Loughborough Council of Faiths
66 Nottingham Road
Loughborough,
Leicestershire,
LE11 1EU
The Office of the Mayor
Southfield Road,
Loughborough,
Leicestershire. LE11 2TX
Tel: 01509 634781
Email: mayor@charnwood.gov.uk
Web; www.charnwood.gov.uk
Contents Page
Letter from the Mayor of Charnwood
Chair’s Report
4
List of Members 2014/2015
5
Friends
6
One World Week
7
Feast of Faiths 2014
8
Holocaust Memorial Day
9
Faith Matters articles
10
Engaging with local Primary Schools
11
Faiths represented on LCoF
12
Accounts
15
Chair’s report
Loughborough Council of Faiths has continued to bring members of our faith
communities together to organise events and discussions, share our activities and
be a channel for other organisations to give or receive information of mutual benefit.
Our purpose is stated as: To promote good relations and understanding, tolerance
and respect between the Faiths.
Events and discussions
One World Week activities including the Pilgrimage of Prayer for World Peace
which continues to be well received and this year led to a request to have a longer
discussion with the Muslims which we arranged for our April meeting.
We laid a wreath for Remembrance Sunday.
Interfaith Week activities including the Feast of Faiths which was a great success.
We organised Holocaust Memorial Day in cooperation with CBC, a very moving
occasion. Our thanks to Julie Harrold for all her hard work in co-ordinating this.
Our speaker for our AGM in 2014 was Dr Peter Miller who led a discussion on the
delivery of the local health services.
A new project is Engaging with schools where members of 3 different faiths visited
Cobden, Rendell and Robert Bakewell schools to answer questions and show how
we can work together. We would like to thank Mike Jones for the initiate and all the
hard work in setting this up and hope to continue and build on the good work done
already. Our thanks to the panel members from the faiths that took part. Proof of
the success of this work is shown by the number of other schools that have now
shown interest (see page 11).
Our discussion evenings have been on ‘Faith in Youth’, Sharing and celebrating
the faiths’ and ‘Interfaith Conversations: Talking with Muslims’. Subsequently we
have assisted a local Muslim lady to have articles published in the Loughborough
Echo’s Faith Matters column (see page 10).
Acting as an information channel
We have had a further visit from the Fire and Rescue Service and visits from
Rainbows (inviting more friends and perhaps planting a tree) and the British
Humanist Association.
We received information on the ‘Birmingham Declaration’ about refugees and
asylum seekers and agreed to sign our commitment.
We have received with interest the information about Passion Art.
We have continued to work with the Inter Faith Network.
We have continued conversations with CBC.
Funding
As we noted last year funding is becoming a problem as grant givers are cutting
back, particularly our local Councils. We rely heavily on the work that Varsha, our
Development Officer, does but without the resources to contribute to her salary we
are struggling to maintain our work. We are grateful to the Loughborough University
for the grant through their Open Fund last year to help deliver our aims.
Natalie Steel
Chair
4
List of Members 2014/2015
President
The Mayor of Charnwood
Bahai
Fardousieh Catling
Rahmatollah Padidar
Brahma Kumaris
Natalie Steel
Mandan Sisodia
Christians (Loughborough Churches
Partnership)
Daphne Beale (Treasurer)
Mike Limb
Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-Day Saints
Julie Harrald
Denise Hardy (joint Vice-Chair)
Hindu (Shree Ram Krishna Temple)
Vinod Soni
Hindu
(Geeta Bhawan)
Ram Chhabra (joint Vice Chair)
Ranjit Jalota
R Yadav
Hindu
(BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha)
Chandrakant Panchmatia
Pankaj Manek
Pradeep Patel
Muslim
Mowlad Khan
Dilshad Choudhury
Pagan
Jay Anderson
Sikh
Mr Assi
Mr S Puri
Pritam Singh
Quakers
Sue Meridith Velado
Chris Rigby
Centre for Faith and Spirituality
Loughborough University and Colleges
Jan Sutton
Individuals
Amrat Bava
5
Neil Lambert
In order to acknowledge those people who have made a major contribution to the
work of the Loughborough Council of Faiths a special category of membership
has been established. The Friends of the Loughborough Council of Faiths are
non-voting members of the Council who are able to attend meetings and who
continue to contribute to the work of the organisation.
Friends of the Loughborough Council of Faiths are:
Andy Reed
Andy Rush
Anthony Gimpel
Mike Jones
Debbie Green
Peter Lewis
Amrat Bava
Hiron Miah
Gous Ali
Jill Vincent
Morry Van Ments
Pete Henton
Hashok Parmar
Simon Richardson
6
One World Week 19th - 26th October 2014
‘
BREAKING CHAINS - MAKING CHANGE
One World Week is an annual opportunity to join a world-wide movement of
people taking action for justice locally and globally.
•
Local events to celebrate the diversity of cultures in our communities
•
Joining together to learn and share in caring for the Earth and its
resources
•
Taking action for justice, equality, peace and fullness of life for all
Events during the week included Loughborough Council of Faiths Pilgrimage
of Prayer for World Peace.
The Pilgrimage is a walking tour visiting several of the places of worship of various
faiths in the town. This happens during one evening during One World Week and
at each place of worship the relevant faith will say a prayer for world peace or say a
few words about the theme for OWW for that year.
This is always a popular and well attended event with members of the public and
representatives from community, statutory and voluntary agencies joining in.
7
Inter Faith Week
Feast of Faiths November 2014
The annual Feast of Faiths 2014 was again a well attended and popular event. This
year we repeated the previous year’s theme of a speed dating type event where
guests moved from one table to another to have a 3 minute slot of being able to ask
questions of the different faith members at each table about their faith and values.
This was very interesting and gave people very brief insights into the faiths of
others.
The evening provided an opportunity for people to learn and share information about
each others cultures, see how people of all ages and backgrounds can work
together and enjoy each other’s company and gave them a platform to tell people
about what they do and know. The food and activity was enjoyed by all and gave the
evening a social atmosphere.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank the staff of John Storer House for the
generous free use of venue each year, contribution towards some of the food and
hard work on the night. Special thanks to Sterling Law Solicitors staff who took the
lead in this, paid for the rest of the food and organised a wonderful evening.
Left picture:
Natalie Steel, Chair of LCoF
welcoming all with the Mayor and
Mayoress of Charnwood.
Pictures below:
Guests enjoying the feast and the
activities.
8
Holocaust Memorial Day event held in Queens Park on
27th January 2015
Loughborough Council of Faiths led on
the organisation of the town’s Holocaust
Memorial Day commemoration again this
year.
It was the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre.
We named and lit a candle for over 50
episodes of genocide throughout history.
It was a moving and memorable event.
9
At our Talking with Muslims evening a concern was expressed that the media only
seem to want to talk to Muslims when some atrocity happens. Members of
Loughborough Council of Faiths pointed out that the media will always hear about
the bad stories but we need to tell them about the good ones. A couple of members
of the Council of Faiths offered to use our experience of writing newspaper articles
and our contact with Loughborough Echo to help a local Muslim lady, Nurain Nur, in
getting a series of her articles published. A big thank you to Loughborough Council
of Faiths Friend, Andy Rush, Editor of the Loughborough Echo for his support.
10
Engaging with local Primary Schools
A new initiative for Loughborough Council of Faiths was introduced during the year;
that of taking panels of Faith representatives into Primary Schools to answer
children's questions about their faith.
The first of these took place successfully at Cobden Primary School in late March
and was followed by equally successful visits to Robert Bakewell and Rendell
Primary Schools in June.
On each panel was a C of F representative of the Muslim, Sikh, Christian and Hindu
Faiths, being those faiths with the largest numbers currently living within the town.
The success of the venture may be measured by this comment from one of the
Head Teachers involved: "The Panel of Faiths visit was fantastic, the children really
loved it and it made them think".
In the future, it is hoped that this initiative can continue and that further schools and
other faiths will be covered.
My thanks are hereby recorded to Hiron Miah, Lal Singh Assi, Dr Ram Chhabra,
Mike Limb and Pauline Anderson for serving on the panels.
Mike Jones, Facilitator and Friend of the Council of Faiths
Session at Robert
Bakewell Primary
School
Session at Rendell
Primary School
11
Faiths represented through
Loughborough Council of Faiths
Baha’i
The Baha’i Faith is the youngest of the world’s independent religions, and the
central message of its founder Baha’u'llah is that humanity is one single race and
the day has come for its unification in one global society. A worldwide Baha’i
community, representative of most of the nations, races and cultures, has a
common vision of “the earth as one country and mankind as its citizens”.
Brahma Kumaris
The Brahma Kumaris practice a method of meditation based on the philosophy of
Raja Yoga. As an ancient wisdom, Raja Yoga has a spiritual value based approach
to life. The aim of the meditation is to experience inner peace, love and happiness
which are all qualities of the original soul conscious stage of the soul. The process
of meditation enables the soul to re-connect in an easy and natural way with the
Supreme Soul, the Universal Energy.
Many people have taken benefit from the various self-development courses that are
available which cover such topics as meditation, positive thinking, self-esteem and
stress-free living. All courses are offered free of charge and in support of the
community.
Paganism
The word Pagan covers a group of related nature based religions including Druidry,
Wicca and Shamanism. Pagans believe that the Earth itself is sacred and not just
something created by a divine or sacred being, that divinity is equally male and
female and that we are responsible for living as creatively and sensitively as
possible. For Pagans there is no book of revealed wisdom or all knowing Guru; we
seek inspiration from nature, from the ever-turning wheel of the seasons and from
our own hearts.
12
Christian
Christians believe that God created the world. They read the Bible as Holy Scripture
and pray both in private and when they gather as churches. Christians believe that
Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and as such, reconciles God and humanity.
Christians also believe that the Holy Spirit continues to be an active presence in the
world today. There are thousands of Christians in Loughborough and over 20 local
churches.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Proclaiming Jesus Christ to be the Saviour of the world, we embrace all His
teachings found in the Bible, Book of Mormon and other scriptures that testify of
Him, and believe in continuing revelation from God through present-day prophets.
The primary aim of this international church is to strengthen families and have
individuals develop the security, peace and love that gospel living brings.
Hinduism
Hinduism is an eternal religion and has no human founder. Hindus practise
non-violence and believe in God’s cosmic law of ‘Karma’ (thoughts, emotions and
deeds). They accept that the body is mortal while the soul is immortal and
reincarnates until it finds salvation. Hindus seek no converts and believe that no
particular religion teaches the only way to salvation above all others, but that all
genuine religious paths are facets of God’s pure Love and Light, deserving
tolerance and understanding.
Islam
Islam is a way of life that continues to spread the same message as the previous
prophets, since the time of Prophet Adam, which is the belief in One Absolute God.
The last and final Prophet was Muhammad (peace be upon him). Muslims obtain
guidance from the Qur’an (the revealed word of God) and the Sunnah (the blessed
teachings of the final Prophet Muhammad). Islam is a peace loving way of life based
on justice, brotherhood and family, which form the foundations of practising the faith.
13
Sikhism
Sikhism is a way of life and philosophy that was founded by Guru Nanak. Sikhism
preaches a message of devotion and remembrance of God at all times, truthful
living, equality and mankind, social justice and denounces superstitions and blind
rituals. We believe that there is only one God and he belongs to us all, believers and
non-believers. He loves us all. There should be no discrimination on the basis of
ones faith, caste, colour or country.
Quakers
Quakers were founded in 1652. They are rooted in Christianity and find inspiration in
the life and teachings of Jesus. Today, there are Quaker meetings in every part of
the world. Quakers value individual experiences and insights of truth and love. This
has resulted in Quakers having a wide variety of belief from Christian to Universalist.
When they meet in worship they gather in silence with those around them, open to
the Light from wherever it may come. The insights have influenced the concerns
they have especially for peace, simplicity, equality and truth, which they put into
practice helping those people anywhere who are marginalised and disadvantaged.
Loughborough
Council of
Faiths
display in
Charnwood
Museum
14
15
Loughborough Council of Faiths
c/o 66 Nottingham Road
Loughborough
Leics
LE11 1EU
Tel (01509) 261651
Fax (01509) 267826
Email: enq@lborofaiths.org.uk
Website: www.lborofaiths.org.uk
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/lborofaiths