Dear Friends,

Picture it; eleven Scottish Bahá’ís driving in the early hours of a Saturday morning in a minibus – and their destination? Coventry. “Why?” I hear you exclaim. Well, after two years, it was that time again – time for another UK Study Circles Tutors’ conference. About 200 Bahá’ís attended, all of whom had completed the Ruhi sequence, or were not far off. There was an air of anticipation and curiosity at what this conference could bring about. And, as soon as it started and the study circles statistics were presented, showing that activity had doubled, if not trebled, in just the past year, I realised this conference signified a great turning point in the British Bahá’í community.

For two whole days there were talks followed by workshops. They included the importance of the friends moving through the sequence of courses, motivating the friends to carry out acts of service, the importance of the “pre Ruhi” books for junior youth, and lastly, inviting non-Bahá’ís to join study circles (this was my favourite as our group of 10 came up with 70 non-Bahá’ís we could invite, so imagine the community of interest the whole conference came up with!). I remember, on the way back, one of the “minibus crew” looking forward to a not-too-distant time when there will be tens of thousands involved in the process, and now I can easily see this as a reality.

There were many things I learnt, but the most exciting is that entry by troops isn’t a far off dream that we are all looking forward to; it’s happening NOW and we are in that very real dream.