Stimulating summer school set to start Sunday

A dedicated team have been putting together a captivating summer school programme to run from 27–30 December and hopes are high for strong participation throughout the country. This article provides essential information on how to participate in online sessions, and general background about this year's "decentralised" summer school.

As you know, this is a “Kiwi DIY” event and totally depends on the friends organising gatherings wherever you may be, so that you can together imbibe the online talks, share insights with one another in workshops, collaborate on your own local initiatives, inspire your children and junior youth with purposeful learning activities, and attract interest from seeking souls in the wider community.

Information on how to connect to sessions

To access the online components of the programme, please go to this web page:

• Online Sessions [https://summerschool.bahai.org.nz/online-sessions/]

Online content will stream on Days 1-3 from 8.30 am to 1.30 pm, and on Day 4 from 8.30 am to 2.30 pm. See further details below.

Plenary talks are set to broadcast at scheduled times (see below) but will remain available afterwards for those who wish to watch at a different time or rewatch a talk.

The Online Sessions page provides links to YouTube (for plenary talks and other streamed content) and Zoom (for workshops). Please note that information on the page may change during the course of the summer school, so it is best to go back to it each day for the latest links.

Please note that this links page cannot be found on the summer school website pages (it is private to those with the link). To go back to it later you will need to bookmark the page in your browser, or return to this article and click the link again.

The main online components of the programme, accessible from the Online Sessions page, are:

• Plenary talks by Mrs Alison Milston (9.00 – 10.00 am) and Mrs Huti Watson (12.30 – 1.30 pm)

• Workshops based on Mrs Milston’s plenary talks. In many places, these workshops will be done in-person in local groups. However, workshops will also be offered via Zoom at 10.30 am for speakers of Tongan, Samoan, Māori, and Persian. Also, there will be an English-language workshop group for those who perhaps are unable to join a “real life” workshop group.

• Other streamed content: This will include an event opening the summer school on Sunday at 8.30 am with a powhiri and a video presentation by the National Assembly. On days 2–4 at 8.30 am, a slide show of devotional readings and music will be streamed for those who are not joining local devotional activities.

General background information

Besides the above special links page for talks and workshops, most of the general information you need is available on public pages of the summer school website. This information includes:

• Schedule (timetable of sessions)

• Children’s class materials (to help with running local classes)

• Guidance on conducting junior youth activities

• Resources, including

  • An event registration form (doubling as a Covid-19 contact tracing register).

  • From Sunday morning, workshop materials will also be posted on the Resources page and in a Baha’i Aotearoa newsletter article so they can either be shared on a screen or downloaded and printed.

• Contacts

  • List of “Help Desk” people

  • Enquiry form

  • Directory of a number of gatherings around the country

• Feedback form for sending in statistics and reflections

• Biographical background on the speakers and topic outlines of their talks

• Overview of the decentralised summer school concept

(The last two pages listed above contain information that will already be familiar to many of the friends but offer a helpful overview to anyone not previously aware of this year’s online summer school concept.)