuck to the rules.

We would like to thank Reading Quakers for allowing us to use their Meeting House for this event.