A group of young friends went canoeing on the River Bure at Horstead.

Saturday Canoeing. Did the sun shine? Did the boats rock? Did the river run? YES! Did we paddle straight? Did we fall in? Did you see our faces when we saw tea? NO! Thanks to Horstead for organising a sunny day and lively company.  Thanks to Vicky and Liz for adult back up. Thanks to Criss and Perry for a superbly presented and delicious tea . A big thanks to Aylsham Meeting for funding such an enjoyable outing. Sue Sharpe

Anna and James Mijnlieff were two of the young friends who attended Senior Conference - here is Anna's report:

SENIOR CONFERENCE 2010

Senior Conference 2010 was for me an exciting and worthwhile experience. The activities, speaker sessions and meetings came together seamlessly to form an intense week of friendship as well as Friendship.

The meetings at Conference are particularly special to me, perhaps it's because the meetings are so much bigger to what I'm used to and perhaps also it's because all the people in the room are all known, and special to me. This year our Elders did an excellent job of planning and organising Meeting for Worship in the mornings and evenings. Prologue and Epilogue are probably the most concentrated and intense periods at Senior Conference, and they form the basis of the week, our Elders certainly made these periods valuable to all.

Base groups also help to form a stable structure to Senior Conference, giving everybody an opportunity to bond in small, almost family like units. The time spent in our base groups is incredibly important as it allows people to relax in small friendly spaces as well as explore some of the themes and ideas brought to them in more detail.

Also the speaker sessions played a large part for me at Conference this year, all of them being interesting and thought provoking. I find it amazing how differently people live, one Friend who spoke to us, had spent a considerable time practically homeless, living in rented spaces and on other people's sofas. Another Friend spoke to us about when he goes 'skip diving' where he goes and finds perfectly useable items from bins be it food or clothes, in his bid to live a greener, less wasteful life.

Senior Conference would not be the same without 'ents' or entertainments. The time we all spend together during the day and in the evenings. This year we had events such as a base group challenge night, when all the base groups had to complete challenges from a quiz sheet to an obstacle course. Also base groups excelled themselves in coming up with bright ideas for the themed meal, including various cartoon characters as well as zoo animals and wasps.

The tuck shop was also in the end a great success, full of world friendly options and vegetarian snacks. Spirits stayed high, despite the almost constant rain, especially on our trip to oxford. I had a fantastic time, making new friendships, and building on old ones.

For all of this I want to say a big thank you, I couldn't have had a better time!

And James's:

Hey Aylsham Quakers!

Thank you so much for paying for part of the funds for me to attend Senior Conference, it was great!!

While I was there I met loads of awesome people who I really enjoyed being with. They all made me feel very welcome and included me in everything.

The morning Prolog was always really enjoyable because it always gave me time to think about what I wanted to achieve out of the day.

We also went to our base groups everyday. I was put in a really nice base group with some fantastic people who were like a mini family to me there. If there were any topics I wanted to know about but ask someone who wasn't an adult I could bring it up in the base group and my base group leader (Matt Winkless) would do his best along with the rest of the group to answer it for me.

The food we were served was always top quality! [Sometimes a tiny bit better than my mums! Haha)

The activity I did while I was at Senior Conference was Sports. It was run by Keith from the leaders. He always made it fun and energetic In the evening after dinner, we would go to epilogue. Epilogue gave me a chance to reflect on the day in silence so I could really think about it without being distracted. I never before got to do this so the first few nights were quite hard. But it got enjoyable in the end. I was happy I sat/lay for that half an hour as it made me relax and ready to sleep.

Once again I cant thank you enough for helping me go. I really hope I can go again.