Visiting London this weekend, where can I attend the special talk?

[carlos]

My wife and I will be attending a music concert in London next Sunday. This is a lightning visit: will be arriving on Saturday night, and leaving on Monday morning. No time for tourism this trip.

 

We don't have the least idea of where to attend the meeting with the special talk. On Saturday night we will stay at a hotel in Stansted, and then on Sunday we will move to another one near Victoria station, so that we can go back there easily after the concert.

 

Those of you who live in London, can you suggest some congregation that has the meeting on Sunday morning and whose hall is easily accessible by public transportation either from Stansted or from Victoria? I had a look at JW.org, but measuring distances and transport times in London is a mess. i would appreciate any suggestions.

[seagull]

Stanstead is north of London and if you are there on Sunday Am then you need to look for any congregations in Bishops Stortford.

 

 

Great Dunmow Weekly Meeting

Stortford Road
Little Canfield
DUNMOW
CM6 1SW

GPS Coordinates: 51.868092 0.306823

English:

Thursday, 7:30 p.m. (Congregation Bible Study)

Sunday, 10:00 a.m. (Public Meeting)

 

or

 

 

Great Dunmow

English:

Thursday, 7:30 p.m. (Congregation Bible Study)

Sunday, 10:00 a.m. (Public Meeting)

Stortford Road
Little Canfield
DUNMOW
CM6 1SW

 

GPS Coordinates: 51.868092 0.306823

 

The nearest halls to Victoria Station are:

 

London, Walham Green Weekly Meeting

Kingdom Hall
23 Pond Place
off Fulham Road
LONDON
SW3 6QR

GPS Coordinates: 51.491231 -0.170471

English:

Tuesday, 7:30 p.m. (Congregation Bible Study)

Sunday, 1:00 p.m. (Public Meeting)

 

and

 

London, Fulham Weekly Meeting

Kingdom Hall
23 Pond Place
off Fulham Road
LONDON
SW3 6QR

GPS Coordinates: 51.491231 -0.170471

English:

Wednesday, 7:30 p.m. (Congregation Bible Study)

Sunday, 10:00 a.m. (Public Meeting)

 

This is the same hall and at a guess around 20 mins walk from Victoria Station.  Chelsea congregation also meet there it seems.  You could also take the circle or district lines on the tube one stop from Victoria station to Sloane Square and have a 5 min walk.

 

It may depend as well on where your hotel is.  Just put the post code of the hotel into jw.org and it will show you the nearest hall.

 

Just to say I walk in that area of London a lot as I do a lot of work there so I am guestimating based on my experience but you're not going to be far away.

 

Have a good trip!

 

 

Edited April 23, 2014 by seagull

[carlos]

Thank you, Jez.

 

I think we will attend that one at 23 Pond Place. If we don't arrive in time to the 10:00 meeting, we have another at 13:00.  

 

Thank you very much!

[seagull]

No problems Carlos.  One other point is to check your travel connections if you are getting around by train on Sunday.  I've done a quick check on the Stansted Express and it looks like engineering works are in place on Sunday AM which means it's a replacement bus service.  The fare at £46 for a one way journey seems very expensive as well - you may find it cheaper to get a taxi to the station in Bishops Stortford.  Use http://www.thetrainline.com/ to check prices & times & engineering works.

 

Just checked and it's £15.10 for a single.  All day saturday and sunday is considered "off peak" btw.

Edited April 23, 2014 by seagull

[carlos]

No problems Carlos.  One other point is to check your travel connections if you are getting around by train on Sunday.  I've done a quick check on the Stansted Express and it looks like engineering works are in place on Sunday AM which means it's a replacement bus service.  The fare at £46 for a one way journey seems very expensive as well - you may find it cheaper to get a taxi to the station in Bishops Stortford.

 Use http://www.thetrainline.com/ to check prices & times & engineering works.

 

Thank you very much, Jez.

 

I don't think we will take the train. It's too expensive, and if they are replacing it with a bus anyway, I think we will take a regular bus. I've seen Terravision buses take 75 minutes to Victoria Station. That's quite reasonable. Anyway we are not in a hurry.

 

You have been very useful, thank you!

[stuagu]

If u get caught out and cant get anywhere... You could get the khconf app on your phone and i could giv you the link/password for our hall? :-)

[seagull]

Thank you very much, Jez.

 

I don't think we will take the train. It's too expensive, and if they are replacing it with a bus anyway, I think we will take a regular bus. I've seen Terravision buses take 75 minutes to Victoria Station. That's quite reasonable. Anyway we are not in a hurry.

 

You have been very useful, thank you!

 

Sounds like a plan!

 

Have a great trip and enjoy your concert.

[carlos]

If u get caught out and cant get anywhere... You could get the khconf app on your phone and i could giv you the link/password for our hall? :-)

 

Thanks, Stuart, that's extremely kind of you! I trust we won't need that, but I leave it as a possibility.

 

Thank you!

[carlos]

Well, everything went as programmed and we were able to attend the meeting of the Fulham congregation.

The brothers were very nice to us, and it was really encouraging to listen to some well meditated comments. The special talk was very simple, likely because there was a good number of interested people who came for the first time. This is a relatively small congregation of 60 publishers but they had 140 attend the Memorial.

We especially liked the way another elder conducted the Watchtower study. He insisted a lot in the exact meaning of several words in that article that we don't use that much, such as "propiciatory".

It was funny to listen to the London accent, where "today" sounds like "to die", and where you can hear the t in "often".

There was a very old brother who introduced himself. When I told him my name's Carlos, he informed me there's a place named San Carlos in the Philippines. Not a very useful information, I'm afraid, but I appreciated his efforts to find a common ground for conversation

After the meeting we enjoyed a nice multinational meal at Camden Town's Stables Market, and then the concert which was the main reason for our visit to London. We are going back home tomorrow.

Thank you brothers for all your kind help.

[carlos]

Oh, in case somebody needs a recommendation for accommodation, the Radisson Blu hotel in Stansted Airport is an extraordinary and reasonably priced option if you are tired and don't want to spend an additional hour to get to London.

Our one night stay in this hotel was wonderful, it had everything we might have expected and then something.

We are surely staying there for the first night the next time we visit London.

[Miss Mouse]

I love Radisson Blu. We stayed in that chain in Dubrovnik , Croatia ! It was new and few people in it. We stayed at a great price because our cousin with us works for Blue 1 in Finland it overlooked the Adriatic Sea . A beautiful spot I hope to return in the new system and meet my relatives who lived there .

Happy all went well on your excursion Carlos ! Not to be confused with San Carlos

Edited April 28, 2014 by Miss Mouse