Mar 20: Abraham's Table on Science and Religion

Speeches were as follows:
Bahai faith: Duncan, Buddhist: Oxana, Christian: Kevin, Muslim: Tariq, Hindu: Sanket

After that we had delicious curry food.

Mar 20: Interfaith society presentation during multifaith conference

You can download the presentation here

Mar 7: Women's week at student union: faith events

Following are the events related to faith/religion as part of student union international womens week:

Thursday: International Women's Day!!!
MR4 1-3pm: Women in religion's stalls -
MR4 will host tables/walls/general areas where women from different cultures will get to share with pride some of their cultural heritage.

MR4 3-5pm: Faith in Feminism discussion.
With women from various religious (or non-religious) groups. All are invited to hear and discuss what they feel the women's movement has done for them in their particular faiths.

Mar 6: Discussion on publicity matters

Thanks to Hana and also Kevin, we are almost on our way to becoming a recognised society in students union: Hana and Kevin have already submitted the forms and in tomorrow's meeting theres a good chance we may be recognised already, and then we can have an union email address, pigeonhole, noticeboard, publicity, van hiring for trips to places of worship, use of the rooms etc etc. Once we become formal, think we can do the following for publicity:

a) Invite every member on facebook and on the email list to meet together and get to know each other to work more closely in future
b) Approach the student religious societies directly, ask them to send representatives to attend our meetings and also publicise our activities among their members
c) Hold an AGM and decide on next years organisers (I am probably leaving, Oxana might have to leave, Nicholas will be in Egypt, Kevin and Hana will be around though) and maybe a draft pln, which we could synchronise to the student union events such as LGBT week, international multicultural week, womens week etc etc.
d) And more: if you have ideas please email me.

This week the student union was celebrating Women's week: think we should discuss about the topic of women in religion or religions approach to womens issues in some time. We decided next week to go to a place we have never been before as a society: Mass at the Holy Name church!!! It starts 5:15 pm and should end by 6 pm: after that we will go for having a Falafel together to Rusholme. Please all of you, come join us, especially if you've never been to a Catholic Maass before! However, as you might know, only Catholics are supposed to have holy communion so the rest of us can watch that part.

The week after that is Abraham's table, with free food from 6 till 8 pm. Topic of Abraham's table discussion is "Faith Vs Science" so should be interesting: we are already looking for at least one member (preferably a student studying science based course) from each faith to speak on the topic, and also an athiest. Hana said she might be able to get Student Direct newspaper to cover the event, so it should be great for publicity too! After that week its easter holidays, but after the easter we will be visiting the Mosque in Didsbury, which is really very friendly and welcoming to non muslims to learn about Islam.

Mar 4: Trip to Fo Guang Shan Temple

We had a trip to the Chinese Buddhist temple on 540 Stretford Road M16 9AF (with food).

There was a light offering service followed by free vegetarian lunch. Everyone is welcome, please bring your friends. We met at 10 amand took the bus 250 from Phoenix pub bus stop. The service started at 10:30.

Also, on the 17 of February, Saturday, this temple will host a celebration of Chinese New Year. There will be a service and some sweets served, starting from 9 pm and carrying on until after midnight. Everyone is invited to attend this, as well as New year celebration in China town on the next day, Sunday the 18 of February.

Feb 27: Discussion and LGBT Week in Student Union

So, no one is prepared to carry out a workshop on the meeting of 27th of February. I have another spare one from the Buddhist tradition (but that is only in case no one else wants to share anything from their faith).

As for the Scripture study, I propose to look at the topics that Kevin was thinking about for Abraham's Table. They are:

Love, sexuality, loving relationships

Peace - a moral government - how can religion teach us to improve society?

Pilgrimage - important to most faiths
-travel, life is a spiritual journey, etc

Meditation - value of spiritual exercises

As for me, I would love to talk about meditation (obviously). If people agree on one particular topic before the meeting and can prepare some reading from their Scripture, that would be grnad. If not, we will just talk about one of them on the day.

As some of you might have noticed, there is an Amnesty International exhbition about Sudan set up in the Chaplaincy. There is an opportunity to sign letters as well. Please, do so. Letters and envelopes are provided.

On the 4th of March, Sunday, everyone is invited to Fo Guan Shan Chinese Buddhist Temple in Stretford Road. We are meeting at the steps to the Chaplaincy at 10:30 am. At the Temple, we are looking around, watching the light offering ceremony, enjoying a free lunch, and then games and activties in the afternoon.

We discussed about getting the multifaith/interfaith society recognised by Student Union formally, and Kevin got a list of signatures that Hana and Natalie collected earlier, many thanks to both of them for doing this. So hopefully we should become formal in few weeks time, then we can have access to more publicity hopefully. We have also since collected a few more signatures thanks to our friends at the Bahai soc and the student christian movement, and thanks to Nicholas and Kevin for organising this part.

We then discussed about the interfaith conference (along with Abraham's table) being organised by the chaplaincy, Oxana kindly agreed to MC for the conference, there will be a few student helpers etc. The Abraham's table will be on topic of "Science Vs religion" and we will have people from different religions (preferably people studying a core science degree such as Physics or Chemistry or Biology etc etc) and also an athiest who will give their prespective on the issue.

Finally in view of the LGBT week in the union we discussed about the religions approach to issues concerning homosexuality, a rather controversial topic that one! Many participants stressed on kindness towards all people without discrimination (although some religions are opposed to the practice of homosexuality in itself). Kevin stressed that the gay lifestyle which is considered promiscuous was one reason why gay people had a bad image especially among religious people. Oxana invited us to the religion debate during the LGBT week that was the following day from 1:30-2:30 and myself, Kevin and Oxana attended as part of interfaith society, there too we listened to a very interesting discussion on perspectives on religion and sexuality from many different viewpoints.

Feb 21: Islamic Awareness Week speaker

I attended a talk (organised by Isoc as part of islamic awareness week) by Idris Tawfiq, a former English catholic priest who went to Egypt on vacation (who formerly studied for priesthood in Rome, and even held Pope John Paul 2's hand so dearly that his ring came off!!) and was so impressed by what he saw (is really emotional guy) that he converted to Islam. Was really interesting to hear his life story from his own mouth. You can read more about the guy here:
http://www.ireland.com/focus/gageby/tawfiq.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idris_Tawfiq