INTER FAITH WEEK, DAY 3: CELEBRATING DIVERSITY OF RELIGIONS

From today's Leicester Mercury:

Celebrating diversity of religions

A week-long series of events celebrating the diversity of religious faiths is under way.

Inter Faith Week 2011 runs until Saturday. Staged by the city's council of faiths, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary, it features exhibitions, talks and films.

Manjula Sood, chairman of the council, said: "Leicester has a diverse range of faiths and this is a wonderful opportunity for people to find out more about this fascinating subject.

"Learning more about the beliefs of others is a key part of increasing understanding between people of all faiths, which in turn benefits relationships in communities across the city."

An exhibition is taking place throughout the week at Highcross shopping centre. There is a film festival at Phoenix Square.Leicester People's Photographic Gallery, in Belvoir Street, is featuring an exhibition of images showcasing holy places and sacred sites.

For more information on events, call 0116 254 6868.

INTER FAITH WEEK 2011, DAY 2: BAHÁ'Í 101

At 1200 we have the first of ten public meetings for Inter Faith Week, under the series title, “Communities of Faith or Belief in Leicester". These hour-long introductions are being held in Leicester Adult Education College (or, more precisely, in Leicester People's Photographic Gallery, which is part of the Adult Ed College).

Leicester Council of Faiths is hosting these meetings in association with Leicester Adult Skills and Learning Service (LASALS). Chris Minter, Head of Service at LASALS, expressed an interest in supporting Inter Faith Week this year and we agreed that this would be an appropriate way for LASALS to do so, by allowing free use of its venue and facilities.

The speaker for this Beginner’s Guide to the Bahá'í Faith – or Bahá'í 101 – is Rod Duncan. I say a few words at the start, setting this talk in context with the ones to follow and with our other activities for Inter Faith Week. I leave a bunch of leaflets, then hightail it back to our exhibition in Highcross. When I leave, three people have turned up to listen to Rod. Another couple turn up a little later. I don't think that's a bad turnout for this sort of event: an old fshioned public meeting in the middle of the day in the city centre.

The photo above is one of two images representing the Bahá'í community on show in the Favourite Faiths Photo exhibition, launched at Leicester People's Photographic Gallery during Inter Faith Week. The picture shows the Shrine of the Báb on Mt Carmel, Haifa (sourced from Bahá'í World Centre Media Bank, reproduced with permission).

INTER FAITH WEEK IN THE CITY

Here's a page from Leicester City Council's news website, published online today:

Inter faith week in the city 

17/11/2011

A WEEK-long series of events celebrating Leicester's religious faiths is taking place. 

Inter Faith Week 2011 takes place from Sunday, November 20, to Saturday, November 26, and involves exhibitions, talks, films and photos showcasing the city's diverse faiths.

The event is being run by Leicester Council of Faiths, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.

Inter Faith Week's activities are designed to strengthen relations between faiths, to increase awareness of the different religious communities and the contribution they make to the city, and to improve understanding between religious and non-religious people.
Events include an exhibition on Leicester's faith communities, in the east mall of Highcross Leicester, which starts on November 20 and runs daily throughout the event.

For the first time, a faith films festival will take place at Phoenix Square, featuring films including Little Buddha, A Serious Man, Life in a Day, My Name is Khan and Lourdes.

The Leicester People's Photographic Gallery, housed in the former library in Belvoir Street, will feature an exhibition of images showcasing holy places and sacred sites chosen by the Council of Faiths.

Throughout the week there will also be talks shedding light on different faiths, including Baha'ism, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Humanism, Jainism, Judaism, Islam, Paganism and Sikhism.

Leicester assistant city mayor responsible for health and community involvement, Cllr Manjula Sood, also chairs the Council of Faiths.
She said: "Leicester has a diverse range of faiths, and this is a wonderful opportunity for people to find out more about this fascinating subject.

"Learning more about the beliefs of others is a key part of increasing understanding between people of all faiths, which in turn benefits relationships in communities across the city.

"I am delighted that this event is taking place in Leicester, marking the Council of Faiths' 25th anniversary and celebrating all the good work which has been done."

Further information on Inter Faith Week events is available from the Council of Faiths offices at Pilgrim House, Bishop Street, Leicester, on 0116 254 6868.

LEICESTER PEOPLE'S PHOTOGRAPHIC GALLERY: OFFICIAL OPENING

Chris Minter, Head of Leicester Adult Skills and Learning Service; Cllr Manjula Sood, Chair of Leicester Council of Faiths; Sven Goran-Eriksson, Manager of Leicester City FC; Nicola Wood; The Birch - Leicester City FC legend Alan Birchenall

This afternoon I attend the official opening of the Leicester People's Photographic Gallery, which occupies most of what used to be the Central Lending Library on the corner of Belvoir Street and Wellington Street.

The old Central Lending Library is a former concert hall, where musical celebrities such as Paganini and Liszt performed in the mid-19th century. The entrance hall of the library was once a cinema, so today's visitor walks through what used to be a cinema into a what used to be a concert hall – then into what used to be a public library until six months or so ago. I ask three people (who should be in the know) what the building is going to be called in its new incarnation – and I get three different answers. For our present purposes, faithful reader, we'll stick with the old Central Lending Library when referring to the building as a whole, to Flint Hall (as it's going to be renamed, after the architect William Flint) for the as yet underdeveloped ground floor (although you have to go up a flight of stairs or take the lift to get to it) and the Leicester People's Photographic Gallery for the first floor, where the photos are. Never mind the temporary Bike Park in the basement! *Phew*

In his laudatory speech today, Mayor Sir Peter Soulsby described this as "a wonderful use for a magnificent building" – and he's right. Reliable sources at BBC Radio Leicester have stated that this is the biggest photographic exhibition space outside London. Apparently the bill presented to Leicester City Council for getting the building into a fit state to be open to the public was no more than £65 – so much has been achieved by volunteers and from donations. Well-deserved credit goes to Ian Davies, the driving force behind this whole enterprise. Thanks are also given to John E Wright, the commercial printers backing the gallery and providing professional presentation services.

The most striking feature in the (soon to be renamed) William Flint Hall is a sand sculpture by Nicola Wood. Nicola's work is well-known around her home city of Leicester and she's been gathering a following and reputation further afield. My kids have seen lots of her stuff and they love it. She did a great sand sculpture of Tanky Thomas at Summer Sundae last month. She's become known nationally as presenter of Deadly Art on CBBC. You can find out more about Nicola Wood on her website.

Prominent among the guests today is Sven-Göran Eriksson, Manager of Leicester City FC (and former Manager of England, of course). His presence brings a certain frisson to the event. Even I (a dyed-in-the-wool Scotland supporter) get unreasonably excited!

Among the refreshments available today, I'm pleased to see Rosie Clarke offering and promoting her Virtuous Bread. Rosie will be making use of the sizeable kitchen on the second floor of the building as part of her social enterprise. She asks me if I’d like a quick look at the facilities there, but then we discover that the kitchen has been taped off to visitors today to deter the more inquisitive among us. Rosie and I discuss how we might be able to collaborate during National Inter Faith Week at the end of November or during the week-long Leicester Speaks event in October. We put our heads together and come up with a couple of good ideas that we hope to able to develop, to our mutual benefit.

I'd like to acknowledge that I've adapted some information from Colin Crosby Heritage Tours for this blog entry.

A nice set of photos from the official opening can be found on Simon Johnson's Perfect Snapz website.

LEICESTER PEOPLE'S PHOTOGRAPHIC GALLERY PREVIEW

A few minutes after leaving Leicestershire Centre for Integrated Living, where I'd been attending the regular monthly Core Partners meeting of the Regional Equality and Diversity Partnership, I stop at the top of King Street, to put on my coat. As I do so, I hear someone calling my name. A few yards down Wellington Street, sitting on the low windowsill outside the old record lending library, Ian Davies and Chris Minter are waving to me. Chris is Head of Leicester Adult Skills and Learning Service (LASALS). Ian is a community activist and photographer whom I got to know through CreativeCoffee Club at Phoenix Square.

As I cross Wellington Street toward them, they stand up and beckon me into the building, through the open fire exit door and up the stairs inside. The old Central Lending Library is in the final stages of conversion into a new venue for community education and cultural use. Its main feature in this new form will be the Leicester Peoples Photographic Gallery. So here I am getting a sneaky peek at the new gallery space and some of the pictures that will feature in the opening exhibit there. Ian's devoted himself to this project over the last several months and his hard work is clearly paying off. It's two weeks till the building opens to the public, but already it's an impressive sight. It's going to be a very attractive and busy venue, I've no doubt about that.

There's an offer of a public display of photographs for Leicester Council of Faiths during National Inter Faith Week in November. This is something I'm hoping to persuade our Board of Directors to get behind as part of the celebration of the Council of Faiths 25th anniversary.

I've joined the Leicester People's Photographic Gallery with a personal subscription of only £5 per year (which brings a number of benefits). Ian thinks I'm member No. 22.

I'd have liked to have stayed longer and had more of a look around, but I'm supposed to be at the Quaker Meeting House in just a quarter of an hour.

I hope that Ian can maker it to CreativeCoffee Club tomorrow morning. If he does, I'll give him the chance to say a bit about the Gallery .

The Leicester People's Photographic Gallery is the beneficiary of generous sponsorship and support from Jon E. Wright & Company, the long-established and well-respected digital printing business. And the Gallery has a well-subscribed Facebook page.

In the photo above, Ian is in the foreground, Chris is in the background.