You will be greeted at the door to the meeting house and someone will show you into the meeting room. There's no conversation or chat in the meeting room before the start of the meeting. Meeting for worship starts when the first person sits down and everyone who enters after that is expected to take their seat in silence. The meeting lasts for about an hour.
You can sit where you like in the meeting room. There is usually a table in the middle with flowers, the Bible and copies of Advices & queries and Quaker faith & practice (publications that attempt to encapsulate the breadth of Quaker thinking and values through extracts from texts written by Quakers). You may also find copies closer to hand. You can also rad more about meeting for worship in South West London here.
So you are sitting down in a silent room and perhaps you wonder what is expected - what should you do? Most people will sit in silence. Some might call this mediation, but that is essentially solitary - Quakers believer that by sitting in silence together we share a stillness through which clarity, enlightenment or divine inspiration will come. What each person gets out of it depends on the individual and the dynamics of the particular meeting. What we seek is a 'gathered' meeting where the stillness is profound and felt by all.
We gather in silence to quiet our minds - we don't have hymns, prayers or sermons. In the stillness we open our hearts and lives to new insights and guidance. Sometimes we are moved to share what we discover with those present. We call this 'ministry' and it can be expressed in two ways: it can be entirely silent, or it can be spoken.
Everyone is expected to share in the silent ministry, and anyone can share their spoken ministry, though people do not normally minister vocally at their first meeting.
Two Quakers shake hands to signal the end of meeting for worship.At that point you can shake hands with the people next to you.
Once the meeting is over there will be some administrative notices. Anyone new may be invited to introduce themselves, but there is no obligation to do so. After this everyone is invited for refreshments and a chat.