9 August 2011
To all believers in the United Kingdom
Dearly loved friends,
The National Spiritual Assembly wishes to announce that for personal reasons Dr Keith Munro has resigned from service on the Bahá’í Council for Northern Ireland. The Assembly joins with the community in expressing its deep gratitude to Keith for his many years of service on the Council, given with such love, sincerity and dedication. We are sure that he will continue to pour his wonderful spirit of service into other fields of endeavour for the Cause and for the benefit of the wider community he serves so lovingly.
We are pleased to inform you that Mrs Inge Haghghi will now serve on the Council for Northern Ireland.
With loving Bahá'í greetings, National Spiritual Assembly, Patrick O'Mara, Secretary.
The Bahá'í Council appreciates the Friends' support of the Northern Ireland branch of the National Fund. It is important that, however, that any cheques are made out to the National Spiritual Assembly, and not to the Council. This is to comply with banking regulations.
The Council has heard that some taxpayers believe that if they donate direct to the NI branch then the National Spiritual Assembly will not get the tax benefit due to it under the Gift Aid scheme. This is not so, full tax rebate is still payable.
bahai-ni is the e-announce list of the Bahá’í Council for Northern Ireland and all the Friends are asked to subscribe to it. It is where you will see the news first and sometimes (especially for time-sensitive and event announcelements) it's the only place it will appear. Information and the revised guideleines will be found here.
CommuNIqueand other Bahá’í publications welcomes photographs of your activities. However where children and young people (up to age 18) are featured the Child Protection Procedure of the National Spiritual Assembly requires that (unless it is a group picture—five or more) permission of the parent or guardian be given. If this doesn’t come with the photo then it cannot be used. Please bear this in mind when sending pictures. Of course if the sender is the parent or guardian of the young person featured, permission is assumed.
The Bahá'í Council would like to remind all the Friends in Northern Irelandthat the small ‘activities booklet’ is still available on request (in small or larger quantities). Giving an overview of the core activities for the non-Bahá'í reader, it is professionally-designed, colourful, ideal for handing to friends and enquirers: if you want some copies to give away please get in touch with the Secretary of the Bahá'í Council.
These booklets are resources to be out there working for the Faith, telling people about our various activities and inviting them to join. Why not get some and use them?
The Bahá'í Council has access to templates that you can use to produce your own leaflets to invite people to your various activities. These are in MS Word which means they can be opened and edited in most word processors, letting you amend them as you like and put in your own contact details and local information. They are A4 sheets that trifold.
Items available are: CA-1 and CA-2—about the various core activities SC-2—about study circles CC-2—about children’s classes DM-2—about devotional meetings TZ-1—about Tranquillity Zones. (The National Spiritual Assembly has indicated that these are a specialised form of devotional meetings with a lot to offer in certain circumstances.)
To obtain electronic copies please e-mail the Bahá'í Council specifying which items you want.
If you are wondering, SC-1, DM-1, and CC-1 are also available, they require Microsoft Publisher to open and edit them. If you have Publisher and want them, please say.
And while thinking about leaflets and how we can produce our own literature, how often have we asked “Where can I get a good picture of the Shrine of the Báb, or a temple, or a Bahá'í youth project, or just a nice photo of Bahá'ís doing things?”. The answer is the Bahá'í Media website at http://media.bahai.org which is a large archive of pictures related to the Bahá'í Faith. (Hint: If you download the picture on your screen you will get a small to medium size file, suitable for electronic media or printing as a smaller picture. If you want a large file so that you have a high-resolution picture for a large or professional print you will have to Subscribe then use the Download File option to get the zipped file of the large version).
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