The Guildhall, Londonderry
MAYOR’S PARLOUR Guildhall Londonderry BT48 6DQ
20th March 2008
(Addressed to the Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Londonderry)
As the Mayor of the City it gives me great pleasure to extend warm New Year greetings to members of the Bahá'í in the City and North-West region.
I read with great interest how the Bahá'í Faith is today among the fastest growing of the world's religions and that there are an increasing number of members in our City and region. I am very much aware of the excellent work carried out by members of the Bahá'í faith in promoting unity and inclusion to ensure that the community is working towards a peaceful and integrated society. I know that the Bahá'í faith is also unique and forward thinking when it comes to issues such as cultural diversity and environmental conservation and remains committed to promoting a renewed commitment to family life and moral issues and for social and economic justice, at a time when the world is rapidly changing and becoming a global neighbourhood.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank members of the Bahá'í faith locally for their good work over the past year. The Bahá'í faith in many ways embodies the spirit of community cohesion and I commend your positive outlook on life and the excellent work you do in the inter-faith and anti-discriminatory fields. I think other religions can learn from your example and I hope that you will continue to contribute in a positive way to the lives of the people of this City and region.
I would like to extend my best wishes and wish you all a peaceful and happy Naw-Rúz.
Alderman Drew Thompson, Mayor.
The Mayor and Mayoress of Newtownabbey, Councillor and Mrs Nigel Hamilton, Sammy Wilson MP MLA (second from right) and guestsat the event
On 22 March, the Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Newtownabbey organised a Naw-Rúz celebration at Carrickfergus Town Hall.
This is the first time this venue has been used such an event, and many thanks to the Carrickfergus Friends for helping us out, especially to Marie Baillie who supplied the beautiful floral arrangements for the tables, and to Kaveh who helped greatly with the food. We were honoured this year by the presence of East Antrim MP Sammy Wilson, and Newtownabbey Mayor and Mayoress, Nigel and Connie Hamilton.. The guests seemed to enjoy themselves, and the Mayor was apparently keen that the event should be held in his Borough next year!
Newtownabbey’s Naw-Rúz gathering is now a regular event, and the programme was the usual mix of food, and entertainment provided by a variety of musicians. Special thanks go to John Giffin and family for all their work. (Where would NI events be without John’s sound system? And the family’s musical talents?) All the other artistes were great as well, and our sincere thanks go to everyone who took part and performed and to Dr. Les Gornall who was the genial master of ceremonies at the event, and who did a great job. There are too many people to thank individually, but as always this event was a collective effort which would not have been possible, let alone the success it was, without the help of so many people from different areas.
The people who attended were a very interesting cross-section of society- including a number of Iranian Moslems who came along, plus at least three Russians, several Chinese, Americans, Spanish, Indian, English, Scottish—and a lot of local people.
PB
We are studying Ruhi Institute Book 2: Arising to Serve with eleven participants including our tutor. In doing the book we have learned a lot about how we should go about teaching the Faith while having lots of fun along the way. We have learned a lot, not just from the book, but also from the discussions we have been having during our studysessions. Our tutor tries to make all of our sessions as much fun as possible. Although we have only been doing book two for a short while we are all excited and are always looking forward to our next session. We would like to thank our tutor for the wonderful job he is doing.
Denise, Luca, David and Nathan
The Bahá'í Council for Northern Ireland consulted with the Spiritual Assembly of Belfast during its March meeting. The Council is in the process of meeting with all the Assemblies in NI to discuss their work and what they can do for the Plan.
The Bahá'í community of Omagh, as over the past few years, had a request from the Christian Brothers Grammar School for a speaker on the Faith, to address the sixth form students. Vassal Ma'ani kindly agreed to undertake the task and on 8 April presented two successive sessions, to the upper and lower sixth formers, 150 in all. The presentation consisted of a short talk on the history and principles of the Faith illustrated by a very beautiful audio-visual presentation. Questions were asked at the end of the session and many of the pupils responded positively. Our community thanks Vassal very much for giving of his time and support.
RJ
Ms Jacqueline Donaghy (Ballymena), Ms Jennifer Campbell (Coleraine) and Mr Alan Stevenson (Carrickfergus) who have declared their faith in Bahá'u'lláh and been enrolled in the Bahá'í community.
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