Some while ago members of the Castlereagh Bahá'í Community and other friends, visited the new Castlereagh Council Building. They were graciously shown around by the Mayor, Councellor Roseleen Hughes. Following the tour tea and coffee were served in the Mayor's Parlour. She presented the Bahá'ís with a small gift to remind them of the visit.
The mayorship of Londonderry changes almost every year and each time the Spiritual Assembly writes and seeks an interview with the new mayor so that a delegation can meet with him or her and explain something about the Faith and present appropriate literature. Two representatives, Anne Munro and Lawrence McMinn, met with this year's Mayor of Derry Councillor Kathleen McCloskey in the city's Guildhall and had a productive meeting. Councillor McCloskey turned out to already know some local Bahá'ís and so this was by way of renewing links. The delegation presented her with a copy of "Visions of a New World Order". This recently published book, with its excellent range of Bahá'í pictures, is a natural dignitary-presentation volume. The meeting generated publicity in the local press, arranged from the Mayor's office.
“Becoming a Bahá'í in the Londonderry community”
The evening of the 14th of June the Londonderry Bahá'í community opened its doors to the country for the first deepening taken by local Bahá'í Lawrence McMinn. Entitled "Becoming a Bahá'í in the Londonderry Community", it interested attendees both Bahá'ís and friends. Throughout the next hour all guests where touched by Lawrence's heartfelt story of discovering the faith and the views some of his friends who had heard less than flattering reports of the Faith.
Eddie Whiteside Goes West-again!
Eddie Whiteside was the guest speaker at the deepening meeting in Derry on June 28th. He continued and completed his presentation on "The Status and Claims of Baha'u'llah" and led a most interesting discussion about the nature of the Manifestation of God and His relationship to humankind.Many questions were asked and were answered and everyone was grateful to Eddie (and George) for coming all the way up to the North-West to make an enjoyable and educative evening for all.
“Using Technology for the Faith”
A sixteen year old youth gave the deepening in Londonderry on 5th July. Colin didn't just talk about his subject he demonstrated it with projected computer presentations of the sort of ways technology can be put to service through PowerPoint and other means. Starting with simple tasks like preparing a community song-sheet for use at Feasts he went on to show how PowerPoint can enhance talks and demonstrated the emotional power of "galleries" - a form of computerised slide show using images and music to create an effect and communicate a message. He also referred to other ways in which the new technology could serve the Faith, particularly the Internet and the World-Wide Web. Colin emphasised that modern technology has much to offer the Faith and his examples showed how it is possible to make use of it at local level to enhance and develop Bahá'í activities as well as our outreach into the wider community.
Congratulations to our Derry-born-and-raised Stuart Palin, who graduated with honours from Queen's University, Belfast on 1st July.
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