Pat Crudden, a well known Shepparton identity and member of the GV Writers Group gave an address to the Annual General Meeting of the Shepparton Interfaith Network
The Annual General Meeting of the Shepparton Interfaith Network took place on Tuesday, 5 February 2013 at St Brendan's Parish Centre, Knight St, Shepparton. In attendance at the meeting were Eileen Dolan (Treasurer), Nancy Hawkins, Wendy Gannon, Malcolm Holmes, Pat Crudden, Fr Joe Taylor, Rev. Rosalie Rayment-Hewitt, Frank Purcell (President), Chris Parnell (Secretary), Muhammad Bob Graham (Vice President) and Joan McRae (Shepparton Uniting Church)
In the President's Report, re-elected President Frank Purcell said, inter-alia,
We can see that pattern over the past 12 months. We had another conference at La Trobe on Who Am I? during Harmony week, participated in the Emerge Festival with the Goulburn Valley Regional Library (Living Books, Living Voices) and in the Children’s Festival during Diversity Week. We also held two interesting explorations of Christian, Sikh, Hindu, and Muslim spiritualities at scheduled bi-monthly meetings - one on Water, the other on The Love of God.
In the second half of the year we responded to a request from Ballarat Interfaith Network for our help in enabling them to visit a Mosque and a Sikh Gurduara. This eventually involved over 75 visitors from Ballarat, Bendigo and Melbourne, with Prof. Des Cahill of RMIT University as guest speaker. Councillor Chris Hazelman gave a response which demonstrated the openness of the Greater Shepparton Council to others which has been a significant factor in strengthening inter-ethnic and interfaith relationships in our culturally diverse Goulburn Valley.
In addition to those activities, we continued our Virtual Tour filming of Churches, Mosques and Gurduara for insertion on our Website. During the Cultural Diversity celebrations organised by the Greater City of Shepparton Council, we offered to film the Children’s Festival at the Kids Connection on the Causeway. These have been very well received.
We are finalising the Virtual Tour series with a firm date to film activities at the Gurduara on Sunday Feb. 17th, 2013.
An address was given to the meeting by noted speaker on studies and writings of Joseph Furphy, Pat Crudden, who gave an overview of Joseph Furphy’s life and works, and also delivered a presentation on Learning from the Spirituality of Joseph Furphy.
(You may read these articles in our Reading Section of this website.)
The President canvassed activities and planning options for the forthcoming year. The President also spoke about lack of participation by local religious leaders, and faith community representatives. A membership drive was recommended by meeting participants.
Members at the Annual General Meeting of Shepparton Interfaith Network
from L to R: Nancy Hawkins, Frank Purcell, Wendy Gannon, Rev. Rosalie Rayment-Hewitt, Eileen Dolan, Malcolm Holmes, Pat Crudden, Joan McRae, Muhammad Bob Graham
