Annual Gathering in January

Twenty-Seven people actively involved with Silver Wattle Quaker Centre met for our annual gathering for four days in January 2026. This year we celebrated sixteen years of Silver Wattle as a place for spiritual renewal, learning, land care and community. 

The annual Gathering is a coming together not only for community connection and replenishment, but also to look towards the future – in one, two, or twenty years. The Gathering provides discernment and guidance to the Board. It is a lively time of catching up with old and new fFriends, shared meals, gathered discernment and slow walks along North track or for the fitter ones, up to the ‘scarp.

 We were welcomed to Ngunnawal Country by Selina Walker from the Ngunnawal United Elders Council. Before Selina arrived, we met at the Sacred Fire (unlit due to dry conditions). When a light rain shower fell, we all squashed into the nearby camp kitchen, immediately falling into a deep and moving silent worship, with wind whipping around us. 

 The Gathering recognised and celebrated that collectively, we have laboured, learned, gardened, built, played and sat in silent worship to bring Silver Wattle into being – a place that draws seekers who value the daily rhythm of a spirit-led community.

 The Gathering also affirmed plans to develop our library, to care for books by early Quaker thinkers and artefacts from Quaker witness. Silver Wattle is many things to different people and part of its next stage will be to engage with ideas and issues of our time by hosting resident writers, artists and practitioners to engage with longstanding matters of importance to Quakers such as peace, earth care and equality for First Peoples.

 In 2026 we will still run courses and provide venue-hires as these are an important part of our teaching, learning and living ministry. 

Community is at the heart of Silver Wattle. Known as a meeting place by the Ngunnawal people, we attract Friends (and seekers) from across Australia. Our gathered discernment affirmed we want to build on this by attracting international Friends, especially from our wider Asia/West Pacific region. We have something to offer world-wide Friends, and they have much to offer us.

We have run many courses aimed at sharing Quaker thought and contemplative practice, most recently Food for the Soul 2025.

 Celebrating Silver Wattle 2011-2026

 Silver Wattle, nestled against the shores of Weereewa in Southern NSW (10 minutes from Bungendore train station, 40 minutes from Canberra airport) is beloved by our regular groups and sojourners. These visitors run courses or seek time-out for silence, solitude and renewal. We have hosted environmental activists/organisers, many faith traditions (especially Buddhists) poets, writers and artists that find inspiration from the ancient landscape and the simple rhythm of days passing.

 Silver Wattle is on a solid footing. We came into outright ownership of the property in 2011 and have focussed on changes that enable more sustainable living and land care. We aim for a spiritual community, comfortable accommodation, water and energy self-sufficiency and regeneration of lands to support native biodiversity and increase habitat.

 We share this place with playful wrens, shingleback lizards, brown snakes, eastern grey kangaroos, wallaroos, wombats and the soaring wedge tail eagle (Aquila audax) and the little eagle (Hieraaetus morphnoides) often seen overhead. We marvel at moths and occasionally chase beetles from our rooms.

 We grow and eat much of our own food and our regular garden days and weeks are a highlight for those who attend. Making our food production more efficient, productive and less resource intensive will benefit our dedicated gardeners.

 We live all of our testimonies together, acknowledging that whilst this is not always easy, it is always worthwhile.