Last summer Esher Quakers started meeting in hired premises
In July 2024, Esher Quakers gave up their 227-year-old Grade 2 listed meeting house and burial ground and made a move to meet in hired space. Making this change was a testing and stressful experience calling on spiritual, emotional and physical strength. Esher Quakers share their reflections on managing change.
Esher Meeting are an active and outward looking small meeting, with an average Sunday attendance of 10 who now meet in a rented space in an adult education centre in central Esher. The journey to get there was challenging and emotional, but most now describe feeling 'relieved and released', and some have energy for new initiatives, such as outreach in the community.
In 2020, Covid restrictions reduced the activity and lettings income, making Esher local meeting even more dependent on financial support from the wider Area Meeting. The warden also moved away, placing new burdens on Friends to run the building. In 2022, London Quaker Property Trust, who are responsible for the upkeep of London meeting houses, asked Friends to consider the right use of resources. Esher Quakers held 3 long meetings for discernment, without time limits between October 2023 and February 2024. The question of what to do next was complex and emotional. The three meetings for clearness brought up fluctuating emotions and hard practicalities.
One Esher Quaker describes how 'At the first meeting Friends were optimistic, hoping to keep the Meeting House and grasping at untested solutions…which in the end proved to be unsustainable and too burdensome. In the second meeting expressions of grief and loss, and resistance to change divided the Meeting. We recognised that there must be change because our human resources were exhausted. The discipline of the Quaker Business Method held us together; all were heard: struggling, hurting, tentatively exploring alternatives. As it became clear that we were not ready to make a decision, we agreed to continue thinking radically and plan for a further meeting. During which we heard reports and asked ourselves many 'what if' questions, we expressed how much we loved our meeting house and acknowledged the challenges we faced were weakening us as a worshipping community - and to accept that people and not a building made the Meeting. We felt ready to be trusting and to live adventurously. We came to a decision and sadly this was not in unity. We agreed to become a premises free meeting. Many Friends acknowledged later how they had gradually adjusted to the decision and changes. Maybe once the difficult decision was made it was easier to voice the grief. But it was, and is, troubling to know that the 'minuted' decision was not 'in unity'. It is never easy to experience this."
Following the decision, Esher Quakers valiantly took on all the practical tasks of emptying and readying the building, grounds and hirers for the sale; including arranging a final meeting for worship and putting up an informative historic plaque on the building.
Quakers in Britain employ a Property Management advisor who can assist Quakers with questions around property. John Dash is contactable at johnd@quaker.org.uk