The meeting between the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of the United Kingdom and the Bahá'î Council for Northern Ireland, Antrim, June 2001.
Click picture for larger image
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A HISTORIC MEETING - The meeting between the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of the United Kingdom and the Bahá'î Council for Northern Ireland, Antrim, June 2001. Click picture for larger image |
Dearest friends,
As you all know the highlight of the last few weeks has been the visit of our National Assembly. On Saturday the 9th June, those who were able to attend will have been inspired by the presentations from various members. The Council had excellent consultation with the Assembly during Saturday afternoon when various subjects were discussed, some beneficial to the community in the short term and some in the longer term. Amongst these subjects were: to begin a new procedure to share information on new enrolments in Northern Ireland; to look at the process for future elections of the Council; Child Protection issues which are gradually coming on stream and so on. Further to this meeting the Council met recently and has taken further decisions to move the process of the 5-Year Plan forwards and keep up the momentum that has been gained. We were reminded that ‘WE’ – in Northern Ireland – are ‘ahead of the game’ - as compared to other Councils – and we want to keep it that way!
The new clustering system for Northern Ireland has been completed and will be announced systematically to the community. This is a new way of working for the long-term future and it will naturally take all communities a while to find out which cluster they are in and how they will work with other communities within that cluster – whether Assembly, Group or individual isolated believer.
A Pilot Cluster has been chosen to set the process rolling and members of the Council will have already met with CAUSEWAY CLUSTER on Friday 30th June when this is printed. This cluster includes friends from Ballycastle, Coleraine and Portrush.
This long process of delineating the boundaries of new Bahá’í Districts is still in progress. Those completed in some of the clusters will be shared when cluster meetings occur.
As you know letters have been circulated with regard to Annual Reports and others with regard to Statistics are on their way. Some Annual Reports indeed have been returned but we ask that all others be sent as soon as possible. We know that the reports for Assemblies that were dissolved will have to refer to the activities during the last year and will need to be compiled ‘by those who know’. Thank you.
The forthcoming election of Council will be a postal ballot as it was last year. It will consist – this year- of an electorate of 72 people, being the members of the existing eight Assemblies. Next year, we hope and pray, more Assemblies will have been formed and gradually the electorate will grow greatly.
The Council has decided that the saving of existing local Spiritual Assemblies remains the most important goal of all.
For the first time – on Sunday 24th June - the Council has been able to sit down for a whole half-day with the Training Institute, its ‘engine for growth’, and begin the process of galvanizing our relationship and coming to work closely together in the future. This was a special and spiritual time and all, who took part, were inspired by the new possibilities which have opened up for us all.
With deepest love,
BAHÁ’Í COUNCIL FOR NORTHERN IRELAND.