WORLD FAITHS ADVISORY GROUP AT LEICESTER UNIVERSITY

At the University of Leicester's Chaplaincy Centre (The Gatehouse, University Road) for a meeting of the World Faiths Advisory Group (WFAG). Present today are Rev Canon Dr Stephen Forster (Coordinating Chaplain), Ian Snaith (Chair, WFAG), Shaykh Ibrahim Moghra and Resham Singh Sandhu.

 

A regular topic for discussion at these meetings is how to engage more effectively with faith-based student societies on campus. There's a list of religious [sic] societies on the University of Leicester Students' Union website. If we were to judge by these pages alone, it would be hard to say which ones are currently active on campus. Anyhoo, from this list, those societies who currently receive the minutes of WAFG as well as an invitation to its meetings include:

• Catholic
• Christian Union
• Hindu Society
• Islamic
• Jewish Society
• Navigators
• Sikh

From this list, faith-based student societies which currently don't receive minutes of WAFG or an invitation to its meetings but which will, from now on, if active contacts can be identified:

• Ahlulbayt Islamic ("People of the House": Shi'ih Muslims who trace their lineage back to the family of Muhammad)
• Bahá'í 
• Believer's Loveworld
• FLASH: Freethinkers of Leicester (Atheists, Secularists & Humanists)
• Krishna Consciousness Society
• Leadership International
• Pillarz
• Radical Youth Christian Society

One of the ways discussed by which these societies could be coaxed into responding to WAFG would be by circulating a questionnaire / survey (at the start of the next academic year) enquiring if they've experienced any difficulties in hiring meeting rooms or any other facilities on campus. It could be asked at the same time what uses the various societies would have for such facilities. (And if you're bothered by inconsistencies in the names above, faithful reader, I've represented each of the societies here by the same names which are shown on the Students' Union website.)

One of the proposals that's been bubbling under WAFG's meetings has been the desirability of having an event that will  go some way to engaging faith-based student societies on campus and showcase the facilities available to them at the Gatehouse. Well, here it is: Revd Bonnie Evans-Hills (photo above), Assistant Priest at St Peter's Church, Oadby, will speak on "Feminist Issues in a Contemporary Multi-Faith Culture" at the Gatehouse, Tuesday 26 June, 1200. This will be a followed by a light lunch at 1245 and it'll all be over by 1400. The Octagon meeting room will hold up to 50 people. Hopefully, this will be the first in a series of WAFG lectures, which (hopefully) should take place twice a year.