Dear Friends,
The Bahá'í Council was among the bodies attending the UK Institutional Meeting in Coventry at the start of April called for by the National Spiritual Assembly. Intensive study of the 27 December 2005 message of the Universal House of Justice and the inspiration and guidance of the Counsellors present, including a member of the International Teaching Centre, Shahriar Razavi, assisted all in understanding the needs of the forthcoming 5-Year Plan commencing this Ridván.
We learned much from the guidance to hand and the experience of other Councils and clusters in the United Kingdom.
These understandings led us to review the conditions for the growth of the Faith in Northern Ireland, including cluster boundaries. It became clear, as we studied guidance of the Universal House of Justice and in the light of the experience in other areas, that we should once again consolidate the clusters. Following consultation with our Counsellor, Shirin Fozdar-Foroudi, the Council has decided to merge the old clusters 1, 2, and 3 (Charles Dunning, Peninsula-Downe and Wildfire) into one cluster.
These are now the clusters in Northern Ireland: Cluster-1: Belfast and South-East (temporary name)Cluster-2: Stars of the WestCluster-3: HainsworthCluster-4: Seven Valleys
The Council would like to pay tribute the enormous efforts of the friends in all clusters to advance the process of entry by troops in their area. Given the stage and strength of the Faith in each, all have made a significant contribution to advancing this process in the last five years. The work of the friends in our most advanced cluster, Charles Dunning, has been particularly heartening. The Council had little doubt that this cluster would have, through its own efforts, become an ‘A’ cluster in the coming months.
With the formation of the Belfast and South-East cluster it behove the Council to establish its category of development. The Universal House of Justice set out the criteria for such categorisation in their 9 January 2001 letter to the Conference of the Counsellors. We looked closely at the propitious conditions set out in that letter which indicated if a cluster was an ‘A’ category and could commence an intensive programme of growth (IPG). The Counsellor and the National Spiritual Assembly were also consulted on this matter. The Council was convinced that this new cluster had achieved the necessary conditions.
We are delighted, therefore, to announce that the Belfast and South-East cluster is an ‘A’ category cluster and, guided by its Area Teaching Committee, will launch its first intensive programme of growth in the coming weeks.
This is a significant decision as now this cluster can embark on attracting significant numbers into the Faith in a systematic and sustained way.
We also examined the conditions within the Seven Valleys cluster, and, given its strength and commitment to the process of growth, we are delighted to announce that it is the next priority cluster in Northern Ireland.
In the light of these exciting developments, the Council has decided to hold a Conference on Saturday 13 May to launch the new Five-Year Plan. All the Bahá'ís in Northern Ireland are invited, indeed urged, to attend. This will also be an opportunity to explore the implications of these ground-breaking decisions for the community. We are delighted that Dr Shirin Fozdar–Foroudi, Counsellor, is able to attend and we hope that a representative of the National Spiritual Assembly will also be present. See Events page for full details.
With loving greetings, Bahá'í Council for Northern Ireland.
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