The Circles
The practice where no house stands
A Circle is a nonresidential local gathering recognised by the Institute. It owns no property, keeps no private archive, and appoints no permanent leader.
Most members of the Continuance do not live within reach of a house. Circles exist so that the Practice can be carried where those members actually live: in a library room, a union hall, a borrowed dining room, a school room after hours. A circle keeps the same forms a house keeps, at a smaller scale and with less equipment, and it holds one obligation outside itself.
A circle is not a smaller house. It is not a branch, a franchise, a congregation, or a private club, and it is not a stage on the way to becoming a house. It is a different obligation: a house is responsible for a roof and for the people sleeping under it, and a circle is responsible for a room it does not own and for one piece of work in the place where it meets.
A circle is not a smaller house; it is a different obligation.
- Active circles
- 38
- Given standing
- 1991
- Outward hours returned, 2025
- 41,820
- Residential locations
- Circles hold none. The houses are the residential places.
The directory
Asia and Pacific · 7
C-20 · recognised 1998
Aomori Circle
Aomori · Cedar House
A circle whose ordinary year is divided cleanly by snow.
Open to visitors · Transport and winter provision
C-21 · recognised 2003
Sapporo Circle
Sapporo · Cedar House
A city circle organised around two delivery rounds a week.
Open to visitors · Food
C-22 · recognised 2010
Sendai Circle
Sendai · Cedar House
A circle that spends more of its year outdoors than in.
Open on notice · Repair and restoration
C-23 · recognised 2017
Seoul Circle
Seoul · Cedar House
The largest circle in the Asia and Pacific register, and the youngest.
Open to visitors · Adult education
C-36 · recognised 1996
Dunedin Circle
Dunedin, Otago · South House
The oldest circle in the southern register and the one that keeps two halls standing.
Open to visitors · Repair and restoration
C-37 · recognised 2005
Christchurch Circle
Christchurch, Canterbury · South House
A city circle carrying the southern network's largest sitting rota.
Open to visitors · Companionship and hospice
C-38 · recognised 2009
Melbourne Circle
Melbourne, Victoria · South House
The furthest circle from the North House, and the one that does most of its work with documents.
Open to visitors · Records and conservation
Europe · 11
C-09 · recognised 1991
Edinburgh Circle
Edinburgh · Fell House
One of the eleven circles recognised in 1991, and the busiest in Europe.
Open to visitors · Adult education
C-10 · recognised 1991
Carlisle Circle
Carlisle, Cumbria · Fell House
A border circle whose outward work is seasonal, unreliable, and unusually hard.
Open to visitors · Repair and restoration
C-11 · recognised 1996
Glasgow Circle
Glasgow · Fell House
A city circle organised around a kitchen and a fortnight's worth of meals at a time.
Open to visitors · Food
C-12 · recognised 2002
Newcastle Circle
Newcastle upon Tyne · Fell House
A circle where the repair table and the outward obligation are the same table.
Open to visitors · Repair and restoration
C-13 · recognised 2008
Belfast Circle
Belfast · Fell House
A monthly circle whose working Saturdays are longer than its meetings.
Open on notice · Companionship and hospice
C-14 · recognised 2012
Dublin Circle
Dublin · Fell House
A binding circle: the only one in Europe whose outward work needs a press.
Open to visitors · Records and conservation
C-15 · recognised 1994
Ljubljana Circle
Ljubljana · Karst House
The first circle recognised outside the English-speaking network, and the one that walks furthest.
Open to visitors · Repair and restoration
C-16 · recognised 1999
Trieste Circle
Trieste · Karst House
A port circle with an obligation that does not keep office hours.
Open on notice · Companionship and hospice
C-17 · recognised 2004
Graz Circle
Graz · Karst House
A circle of people who mend things, which is a coincidence the register notes without comment.
Open to visitors · Repair and restoration
C-18 · recognised 2009
Zagreb Circle
Zagreb · Karst House
A fortnightly circle that spends its Sundays with other people's paper.
Open on notice · Records and conservation
C-19 · recognised 2016
Vienna Circle
Vienna · Karst House
A winter-weighted circle: half its year is a kitchen rota.
Open to visitors · Food
North America · 20
C-01 · recognised 1991
Bangor Circle
Bangor, Maine · North House
The oldest circle, meeting in a library room a mile from the building where the Thursday gatherings began.
Open to visitors · Food
C-02 · recognised 1993
Portland (Maine) Circle
Portland, Maine · North House
A fortnightly circle in a union back room, best known for the letter table it keeps on alternate weeks.
Open to visitors · Adult education
C-03 · recognised 1997
Rockland Circle
Rockland, Maine · North House
A small coastal circle whose year is organised around the winter round rather than around its meetings.
Open on notice · Transport and winter provision
C-04 · recognised 2001
Burlington Circle
Burlington, Vermont · North House
A weekly circle in a hired school room, holding the longest continuous sitting rota outside a house.
Open to visitors · Companionship and hospice
C-05 · recognised 1991
Halifax Circle
Halifax, Nova Scotia · Shore House
The largest circle in the register, and the only one that cooks weekly for people who are not members.
Open to visitors · Food
C-06 · recognised 2005
Charlottetown Circle
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island · Shore House
A small island circle that has done the same quiet work with parish paper for twenty years.
Open on notice · Records and conservation
C-07 · recognised 2011
Moncton Circle
Moncton, New Brunswick · Shore House
A bilingual circle whose repair table goes out to other people's houses more often than it sits in its own room.
Open to visitors · Repair and restoration
C-08 · recognised 2014
St John's Circle
St John's, Newfoundland · Shore House
The smallest of the Atlantic circles, and the one whose meetings are most often rearranged by weather.
Open on notice · Transport and winter provision
C-24 · recognised 1991
Saint Paul Circle
Saint Paul, Minnesota · River House
One of the eleven circles of 1991, meeting a short walk from River House and deliberately unlike it.
Open to visitors · Food
C-25 · recognised 2000
Duluth Circle
Duluth, Minnesota · River House
A lake circle whose obligations arrive with the first hard frost.
Open to visitors · Transport and winter provision
C-26 · recognised 2006
Madison Circle
Madison, Wisconsin · River House
A weekly circle carrying one of the network's larger sitting rotas.
Open to visitors · Companionship and hospice
C-27 · recognised 2013
Winnipeg Circle
Winnipeg, Manitoba · River House
A prairie circle whose repair table is mostly coats.
Open on notice · Repair and restoration
C-28 · recognised 1995
Portland (Oregon) Circle
Portland, Oregon · Orchard House
A city circle organised around other people's fruit trees.
Open to visitors · Food
C-29 · recognised 2007
Eugene Circle
Eugene, Oregon · Orchard House
A repair circle whose bookings come through somebody else's list, on purpose.
Open to visitors · Repair and restoration
C-30 · recognised 2015
Olympia Circle
Olympia, Washington · Orchard House
A small circle whose obligation is measured in boardwalk.
Open on notice · Repair and restoration
C-31 · recognised 1998
Albuquerque Circle
Albuquerque, New Mexico · Lantern House
A desert circle whose hard season is the one everybody else finds easy.
Open to visitors · Transport and winter provision
C-32 · recognised 2012
El Paso Circle
El Paso, Texas · Lantern House
A morning circle: it meets before the shift and clears up after it.
Open on notice · Food
C-33 · recognised 1991
Charlottesville Circle
Charlottesville, Virginia · Briar House
One of the eleven circles of 1991, and the pattern most other teaching circles copied.
Open to visitors · Adult education
C-34 · recognised 2004
Richmond Circle
Richmond, Virginia · Briar House
A circle that has rebuilt more front steps than it has held meetings.
Open to visitors · Repair and restoration
C-35 · recognised 2018
Durham Circle
Durham, North Carolina · Briar House
The most recently recognised circle in North America.
Open to visitors · Food
A month of a Circle Book
Every circle keeps a working book. It holds dates, numbers, rotas, hours, costs, decisions and corrections, and it holds nothing else: not beliefs, not private reflections, not the reason anybody was absent. One ordinary month is printed below as it was returned.
BANGOR CIRCLEBOOK, MARCH 2025 Convener: D. Chalmers
Th 6 Present 17. Room key collected 6.10, returned 9.05.
Twelve minutes kept at the end (room not free until 6.15).
Reading: PRO/1981/02, clause 2. Meal: soup and bread, $14.40.
Round: 11 households, 2 cars, 5.5 hrs.
Sa 8 Repair rota, 9–12. Three chairs, one window catch. 9 hrs.
Th 13 Present 14. Room $22.00 (monthly). Meal $11.80.
Round: 11 households, 5.0 hrs.
Decision: the round continues through the school holiday.
April rota posted.
Th 20 Present 21. Meal $16.05. Round: 10 households, 4.5 hrs
(one household away).
Sa 22 Repair rota, 9–12. Bicycle, two lamps, a table leaf. 7.5 hrs.
Th 27 Present 19. Meal $13.20. Round: 11 households, 5.0 hrs.
Decision: room booking renewed to September 2026.
CORRECTION. The entry for 13 March first read 'Present 41'. This was
a slip of the pen for 14. Entered beside and not over. D.C., 20.iii.25.
MONTH: meetings 4, working mornings 2. Outward hours 20.0.
Repair hours 16.5. Room $22.00. Meals $55.45.
Forming a circle
A provisional circle is registered by the affiliated house and runs for one year before recognition is considered. The requirements are not difficult and they are not waived.
- Seven or more active members in one locality.
- A house willing to attach a steward to it.
- A meeting place available for twelve months, at an ordinary rate.
- One outward commitment, arranged with a body outside the Institute.
- A convener, chosen locally, serving one year.
- A Circle Book, opened at the first meeting.
Recognition follows a complete annual return and a review attended by somebody who was not part of the provisional circle. Where the review is not satisfied, the provisional year is extended by one year. It has been extended eleven times and refused twice, both times at the circle's own request.
What a circle may not do
- Own or lease residential premises in the Institute's name.
- Maintain a permanent archive. The Circle Book is a working book and is reconciled annually through the affiliated house.
- Conduct a continuity review of an individual. Reviews are opened by a member, a member's steward, or the stewardship, and never by a circle.
- Appoint a permanent local leader, or return the same convener for a third consecutive year.
- Accept money at a meeting, or hold funds beyond the room and meal costs entered in its book.
- Record what a member believes, or why a member did not attend.
- Speak for the Institute, admit a member, or vary a procedure issued by circular.
Review
A circle is reviewed periodically by its affiliated house. The review asks five questions and no others.
- 1. Whether ordinary meetings happen without depending on one person.
- 2. Whether the outward obligation is actually being kept.
- 3. Whether the Circle Book is complete, and appropriately limited.
- 4. Whether leaving, and declining to take part, remain easy.
- 5. Whether the meeting place is still accessible and still financially ordinary.
Dissolution
- No stable quorum has met for a year.
- The outward obligation has lapsed and the members have not chosen another.
- The gathering has come to depend on one person's authority or performance.
- The Circle Book is not being kept.
- The members themselves vote to close it.
Dissolution ends an arrangement. It does not touch the standing of anybody in it. The book is closed and the final return deposited through the affiliated house; the room is given up and the key returned; remaining members may attend another circle, attend a house, or do neither, and their membership is not altered by which they choose.
A circle can end without anyone in it having failed.
The review of 2019
Forty-one circles were reviewed in 2019. Three arrangements were closed, for three ordinary and unrelated reasons. No member's standing was altered by any of them.
| Circle | House | Years | Ground |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rangeley CircleRangeley, Maine | North House | 1999–2019 | Dependent on one member's preparation. The evening had been prepared, read, and cleared by the same member for eleven years, willingly and well. When she was unable to attend for a season the circle did not meet. The review found this a fault of the arrangement and not of anybody in it. |
| Klamath Falls CircleKlamath Falls, Oregon | Orchard House | 2003–2019 | Outward obligation lapsed. The circle met regularly and pleasantly for eighteen months after its partner organisation closed, and did not take up another commitment. Asked at review whether it wished to, it said that it did not. The arrangement was closed on that answer. |
| Villach CircleVillach, Austria | Karst House | 2008–2019 | No ordinary meeting held; book incomplete. No ordinary meeting had been held in the preceding year and the Circle Book had entries for four dates and nothing else. The members had, individually, continued to attend the Ljubljana Circle when they could. |
The circles were dissolved. The members were not.
Elsewhere
- The housesThe residential places, and the stewards to whom circles are attached.
- Public workWhere the outward hours of the houses and the circles are returned.
- GatheringsWhat happens at an ordinary meeting, and how to attend one.