Oct 30: Interfaith Planning meeting

Interfaith Student Society meeting held on October 30, 2007.

Presence: Oxana, Joy, Kevin, Mo, Yoji, Hana, John, James Grant, Justin (Young Greens)

Shohel

Apology: Clare Dowding

The following decisions were made for Abraham’s Table (the name being currently brainstormed for renaming)

Date: 4th December 2007

Time: 5.00pm

Venue: no discussion took place, yet to be decided. (Traditional venue has been St. Peter’s House, this may change)

Theme: ‘Sexual identity and faith’

Publicity and design: The poster would be designed by Mo.John would print and prepare it. James, Hana, Sohel and Kevin would distribute them. John would also help in this. Faith Reference Group, Interfaith Society and the Young Greens will be mentioned on the poster.

Content and format of the event:

The evening will start with the historic signing up event by the Chaplains and faith advisers of all the faiths @ the university of a common ground statement.

Discussion will follow by the speakers from the faith groups listed below and the person responsible for contacting them is noted next to it. (If there are 2 schools of thought with in the same faith group on the issue, it is encouraged that both thoughts be represented at the discussion. It was also discussed that it would be great if the speakers are students but this is not compulsory in case of difficulty in finding a student speaker). The length of each talk should be kept to 3 minutes

Hana will draft the letter to the Faith Societies or representatives outlining the possible scope of topics to be covered in the talks. Each speaker is to choose one aspect to cover, they do not have to talk about everything:

* Sexual and loving relationships
* Sexual identities such as homosexual, transsexual, bisexual
* Sensuality and spirituality
* Sexual identity as part of coming of age and rites of passage



Hindu – John will contact them

Muslim- Hannah Agil

Buddhist –Oxana

Christianity- James Grant

Jewish –Hana Agil

Bahai –Mo

Sikh –John

Pagans and Humanists (if possible) –Kevin Gilbride

The discussion would be moderated by Hana Agil.

Following the discussions, the participants will be asked to form small groups during the sharing of food. The Young Greens will lead a quiz on Xenophobia during this time. The quiz will be coordinated by Justin. Participants will be given a chance to have their food first, then form groups. The quiz will then be carried out in a manner of a pub quiz. The teams will pick their names and the questions will be shouted out.

Justin will draft the letter to the Faith Societies or representatives asking them to provide 5 questions about their faith. Some questions would be easy and open-ended, for others, more difficult, Societies would provide multi-choice answers. This letter will be attached to the letter that Hana will have drafted.

You can see the pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/joyboseroy/InterfaithSociety

After the meeting we took photos and watched a film organised by Yoji titled "Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran (Mr Ibrahim and the Flowr of Koran").
Here is a synopsis of the film

"In a street called Blue in a very poor neighborhood in Paris, Monsieur Ibrahim (Omar Shariff) is an old Muslin Turkish owner of a small market. He becomes friend of the teenager Jewish Moises, tenderly nicknamed Momo (Pierre Boulanger), who lives with his father in a small apartment on the other side of the street. Monsieur Ibrahim gives paternal love and teaches the knowledge of the Koran to the boy, receiving in return love and respect."