For over 35 years I have been visiting meetings other than my own. For the last 15 years monthly meeting has given me a travelling minute which is returned annually with its endorsements. I have visited the smaller meetings in my own monthly meeting; I have visited nearby meetings in other monthly meetings and thus kept contact with neighbours who might easily be strangers; when further from home I have sought out smaller meetings which might be encouraged by a visitor, and I am sure that the two or three present have been so encouraged. I have attended special occasions such as the reopening of a refurbished meeting house and rejoiced with those who rejoiced.

The words of John Woolman are in the travelling minute: ‘A concern arose … that I might feel and understand their life and the Spirit they live in, if haply I might receive some instruction from them, or they be in any degree helped forward by my following the leadings of Truth amongst them’. John Woolman’s hopes have been abundantly fulfilled for me.

Richard Schardt, 1994