Malvern Meeting restart children's meeting
Malvern Local Meeting have recently started a regular children's meeting, to coincide with their monthly shared lunch. A group of Friends has been busy planning and organising, with support from their Local Development Worker. The first children's meeting was in January 2024. Children's meeting is now every fourth Sunday at 10.30am.
Malvern hasn't had a children's meeting on a Sunday morning for about 20 years. For the last two years, the meeting has been supporting a 'Little Friends' group that meets on a Sunday afternoon once a month, and is aimed at children aged 0-7 and their families. Activities include Bible stories, arts and crafts, and games. This group brings together children from other local churches, as well as three Quaker families, and an attender's 3 children.
The Sunday morning children's meeting is aimed a children aged 4-11, but everyone is very welcome. It means that parents and carer's can also attend meeting for worship, and the children and their families are more integrated into the life of the local meeting. A group of Friends met to plan the sessions and this produced some very creative ideas for the children's meeting, making good use of the gifts and experience of the Friends in the group.
Liz Flanagan, part of the organising group, said; “The first sessions focused on art activities and free play, after a shared story and introductions, for the younger ones. It was wonderful that our attender's family all stayed on for our shared lunch and met some friendly Friends. Our next session will be based on cooking for our friends."