QAN at Greenbelt

2025

QAN’s involvement with the festival in 2025 built on its experience the previous year when the charity was approached by Greenbelt to provide Loving Earth Project textile workshops and exhibit its panels. It was then possible for the QAN to hire a 6x3metre gazebo, in a relatively sheltered area of the Festival, to present work by members of the network, raise the profile of Friends, and provide something of a hub and small workshop area for Quakers and Quaker curious people at the festival.

During the Festival, we hosted a range of activities which included:

  • Over 325 people visiting the gazebo – a hub for Friends and an exhibition for Festival goers to engage with the ‘No Relation’ Exhibition by Mal Woolford (Westminster Meeting) and Charlotte Woolford and artworks provided by Friends, Ann Johnson (Ross on Wye local Meeting) from her ‘A Book of Black‘ Project.
  • Poet, James Pendle (Ealing Local Meeting), opened the Caravan of Love stage – to an audience of 600 – with a set of poems exploring the theme of this year’s festival – Hope In The Making.
  • Michael Mears (Wandsworth Meeting) was seen by 800 people with two performances of The Mistake, about Hiroshima and the atomic bomb.
  • Three Quaker arts-based epilogues in tents managed by the Franciscans and the Iona Community were attended by 150 people, to enjoy ministry from David Curtis, Josiane Smith and Mal Woolford.
‘No Relation’ Exhibition by Mal Woolford and Charlotte Woolford.

On Sunday there was a large outdoor meeting for worship with more than 200 festival goers also and several Quakers present throughout the Festival line-up. Our gazebo received warm feedback, continuing to affirm the importance of our presence there, such as,

“Brilliant to come and chat this morning . So glad you are here. Greenbelt is where I found Quakers and now that’s my community each week – a little bit of Greenbelt right through the year.”

– Greenbelt Attendee

“Thank you for this space to think about Quaker values and art and reflect on how Quakerism nourishes my spiritual life and relationships with the world.”

– Greenbelt Attendee

If you were at Greenbelt this year, please reply to this email to let us know how you found it (and whether you came to visit!). If you would like to be on the volunteering team for next year, or want to learn from our experience about how to contribute to different festivals, then please also reach out to qanevents@gmail.com.

2024

This is the 50th year of the Christian-based Greenbelt festival, to be held at Boughton House near Kettering, from 23rd to 25th August.

We were very excited to be hosting a gazebo at this year’s Greenbelt festival over the August Bank Holiday, which was a welcoming space for exploring, creating, reflecting and finding out about Quaker spirituality and witness.

Our aims were to:

  • 1. Celebrate and raise the profile of Quakers, our spirituality, witness and creative arts practices
  • 2. Provide information about Quakers and invite festival attenders to Quaker Meetings
  • 3. Support Quakers in Northamptonshire
  • 4. Encourage Friends to share their Quaker faith with others
  • 5. Explore the feasibility of a continuing association with Greenbelt.
Our sign outside the Gazebo: “Quakers: Simple. Radical. Spiritual.”

All in all the project went very well, with around 500 folk visiting the gazebo, joining in quiet activities such as board games, arts and crafts, poetry and conversations and 200 people attending Meeting for Worship in the Shelter. Several visitors shared how they first encountered Quakers at Greenbelt and have since become members.

It was good to have a mix of newer and seasoned Friends of different ages, including some who were involved in other parts of Greenbelt.

Our presence created a significant outreach opportunity with roughly 300 copies of Advices and Queries distributed. A two-hour looped slide show and catalogue, curated by Kirsten Lavers, submitted by Quaker artists of images by particular queries filled a large screen (provided by Jesus Lane Quaker Meeting) at one end of the gazebo.

An exhibition of Loving Earth Project panels was also very well received and participants in our two workshops were so enthusiastic that we held a third informa one, which was particularly enjoyed by a group of young teenagers.

You can find out public report on this year’s Greenbelt here.

While QAN has underwritten the hire of the Gazebo, this would take a large slice of our reserves and we hope that Friends, Quaker Meetings and others will make donations towards this. If you are interested in this or future events please email qanevents@gmail.com.