May 29: Social at Tai Wu

We had a nice buffet social, discussing things like Richard Dawkins, Bill's book on Only God can be proved to exist by reason, and the travels of many of our members who are going away for the summer.

May 1: Film John Safran Vs God

On Tuesday 1 May meeting, we continued watching the rest of the John Safran Vs God episodes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Safran_vs_God (you can see most of them from youtube) including the very interesting exorcism episode with evangelist Bob Larson, with Bob "exorcising" John of all the daemons he picked up during his trials of all the earlier religions!

Apr 24: Film on John Safran Vs God

We watched four episodes of John Safran Vs God. If anybody is interested, a lot of the episodes are available on youtube, such as this one (treat for those of you who hate John Safran or think Buddhism is all fluffy and cute):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUXJrO_FiWk

Hope to see you next week for the next four episodes, including the most interesting one on his exorcism by an evangelical minister.

Feb 20: Film (Nightwatch), Islamic Awareness Week and Hindu Sewa Week

We watched the Russian Film Nightwatch (first in a trilogy, about a world where Gods and demons fight eternally and a class of beings called "other" keep the balance between the two)

Please do not forget to participate in the Islamic Awareness Week this week, to know more about Islam and muslims. Its facebook event page is http://manchester.facebook.com/event.php?eid=2237873498

They have events every day of the week, so hope all of you can attend at least the Wednesday exhibition and Mosque tour, Thursday exhibition and Friday meal. There are ISoc stalls outside student union, so you can go and sign up there (but you dont need to sign up to attend the ordianary events, only for the meal). Below is the information regarding the Islamic Awareness week.

ISLAMIC AWARENESS WEEK
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Asalaamu alaikum- peace be upon you,

Your Islamic Society of Manchester University warmly invites you to Islam Awareness Week Feb 19th-23rd 2007.

As every year, the ISOC organises a week of talks, exhibition, Q&A and FREE DINNER for the non-Muslims on campus With speakers coming all the way from London, Rome and Sydney.

Join us and discover what Islam says about Prophet Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad (peace be upon them).
Discover why our convert speakers (including an ex-priest) became muslims.
Discover more about Islam.

Monday 19th
PURPOSE OF LIFE
Speaker: Umar Abdullah
Venue: roscoe lecture theatre B
6pm.

Tuesday 20th
WHY I BECAME MUSLIM?
Speakers: Panel of reverts
Venue: roscoe lecture theatre B
6pm

Wednesday 21st
DISCOVER ISLAM EXHIBITION
Help yourself to the tasty treats, mint tea and wonder around the exhibition which aims to give you a taste of different aspects of Islam including: how the Quran and science are related, beautiful Islamic art, unity and hajj, prayer, hijaab and niqab, just to name a few.
Venue: MDH in students union
11am-4pm.

MOSQUE TOUR @Didsbury mosque
Venue: Didsbury Mosque
Time: Meet outside SU at 12pm

FILM SCREENING
Council chambers students' union
12pm

VATICAN TO AL-AZHAR
Speaker: Idris Tawfiq
Venue: roscoe lecture theatre B
6pm

Thursday 22nd
DISCOVER ISLAM EXHIBITION
Venue: council chambers in students' union

Q and A- IS THERE AN ISLAMIC THREAT?
Venue: renolds C9
5.30pm

Friday 23rd
FREE DINNER FOR NON- MUSLIMS
DOES ISLAM HAVE A PLACE IN THE WEST?
Venue; Sanam restaurant, Wilmslow Rd.
6pm

There will be a da'wa stall outside the Students' Union building (Oxford Rd) everyday from Feb 12th- 23rd to publicise the events and answer any questions on Islam that people may have, with free literature on Islam available too!!

For any more information, please email us at info@manchesterisoc.com or check out our website www.manchesterisoc.com .

Thank you and we hope to see you soon

wa alaikum assalam

your ISOC

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NHSF NATIONAL HINDU STUDENTS FORUM SEWA WEEK
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Hey all! Hows it going? Hope all is well.

I am currently promoting NHSF's 'Sewa' week a.k.a. Charity week. Sewa, in Sanskrit, is selfless
service, so this week is dedicated to doing our bit to give back to the world, and encouraging others to do the same. Below is the weeks program (I've also attached a more detailed word document to this email) It would be great to have as much support from everyone as it is obvious, from conversations with you all at the interfaith events, that Sewa week accommodates the principals common in all religions and faiths!
Monday

1-3pm University of Manchester Students Union – Promotional stand for blood donation and collecting money for Saraswati Vidayalya through individual sponsorship
Tuesday

12:30pm University of Manchester Students Union – Bake Sale raising money for charity.

6:00pm Asda, 100 Princess Road Hulme Manchester M15 5AS – A chance to give back to the community by helping customers pack their shopping and raising money.
Wednesday

1:00 – 4:00pm Aquatics Centre Swim-a-thon, swim and collect sponsors.
Thursday

7pm – late University of Manchester Students Union -Showing of the inspirational Gandhi with refreshments with all proceeds to charity.

Friday

A finale night of the week!!!

6- 10pm Manchester Metropolitan Students Union in the Conference suite.

There will be many fun activities including:

Wax-a-thon, Games, Raffle, Refreshments, Eat-a-thon and Mendhi.
Weekend

Come and help plant trees and help the environment. Details will be sent to you very soon!


Let as many people on your committee + members know about it, and I'll hopefully see you sometime next week!

I look forward to a positive response!

Please to not hesitate to contact myself, or Kalpa if you have any questions, suggestions etc...

Kunal

Nov 21: Social

We met and discussed the future of the multifaith society and decided to rename it as the Interfaith society. We finalised plans for multifaith week, Abraham's table etc. We also had a bit of paper cutting, helping out with decorations for a party in the chaplaincy, and finally had some tea.

Nov 7: Film Night, a multifaith comedy

We watched a multifaith film organised by Oxana. Its called "The mad adventures of Rabbi Jacob". Its IMDB link is http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069747/ Oxana writes about it "It is a French comedy from the 1970s. It is about a man who starts off as a French Catholic chauvinist, but then has to disguise himself as a Rabbi and hide in the Jewish community to save himslef and an arab revolutionary. It is very funny and uplifting. "

Nov 1: Meal social in Sanam resturant

Abraham and Sarah’s table POSTPONED. Instead we had a meal and discussion in Sanam restaurant, Rusholme.
There was lot of useful feedback from the dinner, some of which is as follows:

1. Publicise the regular or special events of various student faith societies (such as islamic awareness week of Isoc, meditation class of Budsoc, Yoga of Hindu Soc, Sikhi week of Sikhsoc, Hanukkah party of JSoc, prayer meetings of Bahai soc, multilingual Xmas carol) , and actually go and attend them. This way we can quickly publicise the multifaith soc and get more interested people on board. Also we can publicise multifaith soc through the already existing publicity channels of various religious student societies.

2. Increased publicity of multifaith events through student direct newspaper (by emailing communiation@student-direct.co.uk or information provided in any week's newspaper), as well as on the student union website: http://umsu.man.ac.uk/diary/submit
(but for that we have to quickly get registered as a official society with 30 signatures first, which should be easy but need to do th paperwork)

3. Doing a nice show and publicity during multifaith week coming in second week of December 4-8 organised by student union esp by Karolina Kopiec the international officer, who is the organiser. we have to discuss this with Karolina as well.

4. One of our major problems is lack of manpower, lack of pople to run the society since James is busy, Sandika is also busy and I may be unavailable in a few months. So maybe we need to build an autonomous structure so that whole task of running society doesnt fall on one person or few people.

5. On 28 Nov Tuesday we are running a workshop of different faiths. During that workshop their will be different stalls from different faiths, each stall shall do something related to their religion, as a kind of taster session. Example are a session on Buddhist meditation or Hindu Yoga or Bahai or Christian music. If you have any proposals to do a session please email me. The venue will hopfully be a hall in St Peters chaplaincy.

6. Temple and place of worship visit: although we have them currently but many people dont know too much about thse. so far we have visited a Bahai centre, Sikh gurudwara, Jewish synagogue and Hindu tmple. We also welcome offers from people for visits to other places of worship such as Catholic or pentecostal or Anglian Church or Buddhist vihara or Jain community centre or moque, and also visits to centres relating to other branches of the same religions.

7. We have got the following few volunteers now to help in running Abraham and Sarah's tabl of 7 December and maybe matters related to the workshop (or something else I forgot)
Sophie, Naseem, Anisa, Joy, Kevin, Mo, Raymond, Angela, Kalpa and Shohel. We will meet at 6:30 coming Tuesday 7 November to discuss this further, just before next multifaith soc meeting at 7:30 when we shall be watching a multifaith film organised by Oxana.

8. A survey questionnaire (through the student faith societies) to assess what problems faith students are facing to practice their faith and what they expect from the multifaith society.

9. Someone suggested we do some things that help in students applying religion to their daily life, such as meditation class or yoga or prayer. Thre is already a free meditation class run by Buddhist soc on Mondays and a yoga class I think by Hindu soc which will start shortly etc, but they need to be publicised more among interested students.

10. Someone suggested we publicise multifaith society and multifaith event through our existing members and ask volunteers to put up posters in their halls of residence or maybe in their departments or bring their friends along and tell more people about them. This is another untapped avenue of publicity.

11. The website needs to be updated regularly and a forum put in there really soon.

12. We need to become an official student society really soon.

13. Having a stable venue and resources. St peters chaplaincy has kindly agreed to support us in all possible ways with venues etc.

14. Food Events like the upcoming Abraham and Sarah's table on 7 December in St Peters chaplaincy, we can publicise this kind of events quite a lot among students.

Publicity:

* We should also tell our friends about the Multifaith Society because they trust us, and if we show excitement about it, they'll be excited too.
* A press release needs to be written before the multifaith week so that BBC radio and others can be informed about and invited to attend the events of the multifaith week.
* New students could be informed about the Multifaith Society by advertising for it in their 'welcome pack'-thing.

Ideas for activities of the Multifaith Society:

* Visiting activities of Faith groups and activities to get to know them and make us known. We need to be open-minded!
* Rock climbing as a communicative activity (also sightseeing or other outdoor activities).
* Sharing sessions. There could be a set time for sharing meetings, and one or two people volunteer to organize a session where they bring something they want to share (art activities, singing, devotional, yoga class, etc...).
* Meditation classes or courses (they exist already).
* Volunteer work in our own departments or places of accomodation.

Other points:

* We should really celebrate the multifaith week!!
* What are our resources for the Abraham's table in December? Theme, speakers, activities? Any ideas and suggestions are welcome.

Oct 24: Film (comedy) social

Because of reading week it seems not many people turned up: we saw a movie as planned: My Big Fat Greek Wedding. We also decided on the plan of the events for coming weeks.