All persons interested in the preservation, perpetuation and prosperity of our world wide community, and especially those in leadership positions in FEZANA, the FEZANA Associations and Small Groups, are invited and encouraged to participate in a meeting to be held preceding the Congress in Houston, for information exchange and discussion pertaining to the “Coming Together Roundtable (CTR)”:

 

Date:   Monday, December 27, 2010

Time:   2:00 to 9:00 pm with dinner

Place:   Intercontinental Hotel, Houston

 

Registration. Please be sure to contact FEZANA Administrator Zenobia Damania at admin@fezana.org if you are coming.  There is no registration fee.  There will be a fee for dinner. Congress organizers have arranged to extend discounted room rates at the hotel to include December 26^th and 27^th.  For information on Accommodations visit www.zah.org.  For information on the CTR visit www.zoroastrians.net (category “Round Table).

Background of the CTR. Realizing the urgency of keeping our global “Community without Borders” connected, the “Coming Together Roundtable” was conceived as a legacy of the eighth World Zoroastrian Congress in London in 2005.  Since then, concerned and committed individuals have met every year  (in Mumbai in January 2007 and 2008, Houston in Dec 2008 and Dubai in 2009) to use the forum of the CTR for information sharing, dialogue and collaborative action. The key operative here being that “Dialogue brings minds together and Action beings hearts together”.

The Vision for our community is: “To nurture a caring, compassionate, altruistic, harmonious, observant, esteemed and prosperous worldwide Community with respect for diversity, so that we may move Ahura Mazda’s Creation towards Frashokereti.”   Notice that each word is weighted to enshrine our Zarathushti ethos the world over.

The Mission is “ To come together and work together in hamazori for the Zarathushti and global communities.”

A rather momentous legacy of the Dubai Congress, was the transfer of ownership of the CTR from a group of concerned individuals to the elected world leaders.  Thus the chair of the Indian Federation (India) region, the president of FEZANA (NA region), president of ZTFE (UK/Europe region) and the Zarathushti MP in the Majlis (Iran), representing 90% of the world’s Zarathushti population, have now consensually agreed to assume ownership and responsibility for the CTR and set future direction. In time representatives from the smaller pockets – Middle East, Pakistan, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Africa would be worked into the structure.

As a very encouraging follow-up, the leaders have taken the initiative to organize the next CTR, in Mumbai in January 2011.

Objectives for the Houston Meeting.

Our intent is to collectively gather input from the North American region for our representative to present to the CTR meeting of world leaders in Mumbai.  A starter set of discussion items are:

• Form and Structure of the CTR.
• Socio-communal projects (World wide Zarathushti demographics, Future directions for the Next Generation, Community health and welfare ….)
• Organizational Infrastructure (National Center, Associations …..)
• Spiritual/Religious Infrastructure (dar-e-mehrs, mobeds ….)
• Intellectual projects (Zarathushti identity,  Duties, Rights and Responsibilities of the mother countries and the diaspora communities ….)
• Educational/Cultural projects (Rel Ed., Interfaith work, ….)

Your thoughts on the meeting, and suggestions for agenda items, are solicited.

I look forward to a productive meeting, with participation from FEZANA officers, Association leadership and all interested Zarathushtis.

Bomi Patel