From the Office of the Treasurer
GC-34154
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To all believers in the United Kingdom
Dearly loved Friends,
On 29 August, the National Spiritual Assembly called upon the community [GC-34095] to raise £475,000 for the Residential Training Centre and Temple land. This was on the back of the fund raising initiative held at four of the UK’s summer schools during which a remarkable £235,000 was raised.
We are now delighted to announce that in the six days since our last update [GC-34123], an additional £11,950 has been contributed to the project target, taking the amount of the campaign from £252,898 to £264,848.
The Office of the Treasurer has received communications from some Local Spiritual Assemblies saying they are calling upon the friends to contribute to the project collectively. This is a wonderful response to the desire of the National Assembly to foster universal participation and also to pass the goal set.
The urgency of the call for funds is now even greater as the National Assembly recently announced that the contract for the purchase of the Residential Training Centre—at Arncott, near Bicester, Oxfordshire—has now been signed.
We would like to share with you two quotations and another story which it is hoped will inspire the friends to consider the spiritual nature of material contributions:
We must be like the fountain or spring that is continually emptying itself of all that it has and is continually being refilled from an invisible source. To be continually giving out for the good of our fellows undeterred by fear of poverty and reliant on the unfailing bounty of the Source of all wealth and all good — this is the secret of right living.
Shoghi Effendi, cited in Bahá’í News 13, September 1926
…Each and every believer, undaunted by the uncertainties, the perils and the financial stringency afflicting the nation, must arise and ensure, to the full measure of his or her capacity, that continuous and abundant flow of funds into the national Treasury, on which the successful prosecution of the Plan must chiefly depend.
Shoghi Effendi, appended to a letter dated 30 January 1938
At the Southern England summer school the children were asked to organise a visual means by which attendees could see the total raised when the announcement about contributions was made. The class drew a thermometer which was more than six feet tall and which was coloured on a daily basis so that the amount of contributions could easily be seen during the session. This also encouraged all of the children to see their work as aiding the raising of such vitally needed funds. Towards the end of the summer school, the childrens’ class also made a collective contribution which had been raised between them which was their opportunity to join in the universal participation.
With loving Bahá’í greetings,
Darren Smith,
Treasurer