Accessibility at WRF
We at West Richmond Friends strive to make our facilities, worship and other activities, and this website fully accessible to people of various physical abilities.
​
​
Lift and restrooms
Our lift holds a wheelchair and 1-3 adults. Drive into the archway on the east side of the building, between the meetinghouse and Richmond Friends School, and you'll find it right inside the double glass doors. We also now have an automatic door opener! Please see below for pictures and instructions on how to use it.
​
The lift will take you up to the worship room, library, and fellowship room (Level 3), or down to the multi-purpose room, accessible bathroom, nursery, office, and RFS classrooms (Level 1). NOTE: Be sure to press and hold the call button when you want the lift to come, and then press and hold the button for the floor you want.
​
Downstairs is a fully wheelchair-accessible bathroom. The doors on the two upstairs bathrooms are too narrow for a wheelchair, but they have handrails, accessible sinks and privacy locks. Extra wheelchairs are available for use within the building.
​
​
Worship
Hearing assistance devices are available for worship. Ask one of the greeters to get you one when you come in. These pocket-sized receivers are much more powerful than a standard hearing aid and help users hear the entire service clearly and distinctly.
​
We have large-print hymnals and Bibles available at the table on the back wall of the worship room. Again, ask a greeter to help you locate these. We also provide large-print bulletins every Sunday, on the greeter's table.
​
Please do not hesitate to call the office if you have questions about accessibility.
We joyfully announce our new
Automatic Door Opener
The automatic door opener is now installed in the east entrance of the Meetinghouse under the archway to make it easier to access the lift.
​
​First and most importantly, the opener will NOT work when the door is locked. It is expected that the door WILL be unlocked before meeting for worship each Sunday.
Read on to learn how to use our new automatic door opener!
So here we are outside.
You will find the touch panel on the wall in front of the mailbox. Press this panel firmly.
The door will open for you. It stays open for 15 seconds, which might seem not very long, but it is a generous amount of time. If you are concerned that you will not make it all the way in during that amount of time, be reassured. If the door begins to close gently and taps you, it will pause and reopen, allowing you more time to enter. It will then close behind you once you are out of the way. You may then proceed to the lift, or continue up the stairs to the 3rd level.
Are you now ready to leave the building? You will press the panel to the right of the door and the door will again open for 15 seconds, or reopen if it senses a blockage.
Again, the automatic door will not work if the door is locked. (But it should be unlocked for worship.) If it is locked, just pop the push bar, then hit the panel, and the door will open. This door will work manually as it always did before the mechanism was installed, so if you just want to push it open, you can.
What if you were coming just to drop by the office? If you have been given a key for entry, you can use your key and unlock the door, then back up and push the panel firmly. Remove your key as you enter.
​
Again, you should have plenty of time to do this, and the door will wait for you if you are not fully inside. But please expect that if the meeting is having a gathering, this door will be unlocked and ready to welcome you. Or call the office when it is open and someone can come to assist you.
Website
​West Richmond Friends Meeting is committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability. We aim to adhere as closely as possible to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0, Level AA), published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). These guidelines explain how to make Web content more accessible for people with disabilities. Conformance with these guidelines will help make the web more user friendly to everyone. While we strive to adhere to the guidelines and standards for accessibility, it is not always possible to do so in all areas of the website, and we are currently working to achieve this. Be aware that due to the dynamic nature of the website, minor issues may occasionally occur as it is updated. We are continually seeking out solutions that will bring all areas of the site up to the same level of overall web accessibility.
If you have any comments and or suggestions relating to improving the accessibility of our site, please don't hesitate to contact us using the form below. Your feedback will help us make improvements.