Scottish Workshop – 3 day, leadership training seminar in Aberfeldy »
by Tim Read
Great view from Ben Vrackie near Aberfeldy
By Ritatsu Thomas
On the 13th-15th of November, I attended my first Scottish workshop since joining the Scottish region. The workshop was located in the peaceful countryside of Aberfeldy, around 1 hr North-west of Dundee. The 20 participants on the workshop were not only members of the Unification community, but people from other faiths interested in our activities and an Ambassador for Peace.
Dr. James Baughman was the main lecturer, who is a long time American member with a deep understanding and broad perspective. Over the years the lectures were refined by Dr. James Baughman and master lecturers, such as Rev. Sudo. The main focus was to touch the heart of the attendants with emotion and truth, with the purpose of helping them understand how to build our character and become a leader.
The schedule consisted of waking up and being ready to begin the day with a prayer and morning service at 6:30am, then lectures till lunch, then after lunch a hike around Scotland, then more lectures, followed by dinner, next activities and games for people to get to know each other and soon after closing the day with God, a movie proceeds.
I personally, really enjoyed the workshop, it was ample chance to get to know people from the Scottish community, take a break from the busy student life and refresh and advance my knowledge of the divine principle. The lecture content wasn’t completely new to me, but was conveyed from a new angle with a lot of unbiased facts laid in and it caught a lot of emotion, which made it easy for the young and old to understand and connect with. It really helped me to wake up a bit and realise that there is a lot more we as people of our community can do to help others if we put in more ‘effort’ and have a less selfish, and more selfless ‘motivation’ in what we do.
The hiking we did is something I am not completely used to being from London. Although it was muddy and murky, it was a nice thing to do to connect to God’s original heart through nature. The whole environment of the workshop was really relaxed and friendly. Being team leader during the workshop, I could see that many of the kids were quite well trained in serving others, but not completely sure about their purpose and position in the church. A workshop like this definitely needs a follow-up in order to reap the results in the youth of our community, but as a short term workshop it was a very nice atmosphere to be in with no feelings of pressure or burden and I feel it was a very successful workshop which I would without a doubt be happy to attend again in the future.
