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 Meeting again. Home groups were enjoyed by many Friends last year and are being offered again as part of YM23.

Everyone who wishes to join a home group will be allocated to one which will meet each day for up to 45 minutes. We hope all who attend will bring a willingness to listen to others and share from their own experience.

Pods of people in one location might like to form a home group that can meet in-person. Online participants can be in a geographically diverse group. To deal with the two-hour time difference in Australia, home groups are scheduled twice each day.

When you register you can specify whether you prefer to be in a morning group or an afternoon group. There will be a set of morning groups and a set of afternoon groups, each meeting just once per day; you will be in one group.

Suggestions will be offered about how to run your group, topics to explore, some ideas for fun and so on.