READING INTERFAITH GROUP
MINUTES
OF COMMITTEE MEETING
4TH
DECEMBER 2008
7.30
p.m.
Held at
: All Saints Church Hall.
Present : Sarah
Griffin; Bruce Denney; Mark Drukker; Anthea West;
Dave Edwards; Jim and Dori Talbot; Mustafa Chaudhary; Chris Knollys; David
McKnight; Swami Ambikananda
Apologies : Viv Rimmer, Paul Kingston; Zvi Solomons,
Ejaz Elahi
Welcome from The Chair: Sarah Griffin (in the Chair) welcomed
everyone present.
Introductions: Sarah asked everyone present to introduce
themselves via the person next to them, as we now had new members of the
committee.
Nominations to the
Committee: Sarah nominated Viv
Rimmer as a Catholic representative.
The nomination was accepted and decided she should keep in touch with keep
in touch with previous committee member Jane Osbourne.
Job Descriptions :
The Chair then went through the Job Descriptions as they had been
detailed in a document sent to Committee members. (See Attachment One).
To the Chair : the only addition that was made was “to
make and maintain contact with other faith groups not already represented on
the RIFG committee within the RIFG”.
To the position of General Secretary : To
work in a flexible partnership with the Committee Secretary? the only other
addition was : “and any other appropriate jobs as they arise.
Outreach : It was agreed that
those involved in Outreach would have to have CRB’s and that the two committee
members appointed would report on a regular though informal basis to Sarah. three
Committee members involved in Outreach would be Mustafa, Chris and Sarah.
The Job Descriptions were then approved.
Dori raised the question about the necessity
for Job Descriptions. She said she felt
that getting together with a sense of love and togetherness obviated the need
for these job allocations. Sarah
explained that as we have expanded and taken on new members, it became
necessary to allocate work in such a way that we all pulled together and never
lost this spirit.
Vacancies to The Committee
Bruce Denney raised the question of which
posts should actually be elected at an Annual General Meeting. The issue was discussed and it was felt that
only the Chair and Vice-Chair were jobs properly elected at AGM level and that
other jobs be allocated or elected by the serving committee.
General Secretary :
Sarah nominated Swami Ambikananda and Bruce Denney seconded the
nomination.
Swami Ambikananda asked for clarification of
this as an email had been received from the Vice-chair about his role as
General Secretary. Mustafa Chaudhary
said that he understood that the out-going Chairperson, Ejaz Elahi was asked to
stand as General Secretary for only two weeks until the first Committee
Meeting. It was agreed by Several other
committee members those present that this was also their recollection the case.
Everyone asked that their thanks to Ejaz for
standing in this position for the two weeks be noted.
Swami Ambikananda then accepted the position
as General Secretary.
Committee Secretary :
Sarah nominated Viv Rimmer for this position and this was accepted.
Website Editor : Dave Edwards was nominated and accepted
the position.
Newsletter Editor :
Bruce Denney was nominated.
Programme of Events
The Calendar of Events (Attachment 2) was
discussed. David McKnight asked that everyone
mark in their calendars the Humanist event ‘Darwin Day’ in February. And
invited committee members to attend
It was decided that alternating an event
with a visit to a religious institution or place of worship, as suggested by
Rabbi Solomons at the AGM, was an idea that could be worked towards.
Swami Ambikananda said that as a major
building reconstruction was being planned at the Reading Hindu Temple she was
not free to offer an event at this time.
22nd January : It was requested that Mark look into
having the Synagogue visit that had been planned for the previous year.
19th February : Bruce Denney had put forward the idea of
having an event on ‘Persecution’.
Sarah asked Bruce to see if this event could be set up for
February. Dori suggested we give it
another title, perhaps ‘Suffering for Your Faith’. Bruce would look into all these possibilities and let Sarah know
19th March : The Hari Krishna’s would put on event
marking the anniversary of Lord Chaitanya.
21st May : A Catholic event would be organised.
June : Anthea West suggested that a topic of interest may
‘Architecture and Places of Worship’.
It was decided that this would be looked into.
September : Mustafa Chaudhary offered an event at the Reading Mosque.
The Autumn Event was to be decided. Sarah reminded the committee that the event
was initially set for the Autumn to co-incide with UN Day.
Dates of Committee Meetings
Chris was asked to book the Friends Meeting
House for the next Committee Meeting to take place a week after the January
event. It was decided that Thursday
evening would be best for everyone.
Reports
RISC :
At the AGM Mark Drukker and
Rabbi Zvi had raised the question of the offensive recent material produced
being placed by RISC. Sarah reported
that she had a constructive phone call contacted Bente, during which it was
accepted that there are may different views and interpretation s which all need
to be acknowledged and would shortly be having a meeting with her about the
issue.
Giving Charity : This was discussed at some
length. Sarah suggested that one way
of supporting charities is perhaps to give them some space at our events and
she suggested Amnesty International. Anthea
said that she had been active in Amnesty International but had withdrawn her
support when they took the decision to support the use of Peace Keeping Troops
and that she would have a real problem with this and, she suspected, so would a
great many Quakers. Mustafa suggested
that we could use our dialogue in the committee to make each other aware of
charities that we support that the various faith representatives could them
make their faith communities ware of and that this might be a way of fulfilling
a commitment to charity. Swami Ambikananda
supported this suggestion.
Website : Sarah invited members to put
forward ideas of what the website should contain. Various suggestions were put forward: It was generally agreed that it should be made possible for
people to join on-line. Bruce suggested
that we have a dialogue section for members so that committee members people
could communicate with each other via the website. Sarah she felt that this was a good idea provided it was kept
simple enough to be inclusive. Dori
asked what the purpose was in re-working the website and Sarah said it was so
that we could improve communication between each other and with all those
outside of the RIFG. Jim said that he
had written a piece on the aims of the RIFG and felt this should have a
prominent place on the website and on all agendas. Sarah said these unaltered aims were on the home page of our
website and frequently quoted in our literature. Everyone felt that this should
continue was an excellent suggestion and agreed.
Links with NHS : Chris Knollys reported that
it had been suggested that the RIFG could usefully offer education to hospitals
on different religions. Swami
Ambikananda reported that she was an official RBH Foundation Trust Chaplain in
charge of the Hindu Chaplaincy. As such
her experience had been that excellent training was already being offered to
staff and that she had participated in such training. However, one area where RIFG might be of use is when dialogue
between groups breaks down. She
reported that despite Hindu volunteers undergoing all the training and processes
demanded by the hospital chaplaincy they were being prevented from effective
and all communication to change the situation had so far failed.
The meeting ended at 9.45 p.m.
