On St. Andrews Day, 30th November, at a reception in the Scottish Parliament, a gift was presented by Scotland's religious leaders to the Presiding Officer of the Parliament, the Rt. Hon George Reid MSP. The gift was a montage of quotations from the world’s religious scriptures, in the form of a St. Andrew’s flag, all based on the four virtues engraved on the mace in the parliament – justice, compassion, integrity and wisdom – values to which the Scottish people aspire. Although many distinguished religious leaders were present, including Cardinal Keith O'Brien of the Catholic Church and Bishop Idris Jones of the Episcopal Church, it was the chairman of the Bahá’í Council for Scotland who was given the special privilege of addressing the gathered MSPs and presenting the gift on behalf of all of the religious leaders. The gift was warmly received by the Presiding Officer and will now be displayed in the Parliament building. This means that along with the various other scriptures, the words of Bahá’u’lláh will be on view in Holyrood.

The meeting was also addressed by the Minister for Communities, Malcolm Chisholm MSP, and there were many MSPs from various parties present. Musical accompaniment to the evening was given by the Edinburgh Interfaith Choir which is strongly supported by the Bahá’í community, and there were many other Bahá’ís present supporting the various local interfaith groups who had been invited to the event. The reception was adjudged a great success by all those present and definitely marks a further significant step in the public recognition of both the Interfaith movement and the Bahá’í Faith in Scottish public life.

The last weekend of the October break saw some 25 youth make their way to the Donald’s home situated in the open Aberdeenshire countryside. Installed for them was a memorable youth weekend organised by the Scottish Youth Committee.

Having arrived, and with rumbling bellies satisfied, we embarked on our first, rather unusual, activity of making sock puppets, which proved a very good icebreaker. We made some very wacky characters who were cleverly incorporated into later sessions. The relaxed evening enabled everyone to unwind as gradually we drifted off for the night, to be fresh for the early morning start.

Saturday morning was a workshop with clay, drawing and quotations. We studied various quotations from “Excellence in all Things” and created dramas to emphasise the key points. The weekend’s highlight was the evening session with Andrew Goodwin looking at sections of a letter from the Universal House of Justice; it was a thoughtprovoking session and many took a lot from it!

Not only was this youth weekend open to a wider age range (12+) but, impressively, a third of the youth were friends of the Bahá’ís! The Committee had organised the weekend to accommodate for the levels of knowledge and understanding about the Bahá’í Faith!

Many of those attending are now eagerly looking forward to the next time.