INTER FAITH WEEK 2012, DAY 5: HIGHCROSS EXHIBITION

Emma Craig-West, Gurbz, Sheri Paige

Fourth day of our week-long exhibition in Highcross for Inter Faith Week.

First volunteers on the display this morning are Emma Craig-West, one of my longest-standing and supportive friends from the earliest days of Creative Coffee Club onwards (on the left in the photo above) and Sheri Paige, Vice President, Student Welfare at De Montfort University Student Union (on the right). Standing between them is a visitor to the exhibition this morning - Gurbz (AKA Mistah G). He and his sister, Anita Kang, will be holding a fashion show charity event in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust at the King Power Stadium, Leicester, in July 2013. I chat with Gurbz about their proposed fundraiser, and about how things went down at Choice Unlimited II in the Tigers Stadium at Welford Road yesterday.

It's a busy morning, especially around the little white tree. Emma's good at drawing people in and encouraging them to write their dreams, hopes, prayers and wishes on the labels. In the photo above, she's with boys from the Peter Jones Enterprise Academy.

John Florance, from BBC Radio Leicester, arrives around 1100 to do a feature about the exhibition. He records a few minutes with me and with Sheri (photo below). Emma has conveniently gone off to the Post Office. John asks me for a quote about the Church of England Synod's vote on women bishops. After stalling him for a while in the hope that Emma (a church-going Anglican) will come back in time to say something interesting on the subject but it falls to me after all. When I tell John that there are eight different religions represented on the display, and that for seven of them (and for a lot of the Christians too) the vote on women bishops isn't of much importance, he switches off his microphone and asks if I could say something a little more interesting that he can use in a segment that he'll be doing at noon on the topic with Barbara Butler and Stephen Foster live in the studio. So I tell him that, as a discerning consumer of social media, I've found the blogs and tweets about the subject over the past day or so very interesting. When he asks me to pick out the most interesting, I reference Ruth Gledhill and Giles Fraser on Twitter, with brief mention of what they said.

Sheri Paige, John Florance

I'm not on the rota for this morning and came down so I could be here when John turned up. While I'm happy for him to record stuff with the volunteers, but it wouldn't be right to leave them alone to do a radio interview. Neither am I on the rota for the 1200-1400 slot, but one of the volunteers has cancelled, so I stay on to provide cover.

Dr Angela Jagger, member of the Board of Directors and former Secretary of Leicester Council of Faiths is on duty here for the next couple of hours. Angela was my tutor on an Open University Course that I took way back in 1992, "The Religious Quest". Next time I met her, some 15 years later, she was a member of the interview panel for this current post.

Sherry Fulloway, Angela Jagger (and John Coster)

Angela is on the right in the photo above, along with Sherry Fulloway, whom I know from the Christians Aware Monday evening courses at Christchurch, Clarendon Park (and John Coster, Editor of Citizens' Eye Community New Agency lurking in the background).

Angela is on the right in the photo above, along with Cherry Fulloway, whom I know from the Christians Aware Monday evening courses at Christchurch, Clarendon Park (and John Coster, Editor of Citizens' Eye Community New Agency lurking in the background).

Malika Kraamer (who curated the marvellous Suits and Saris exhibition at New Walk Museum and Art Gallery earlier this year) and Kate Dawe (from Victim Support) are volunteering on the exhibition from 1400 till 1600. Kate has brought some leaflets about Hate Crime which we put out on the table.

Ruth Fraser, Noel Singh

Kate and Malika hand over to Ruth Fraser of Leicester Quakers (whom I first met on the recent Walking Pilgrimage round Clarendon Park) and Noel Singh, Policy and Partnerships Manager at at Leicestershire County Council (photo above) at 1600. I pay a flying visit to the exhibition on the way to a meeting of Leicester SACRE (Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education) at Mayflower Primary.

When I return from SACRE, Bev Farrand and Angela Lynn Hunt (from Leicester Cathedral) are on the final shift. They might have been talking about the women bishops vote; but then again ...

Beverley Farrand, Angela Lynn Hunt

Here are some of the messages that visitors and volunteers have hung on the tree today:

I would like my daughter to grow up as a Christian. I would also like my family to succeed in most things

All faiths please get together

Doesn't matter if you're black or white, just smile

Society to work together in peace and harmony - one LeicesterI pray for peace and good health to all people

We teach our children that we are the same on the inside. When the world remembers this lesson, wars will finally end and we will find peace.

Hope my son has a good safe future

Wish peace and prosperity in our family

Happy Christmas from PJEA young boys

I wish health, wealth and peace for my family and the world

SACRE AT MAYFLOWER PRIMARY

At Mayflower Primary, Evington Drive, this afternoon for the regular scheduled meeting of Leicester SACRE (Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education).

We hear an appeal for determination by the school presented by head teacher Glyn Millinship, consider our draft annual report and return to our development plan.

Under AOB, Anna Kastoryano, Head of Religious Studies at City of Leicester College, asks for volunteers to attend an inter faith lunch at her school a weeke today. Several hands go up, ensuring Hindu, Muslim and Sikh representation. I'll be going to that.

I NO LONGER FEEL AT HOME IN MY CITY

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

I no longer feel at home in my city

Chef Clarissa Dickson Wright opens her mouth and speaks some truth about this city and Leicester's leaders want to boil her alive in one of her own cooking pots.

At the end of the day, she was writing about her experience in this city. Would people have preferred her to lie?

Areas in this city are monocultural. We all know it. If you don't then either you don't travel around this city or you go around with your eyes shut.

I am fed up with this council and its leaders forever going on about how we all live in harmony and we all take part in each other's festivals and celebrations. No, we don't!

Maybe an odd few do, but not Leicester as a whole. We all tolerate one another. That's what we have to do in this city. We have had no choice other than to accept this city becoming a multi-faith one.

We have our celebrations, other faiths have theirs. We all don't merge together and celebrate other cultures' festivals as this council and its leaders like to think or portray to the rest of this country every time they appear on the TV or in the newspapers.

You only have to sit in parts of the city centre and listen to people's views on this city to know it's not the harmonious one we are all made to believe. That's when you hear someone actually speaking English.

I'm Leicester born and bred and my ancestors have roamed this city for many generations, but even I feel like a foreigner and outsider when I go into the town centre.

I feel more at home in Skegness town than I do here.

That says something about what this city has become, when I feel more at home in a place I visit a few times a year, than I do in my home town.

T Green, Leicester

CURVE WAS WRONG TO LET DANCERS PERFORM

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Curve was wrong to let dancers perform

As part of the organising group for Friday's demonstration against Israeli dance company, Batsheva, I would like to ask your readers to consider whether they want our flagship cultural institution Curve to be part of an Israeli government-financed marketing initiative?

Batsheva are clearly part of the Brand Israel campaign which aims to put a pretty face on Israel abroad.

The decision of Curve director, Fiona Allan, to invite Batsheva to Leicester is highly questionable.

Many other theatres of similar standing around the UK did not feel the need to join in.

Our protest was part of the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign to pressure Israel and raise awareness of the continuing repression of all aspects of Palestinian life, including cultural and artistic life.

What a shame that Curve does not understand that cultural acts are not neutral; that it missed an opportunity to take a stance against the continuing abuse of Palestinian human rights by Israel; that it didn't have the courage to lead by example.

As Batsheva danced on Friday, Israeli bombs were dropping on Gaza, and they are still. Curve had nothing to lose and everything to gain by helping us stop them.

Jane Foxworthy, member of Leicester Palestine Solidarity Campaign

SYNOD VOTE IS WRONG FOR THE CHURCH, SAYS THE BISHOP OF LEICESTER

This article appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Synod vote is wrong for the church, says Bishop of Leicester

The Bishop of Leicester says the General Synod's decision to vote against the introduction of women bishops in the Church of England was a "personal blow".

Bishop Tim Stevens said he had invited members of the diocese to Leicester Cathedral tomorrow to reflect on the decision and "pray for the Church".

Draft legislation was carried through the houses of bishops and clergy but failed at the final hurdle when it did not gain the necessary two-thirds majority among lay members of the General Synod.

In a pastoral letter to his clergy, Bishop Tim said: "It is clear to me that this is a watershed moment in terms of the relationship between the Church of England and the nation.

"It is also likely to be a watershed in terms of the relationship between the General Synod and the dioceses.

"I know there will be many who find this decision incomprehensible."Yet we must respect and seek to understand the reasons why a significant minority of the House of Laity opposed the legislation.

"For myself, after 12 years of discussion in the House of Bishops, this comes as something of a personal blow.

"All of us know that an all-male episcopate cannot be a sustainable position for the Church of England into the future.

"If some proposals for change are the expression of God's will for the Church, then I believe they will prevail. We do not lose our heart in spite of our disappointment."

On Tuesday, the House of Bishops voted 44 in favour, with three against and two abstentions.

In the House of Clergy, 148 voted in favour and 45 against, with no abstentions.

But in the House of Laity, 74 voted against, compared with 132 in favour, with no abstentions.

Had the measure received final approval, it would have gone before the Parliament, with the first women bishops set to be appointed as early as 2014.

In his letter, which was sent yesterday, Bishop Tim urged Church followers to "take special care of each other at a time when some people will be bearing very personally the pain and disappointment".

He said that the majority of Church of England members wanted to move towards ordaining women as bishops and that the Church "remains faithfully at the service of the people of England without any discrimination whatsoever".

Canon Barry Naylor, the bishop's adviser on urban issues, said the rejection was "so very sad".

"I think my position is that the Church must move in this direction," he said.

"I think that in the eyes of the world it does make us look vaguely ridiculous.

"I think we need to listen to God in the scriptures, in the traditions of the church, but also we have got to listen to God speaking to us today."

The cathedral will be open for reflection tomorrow at 7.30pm.

INTER FAITH WEEK 2012, DAY 4: HIGHCROSS EXHIBITION

Third day of our week-long exhibition in Highcross for Inter Faith Week.

What with commitments at Leicester Tigers Welford Road Stadium for Choice Unlimited and at Brooksby Melton College for their Interfaith Events Day, I get to Highcross an hour or so before closing time. Rosemarie Fitton (Senior Lecturer in Interior Design at De Montfort University - and member of Leicester Council of Faiths) and Rashmi Vyas (of Leicestershire Brahma Samaj) are doing this final stint of the day. I bring back the two generic banners that have been used today in those other events and return them to their places in the exhibition here.

Here are some of the things that visitors and volunteers have written on the labels and hung on our little white tree today:

Love creates or builds what had been destroyed by hate for a long time!

I am in a state of flux - challenging my current way of deepening my spiritual life

I wish for all my inner desires to be satisfied

Abandon all varieties of Religion, and just surrender unto me. I will protect you from all sinful reactions, do not fear (Bhagavad Gita 18:66)

In this world of toil and trouble / Two things stand alone / Kindness and another's trouble / And courage in one's own

One God, one religion, one humanity

May your spirit be touched by the spirit of another - everyday! R

CHOICE UNLIMITED II

Early this morning, I bring down from the Welcome Centre some of our display material for our (half) table-top display at the second Choice Unlimited event in Leicester Tigers Welford Road Stadium. By 0800 I’ve set up and am on my way to Brooksby Melton College to help run their Inter Faith Events Day. 

A couple of hours later, when Choice Unlimited gets underway, Amanda Fitton and Dan Fisher are here to run the show. That's Amanda in the photo above, alongside Ian and Dennis from Leicester's LGBT Centre, with whom we share a table. Like the event today at Brooksby Meton College, we're "dual-badging" this for Leicester Council of Faiths and Faith Awareness (the inter-faith programme of Christians Aware).

After returning from Melton (a little delayed by having to deal with a partially collapsed ceiling in the kitchen at the Welcome Centre) I’m on the stall here for the last couple of hours of the day, up till 1800.

When the date for this event was announced, I assumed at first that the Council of Faiths wouldn't be able to take part, being right in the middle of Inter Faith Week. I'm glad I thought it through and saw how to make it all work out - with a little help from my friends.

Speaking of friends: in the picture above, Ian Robson, Director of the LGBT Centre is chatting with Harsha Kotecha (sitting in my chair), who was at Choice Unlimited to promote the charities, Cancer Does Not Discriminate and BME Cancer Voice.

Leicester Council of Faiths gets a nice promotional spot in the brochure too.

INTER FAITH WEEK 2012, DAY 4: INTERFAITH EVENTS DAY AT BROOKSBY MELTON COLLEGE

Today is a complex logistical task - probably the trickiest working day so afar in post, at least in terms of where I have to be and when. Effectively, I have to be in three places at once. Today. I have to make sure the Highcross exhibition is ticking over, set up and front (for part of the day) our shared table at the second Choice Unlimited event in the Tigers stadium and help run the Interfaith Events Day at Brooksby Melton College.

Despite the early start and the complex arrangements, I couldn't resist staying up late last night, as Gold was showing that episode of I'm Alan Partridge where Alan pierces his foot on a spike climbing over the security fence into Choristers Country Club. It's quintessential Partridge: "The Colour of Alan".

I'm not harping on about how complex today is in a misguided attempt for your sympathy, faithful reader. I certainly wouldn't want you to get that impression. Far from it; not at all. I love these missions. I thrive on this sort of thing. Nothing excited me more when I was younger than dashing hither and yon to achieve some mad objective that others wouldn't touch with a bargepole or would tell me is impossible. I've worked hard to earn my reputation as the Can Do guy for these situations. So here's how the early part of this morning pans out:

• Stage 1: Leave home 0645, get to the Welcome Centre for 0730, pick up materials for our display in Choice Unlimited at Tigers stadium
• Stage 2: to the Tigers to set up our table-top display and banner before 0800
• Stage 3: from the Tigers back to the Welcome Centre for 0830 to grab the materials needed for Brooksby Melton College
• Stage 4: to Leicester Station to catch the 0918 for Melton - just one stop, only a quarter of an hour away. But the train sits there … and sits there ... for 40 minutes. After having kept to time so well so far, I have to say it's a bit frustrating.

I get to the college about 1015 and we're all set up ten minutes later. As far as my participation today is concerned, this event is “dual-badged” for Leicester Council of Faiths and Faith Awareness (the inter faith programme of Christians Aware). We have one of the Council of Faiths “generic” pop-up banners borrowed from the Highcross exhibition, as well as a range of the giveaway literature that's also available there. We have a variety of books published by Christians Aware: Food, Festivals and Faith; Meeting Buddhists; Meeting Hindus; Meeting Jews; Meeting Muslims; Meeting Sikhs; Religion – Life Itself. I've also brought a laptop, on which I run a slideshow of 50 or so images associated with various faith communities in Leicester. The Council of Faiths has the more visible presence today, but it's with Faith Awareness that I hope to be able to establish long-term relations with college and community.

I've asked Rita Green, the sole Bahá'í in Melton, to help me here today. Rita has made efforts in recent years to get inter faith work off the ground in Melton, with events, exhibitions, presentations and talks in venues such as the public library. I've known Rita for nigh on 30 years and hope that she'll be able to help me establish an active inter faith group here in the near future. Rita is on the left in the photo above.

The college has put on a nice display here today with lots to see and do, signposted and trailed throughout the campus.

Nicola's colleague, Humera Aziz, has loaned some costumes and outfits from her personal wardrobe for students to try on. There's a well-stocked Fair Trade display. There are tables for the local Anglican churches and Melton Mowbray Baptist Church. Chris Corps, multicultural storyteller and interfaith minister, performs a number of tales and plays ethnic wind instruments. Nicola is offering henna tattoos and I get my first ever one! Can you tell what it is yet? No, nor can I ...

The event climaxes with a dance display in the college theatre, which gets strong support from students and staff alike.

Stuart Wright, Head of Learning, has the last word, describing how the college is obliged to provide students with an education not just for living now in Melton, but for the wider world and later life. Students have to be more aware of different cultures, ethnicities and faiths.

It's all over by 1415. A quarter of an hour later, I'm on the train back to Leicester, heading for Choice Unlimited at the Tigers.

HUNDREDS DUE AT DISABLED EVENT

This article appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Hundreds due at disabled event

An event aimed at providing information about services for young disabled people is hoping to attract more than 2,500 people today.

The Choice Unlimited event is being held at the Tigers Stadium, in Welford Road, Leicester.

It has been organised by the Leicestershire Centre for Integrated Living (LCIL) and will feature more than 200 exhibitors showcasing innovations, services and products available for disabled people and carers. Doors open at 10am. LCIL patron Matt Hampson and a number of Paralympians will also attend as special guests.

INTER FAITH WEEK 2012, DAY 3: "FAITH IN FAMILY" SEMINAR

I didn't get to attend this meeting as I was manning my post at the exhibition in Highcross till 2000. I'm grateful to guest contributor Sughra Ahmed (photo above), who organised this meeting. Sughra writes:

Leicestershire Police HQ was the venue for Faith in Family, our special seminar for Inter Faith Week.

People from all walks of life from across the City and County came together to listen, share and debate topics such as inter faith marriage, protection of children and young people, as well as parenting and spousal relationships. 

Speakers from Leicestershire and Bedford included Rosalind Birtwistle, Nassera Butt and Batool al Toma - all of whom are experts on their topic. They spoke openly and frankly about their experiences drawing on official data and sources available for England and Wales.

Several members of faith groups went on stage as a panel to share their thoughts on how their religion reflects on such topics.

The discussion was vibrant and lively, people's honesty gave rise to a thorough discussion on how society and institutions could better support those whose lives included challenges and/or difficulties. For example questions were asked on how we can improve the way in which we understand those who have an inter faith marriage and are dealing with unique challenges rather than stereotyping them. Others expressed their thoughts on how Youth Offending Services could negotiate its way around the complex terrain of faith in a restricted environment that serve to punish whilst protecting the rights of people in their custody.

The overall sentiment from those who attended was that these issues are very important for all of us - no matter who we are. Further discussion was encouraged especially given that many people are living through these realities with very little of the complexities involved known about in wider society. Leicester Council of Faiths is glad to have held a seminar on the topic of Faith in Family, and especially pleased to see the appetite for more discussion. We hope others will consider creating opportunities for further discussion on these subjects and we look forward to working with others on these or other areas.

This is the third in the series of open meetings sponsored by Leicester Council of Faiths. I've posted about the other two on this blog: God in my faith, 13 March 2012; Open meeting with City Mayor, 31 January 2012.