I am happy to report that we have been busy growing a Friends presence at Bristol Meeting. We had been meeting for worship once a month on the fourth Sunday and recently added the second Sunday through a leading of one of our members. We have been keeping the peace flags flying on our exterior fence to signal our Quakerly presence.
We are in the midst of a second outreach program series. Last year’s outreach programs were a big success that revitalised Quakerly activity at our Meeting. Meeting for worship attendance averaged fifteen to twenty people last year. Some longtime members have returned after a long absence and Friends regularly join us from other Meetings. There are currently nineteen members, including one child member, and there are a handful of regular attenders. There are approximately six active members. Sadly, we lost a Meeting member with the passing of Suzi Shaffer in November. We held a lovely memorial for her at the Meetinghouse. Our newest member is Carol Beaton, who transferred from Abington Meeting to Bristol in 2024. Bristol continues to be a preparatory Meeting under the care of Fallsington Meeting. Bristol Meeting is also the host to the Bristol Ministerium and participates in joint events such as the Wharf Carol Singing.
Bristol Meeting is hosting Bucks Quarterly Meeting in February 2025, for the first time in many years. We have a tenant/landlord relationship with Redemption Church, who shares our space, through a lease agreement. This lease will go month to month as RC is seeking an alternative location. We also loan our space to a Recovery Dharma chapter on Wednesdays, some of whose members have joined us in worship.
We received a building renovation grant from PYM that includes making our Meetinghouse more accessible. With this grant we installed double doors that were gifted to us from Fallsington Meeting which have greatly improved access from our Meeting space to our social room. We also improved bathroom accessibility. We replaced our cushions for all of our benches, which is a wonderful improvement. We are looking into additional restoration efforts to refurbish the Meeting space and aim to come up with a multi- year plan to possibly open up the upstairs balcony. We continue to maintain the burial grounds on Wood St. and have made some safety improvements to the landscaping.
Bristol Meeting continues to support the efforts of the Bucks County Coalition of Refugee Resettlement (BCCIRR) and continues to be the group’s fiscal agent. We continue to contribute to local missions and food pantries, AFSC, Artrageous, Bristol Borough Schools and Reach Out, a charity that helps the homeless population.
Last summer we hosted our first weeklong children’s art camp Peaceful Painting at the direction of local art teacher Maggie Weber. We plan to host something similar this summer. We are one program into four outreach activities planned and open to the public as our ministry. We held our fifth annual Archeological Dig in November. In February Douglas Miller will give a talk on William Penn and early Quakers. We are screening David Attenburgh’s documentary in March and in April we are partnering with Bristol’s environmental groups for a tree celebration. We are joyfully keeping up the Friends presence at Bristol Friends Meeting.
Respectfully submitted.
Alisa Myles
Clerk at Bristol Friends Meeting
