Unit conventions reflect community vigour
Note on National Convention
The names of the 57 delegates to the National Convention will be announced as soon as all of the reports have been assembled. The Convention will be held from 24-26 April at the Bahá’í Centre in Manukau, Auckland.
Initial reports indicate that unit conventions on 7 February displayed striking vitality. A glimpse of that spirit shines out in photos from the events at the foot of this article.
The dynamic spirit of the unit conventions reflects our national community’s ability to draw on the power of unity, fulfilling hopes expressed by the National Assembly in its message for the day. The message referred to “the spiritual forces at our disposal”, one of which is “the power generated when higher levels of unity are attained in the context of an outward-looking orientation that seeks to have a wide embrace of others.” To read the National Assembly’s message in full, please click on the black button above.
Informal comments received by the National Assembly include:
“I haven’t seen the friends so focused from the beginning to the end. We started at 10.30 and went through till 3.00 pm. Everyone was surprised at how fast the time went. Our unit convention was focused on ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Devotions were hosted by our junior youth plus their stories and drawings and reports were all on ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Such a lovely unit convention.”
“It was a wonderful unit convention. Very vibrant with many of the Maori friends attending and an animated and candid consultation process …”
“Our unit convention was the best ever in terms of numbers participating in the consultation and the spirit of the occasion - three solid hours of rich consultation.”
“Our unit convention was also the best I’ve seen in …. in terms of turnout and quality of contributions and consultation.”
It was remarked on in one unit convention that all nine members of a Local Spiritual Assembly attended.
Another correspondent stated simply: “A great time was had by all”.
Click on the images below to enlarge them. Hover over enlarged images to see captions.
