Junior Young Friends (JYF) is a Quaker youth group within Britain Yearly Meeting for 11 to 18 year-olds, which holds weekend-long gatherings roughly 3-4 times a year.
Sometimes referred to as Warwickshire JYF, events take place in a Quaker Meeting House, usually in the Birmingham area. It is, strictly speaking, responsible to Warwickshire Monthly Meeting, though it attracts participants from across the United Kingdom.
The appendage of the word 'Junior' to the name is in order to distinguish from Young Friends usually used to describe Quakers aged 18–30 (as in Young Friends General Meeting).
The weekends have a theme, often related to Quaker ideals, which is contemplated through Base Group discussions, Committee-run sessions and sometimes guest speakers. There is also a significant amount of free time allocated to allow participants to explore the city where the event is held. The tradition of staying up into the early hours of the morning, or not even sleeping at all, is embraced by the majority of the participants. JYF has evolved a number of in-jokes and other traditions (including the love of Milk & Toast and peppermint tea) which appear quite odd to those who have little experience of the young Quaker culture.
There are also a number of JYF groups worldwide.
Read more about Junior Young Friends: History, Locations, Base Groups, The Committee, Games, Drastic Drama, Awards, Rosy Glows, Links and References
Famous quotes containing the words junior, young and/or friends:
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—J. William Fulbright (b. 1905)
“Just as the archetype of the supermom—the woman who can do it all—minimizes the real needs of women, so too the archetype of the “superkid” minimizes the real needs of children. It makes it all right to treat a young child as if he or she were older.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)
“Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay,
Gone are my friends from the cotton fields away,
Gone from the earth to a better land I know,
I hear their gentle voices calling “Old Black Joe.””
—Stephen Collins Foster (1826–1864)