Venue

Yearly Meeting 2024 will be held from Saturday 6th July to Saturday 13th July in Adelaide at the West Beach Parks complex, near the foreshore at West Beach, SA. This was the site of Yearly Meeting 2017. It will be a hybrid event combining in-person and online gatherings.

The main meeting venue will be at the headquarters of SA Sea Rescue on Barcoo Rd, West Beach. Formal sessions will be held at this venue.

A range of smaller spaces, for meetings, Share and Tell sessions and Friendly Schools, will be in the lounge areas of the accommodation units at The Retreat nearby. 

Children
Activities for children under 11 years will be at the Poolside Room of the Retreat. It is close to a play ground with a large jumping pillow. A Children’s Program is being planned.

JYFs
Two Sand Dune shacks at the Retreat, adjacent to an adventure play ground, have been reserved for the daytime use of Junior Young Friends. A camp offsite during Yearly Meeting may be possible. Please contact the SANTRM Clerk if you are interested in being involved in a JYF camp or working with the JYFs during YM24.

Accommodation

Onsite at The Retreat
The Seadragon and Spinifex Shacks at The Retreat, close to the meeting venue, have been booked for Friends attending Yearly Meeting 2024. These are comfortable, air-conditioned small houses with wi-fi and well-equipped kitchens, suitable for self-catering.  Harbour Town, a large shopping complex, is a five-minute drive from The Retreat and daily deliveries may be possible.  You can request single or shared bedroom accommodation. Four of the shacks are wheelchair accessible.  

You will be advised of the costs of onsite accommodation and meals on the YM24 registration form. Keep watching this site for updates.

What are the alternatives?
A range of alternative, budget style accommodation is available for Friends to book for themselves at the Big 4 West Beach Parks Caravan Park which is 800 metres from The Retreat. The Big 4 Caravan Park offers a range of accommodation including cabins, eco-tents, and powered sites for caravans. Please book early because YM24 takes place during school holidays and this is a popular venue.

Travel within Adelaide
There is a bus connecting The Retreat with the shopping complex at Harbour Town, the airport and the Adelaide CBD.

For seniors, bus travel is free or at a concession rate in Adelaide.  For interstate visitors, access to travel at Seniors rates needs to be organised in advance.

Meals and Refreshments

Morning and afternoon teas will be provided at the meeting venue. For main meals, you can choose to self-cater or you can register for a packed lunch at the venue and for dinner at the Golf Club nearby. 

Breakfast
Friends are asked to organise your own breakfast. 

Morning and afternoon teas
Tea, coffee and light refreshments will be available at the meeting venue. The cost is covered by your day registration.  

Lunches
Lunch will be a vegetarian sandwich/roll for $12.  Lunch can be vegan, gluten-free and/or suitable for diabetics. Friends with less usual diets will need to self-cater. There will be a central lunch collection point.

Dinners
The Westward Ho Golf Club, near the meeting venue, will provide a vegetarian main course and dessert for $35. Dinner options can be vegan, gluten free and/or suitable for diabetics.  Friends with less usual diets will need to self-cater. 

Self-catering onsite
The shacks at The Retreat have well-equipped kitchens so you can choose to self-cater. Harbour Town, a large shopping complex, is a five-minute drive from The Retreat and daily deliveries may be possible.

Children and JYFs
Children and young people up to 17 years attending Yearly Meeting will receive lunches and dinners free.

 

Travel

Travel to Adelaide
Watch this space for information about travel to Adelaide for Yearly Meeting 2024.

Travel

Travel to Adelaide
Watch this space for information about travel to Adelaide for Yearly Meeting 2024.

Travel within Adelaide
There is a bus connecting the Adelaide CBD with The Retreat, next to the YM24 venue.

South Australian Seniors Card members can travel free on Adelaide Metro buses, trains and trams at all times.

For interstate seniors, bus travel in Adelaide can be free for 14 days in a row between 9 am and 3 pm and after 7 pm Monday-Friday and at all times on the weekend. To get your temporary seniors ticket for the Adelaide Metro, you can visit one of several locations in Adelaide and present your interstate seniors card. These locations include the Adelaide Railway Station, in the city at 25 Pirie Street, and near the airport at Glenelg. 

Interstate seniors can buy a concession Metro card for the peak times (7 am to 9 am and 3 pm to 7 pm Monday-Friday), from one of the many Metro card agent locations in Adelaide.

Alternatively, interstate seniors can order a concession Metro card online before you come to South Australia and it will be posted to you. Make sure you organise this at least two weeks before you travel to allow time for processing and posting to your interstate address.

For more information on places to get a temporary seniors Metro card for free travel, locations to buy a concession Metro card for travel during peak times, and for a link to the form to apply for a concession Metro card in advance, go here:  https://www.adelaidemetro.com.au/tickets-and-fares/seniors-card.

You can no longer pay with cash when you catch a bus, train or tram in Adelaide. You will need to get a Metro card before catching public transport.  Another option on some buses, trains and trams will be to pay full fare using "tap and pay" with your bank card.

 

Backhouse Lecture

The Backhouse lectures are delivered annually at Yearly Meeting, the national gathering of Quakers in Australia. These are public lectures on a contemporary issue. Friends from Australia and overseas have presented these lectures.  

Jackie Leach Scully will talk about what disability, difference and normality mean for Friends in the 21st century.

Jackie is an active Quaker and a previous Swarthmore Lecturer (2002) to Britain Yearly Meeting. With an initial training in biological sciences, she is now resident in Australia and Professor of Bioethics at the University of NSW. She conducts research into how people with disability engage with medical and healthcare innovations. She has been a disability activist for over thirty years.

The Backhouse lecture is open to the public, so we encourage you to publicise this event and invite interested family and friends.

Children and JYFs

Yearly Meeting 2024 will be held from Saturday 6th July to Saturday 13th July close to Adelaide at the West Beach Parks complex, near the foreshore at West Beach.

Children
Activities for children under 11 years will be at the Poolside Room of the Retreat. It is close to a play ground with a large jumping pillow. A Children’s Program is being planned.

JYFs
Two Sand Dune shacks at the Retreat, adjacent to an adventure play ground, have been reserved for the daytime use of Junior Young Friends. A camp offsite during Yearly Meeting may be possible.  If you are interested in being involved in a JYF camp or working with the JYFs during YM24, please contact the SANTRM Clerk, Jo Jordan on jojordan@ozemail.com.au

Epilogues

Epilogue is at the end of our day.  It is a short worshipful gathering when we wrap up the busy day and settle.

Epilogue incorporates more than just silent worship. It is often programed with music, poetry, an invitation to share something from your day, or a creative activity.

Each epilogue is led by Friends from amongst us, usually a Regional Meeting or an online Meeting for Worship. 
 

Schedule of YM24 Epilogues 

When known, the schedule of Epilogues will be set out here.

Friendly School

What is Friendly School?   
Friends from around Australia offer workshops on a theme. The theme is explored in a variety of ways such as spiritual writings or practices, creative writing, poetry, social justice issues, Earthcare, Indigenous concerns, and so on. For many, it is a highlight of Yearly Meeting to gather for a day with Friends exploring the same interest.

YM24 theme:  Quakers in times of conflict and change
It is 400 years since George Fox’s birth and we are living in times of conflict and change. What are our sources of nourishment and strength? How do we live our lives?  

YM24 Friendly Schools 
This year Friendly School will be on Sunday 7th July at 10 am ACST in Adelaide. Here are the offers we have received:

(1)  Creative Writing  ---  David Evans

(2)  Indigenous Theologies: reflections from attending the Indigenous Theologies Conference  ---  Jane Hope 

(3)  Learning to Adopt some Traditional Aboriginal Spiritual Practices  ---  Rowe Morrow

(4)  Radical Hospitality  ---  Emily Chapman-Searle and Yarrow Goodley

(5)  Reflection on Quaker Funding Groups and Quaker Applicants 
       ---  Sue Ennis, Di Bretherton, Paula Paananen

(6)  She wrote this that made me think…  ---  Anne Herbert

(7)  Spirituality and Ageing  ---  Anne Felton

Find out more about these workshops below.

- - - - - - - - - - - 

Will there be any Friendly Schools online?
We welcome offers of online Friendly Schools. 

- - - - - - - - - - - 

Friendly School workshops --- at the venue in Adelaide

(1)  Creative Writing  ---  David Evans
400 years of Pen and Quill and Keyboard expressing Quaker Thought and Action gives us a foundation to move on.  So join us to share your thoughts and writings. In the first session, you will be asked to talk about your interest in writing. In following sessions you will be given an opportunity to present what you have written (a book or article etc) with time for discussion. The creative writing interest group of YM 2018 led to a publication entitled Turning Points which has just now been published by the Australia Yearly Meeting Publications Committee. It would be possible to do something similar from this Yearly Meeting.

(2)  Indigenous Theologies: reflections from attending the Indigenous Theologies Conference  ---  Jane Hope
In February 2024, I represented Quakers at the Indigenous Theologies Conference: Raising Our Tribal Voice for Justice: An Indigenous Theological Revolution Conference. At the conference we heard from key Indigenous speakers, such as journalist Stan Grant, Professor Dr Auntie Anne Pattel-Grey (a Donald Groome fellow in the 80’s) and Rev Dr Garry Deverell. As well as hearing their theological reflections from an Indigenous experience, we heard of current issues around truth telling, land back and decolonisation. As I prepared my address for the ‘heads’ of churches section I reflected deeply on Quakers' concern for Indigenous people throughout the 8 generations of Colonisation in these lands. I would love to share my reflections on how we have been involved with decolonisation in the past and what we could be doing today in the present. I can also share some of the current theological reflections from the Indigenous lived experience and how we can incorporate this into our predominantly eurocentric Quaker Community.

(3)  Learning to Adopt some Traditional Aboriginal Spiritual Practices  ---  Rowe Morrow
While recently at Silver Wattle - Quaker Weereewa,  I realised that unless we late comers to this country, we call Australia, and who have done so much damage, embrace aspects of Indigenous spirituality we will continue to damage the ‘country’ where we live. I propose we learn about Indigenous spirituality - and practice it  This workshop offers depth and practicality. Not just know about Indigenous spirituality as a curiosity but as a satisfying way to live or find meaning in life. Some Friends could develop deep protective relationships to water, air, mountains and all species and then, perhaps then, one day in the future, we could call ourselves truly belonging because we know how to live here without doing harm, and in fact we become restorative as well.

(4)  Radical Hospitality  ---  Emily Chapman-Searle and Yarrow Goodley
What does Radical Hospitality look like for Quakers these days? How would we respond if George Fox appeared in our meeting one Sunday? Building on our experience of twelve months as coordinators at Silver Wattle Quaker Centre, we are interested to think more about how we practice radical hospitality. How can we be welcoming to all who come to us and make space at our table...both physical and metaphorical. We are thinking broadly. How are we accessible to people of all ages, genders, sexuality, race, age, class and more? How do we deal with being challenged? 

(5)  Reflection on Quaker Funding Groups and Quaker Applicants 
       ---  Sue Ennis, Di Bretherton, Paula Paananen  
Quakers have a long tradition of providing financial support to F/friends with tested concerns. We will explore: 

• How F/friends seeking financial support are best able to navigate the many types of funds that are held within the Society.
• How current funding structures meet the responsibilities of administering donated or public monies whilst supporting the work of F/friends.  
• What is working well and what, if anything, could change to improve the accessibility and effectiveness of the current funding systems within AYM.
   

(6)  She wrote this that made me think…  ---  Anne Herbert
Many of us are challenged to express the Quaker peace testimony. Our practice experiments lead us to consider what is peace, and related concepts like what is violence and conflict, non-violence and conflict transformation, non-violent communication and so on. Our Friend, Margaret Bearlin, exhorts us to “read more women” on peace, avoiding violence and consider their approaches to transforming conflict and non-violent communication because “Women do groundbreaking work for justice, peace and security. Yet, they continue to be sidelined ...Even when women play instrumental roles in forging and sustaining peace, when they are at the table, we don’t hear enough about their contributions…" 
(https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2019/10/compilation-the-power-of...) 
Let us take time during this Friendly School to share texts by women that have engaged each of us on our own journey to express our peace testimony. Please bring a text and be ready to share how it has affected your thinking and practice.

(7) Spirituality and Ageing  ---  Anne Felton
We live on average 20 years longer today than in 1900. What are those extra years for? And the big question: How will we spend those extra years beyond “retirement”?  Spirituality means different things to different people. For most, it’s about finding meaning and purpose. This can be a lifelong quest but seems to come to the fore later in life. Research shows that the spiritual task of finding meaning in life does in fact become more important at this time. Why is that? And how can we navigate this time with more grace, given the mixed messages about ageing that society gives us? This Friendly School “Spirituality and Ageing” offers older folk the opportunity to reflect and share on your experience of later-life spirituality. Younger people are invited to learn something about what your family and friends might be feeling as they get older.  Anne Felton will draw on her own experience as a caregiver to an older person and as an older person herself. A geologist by profession, she has recently re-trained as a spiritual companion.

 

Home Groups

Connecting with others is a joy of Yearly Meetings. We love getting together, meeting people from other places, sharing our lives and how our communities are going, and talking about matters that deeply concern us. Building bonds in a smallish group that remains consistent during Yearly Meeting can be a lovely way of doing this. We can make new friendships and strengthen old ones.

Home groups are a tried and true way of enhancing our fellowship and sense of community. Home groups have long been integral to Quaker gatherings worldwide, though we have only recently started including them in our Yearly Meetings again. Home groups were enjoyed by many Friends at YM22 and YM23.  We are offering them again as part of YM24.

We hope all who attend will bring a willingness to listen to others and share from their own experience.

In Adelaide, we anticipate forming many home groups. Online, pods of people in one location might like to form a home group together. Online participants in geographically diverse locations will be able to form home groups.

More information will be provided when the YM24 timetable is developed.

Share & Tell Sessions

Share & Tell sessions are short workshops on a wide range of topics. 

We will update this page as information becomes available.

YM24 Elders

The role of the Yearly Meeting elders
YM elders establish and maintain the spiritual quality of meetings, holding the gathered stillness in Meetings for Worship, and in the formal sessions and preparatory sessions considering business.  

The elders who are allocated for a particular session arrive early to centre down before others arrive.

Elders have the responsibility to maintain the worshipfulness, or spiritual quality, of the meeting. On occasion this might mean steering the meeting back on track or making a judgement about whether to intervene in worship or ministry. This is only done as a last resort but is a necessary responsibility and must be done with tenderness for any individual and the gathered meeting.

Meetings of YM24 Elders
There are a variety of challenges in being an elder on-ground or online. 

A meeting will be held ahead of Yearly Meeting to share prior experiences and challenges. Those who are new to being an online elder and those with more experience are all encouraged to join this session.

A meeting of the whole group of YM24 Elders will take place early before Yearly Meeting to choose a convenor and organise a roster. A more experienced elder may be paired with someone less experienced.

There will be another meeting early on the first day of Yearly Meeting to discuss the role, ask questions and check the roster. 

YM24 Elders
When known, the list of YM24 Elders will be added.  At that stage, you will be able to click on "YM24 Elders names" in blue text below or in the left side bar to access the page.

Who can I contact about YM24 Elders?
Vidya at cymorganising@quakersaustralia.info
 

YM24 Pastoral Carers

The role of YM Pastoral Carers
Pastoral carers offer patient listening, gentle questioning and encouragement. They do not offer advice. The pastoral carer meets with a person for informal discussion or deep listening about some uncertainty or difficulty. Practical assistance may be offered or suggested. The matters dealt with by pastoral carers are usually personal and confidential in nature, e.g. an unexpected injury or loss, a sense of loneliness or isolation.

When are YM24 Pastoral Carers needed?
At YM24, there are several settings when pastoral care may be needed:

• throughout Yearly Meeting, including keeping a caring eye out for First Timers
• around the time of the Meeting for Remembrance
• online, particularly during sessions where people socialise.

Online pastoral care
Pastoral carers are not expected to handle questions about technical issues or zoom connections and, in these cases, refer the person to the Help Desk which is equipped to deal with them.

Some pastoral carers may be willing to make their phone number available for people to contact them. Others may prefer to be given a person’s phone number and make the call.  Some pastoral carers might be approached directly online.
 

Meetings of YM24 Pastoral Carers
There are a variety of challenges in being a pastoral carer on-ground or online. A meeting for all YM24 Pastoral Carers will be held to share experiences and challenges. Those new to pastoral care as well as those with experience are all encouraged to join this session.

YM24 Pastoral Carers will meet again on the first day of Yearly Meeting to discuss the role, ask questions, decide how to be easily identified, and when and where to be available. 

The YM pastoral care group may meet each day during Yearly Meeting to support each other.
 

YM24 Pastoral Carers
When known, the list of YM24 Pastoral Carers will be able to be accessed by clicking on "YM24 Pastoral Carers names" in blue text below or in the left side bar. 

YM25 Planning

Where will Yearly Meeting be in 2025? 
Will a Regional Meeting offer to host it? 

Will it be entirely online? 

Would you like to help organise it?
 

For more information, to offer ideas and to volunteer to help with YM25, contact the Yearly Meeting Organising Committee at  cymorganising@quakersaustralia.info

 

 

.