Nominations for the 2010 Grace Miller trophy are now open! Please send your nominations as quickly as possible so that the most remarkable and exemplary young members of our FFWPU community in the UK can be recognised, honoured & encouraged for their good work and behaviour.

Who was Grace Miller?
Grace Miller was born in 1916 – four years before True Father. She committed her life to True Parents in 1972 at the age of 56 and later joined as a full-time member in 1974, having been witnessed to by David Miller, older brother of Tim Miller. She fundraised and witnessed, gave DP lectures and led workshops and centres over the next years.

Had our True Father been recognized after the Second World War she would have been among those who should have received him in the prime of her life.

She was among several key parents of members who accepted True Parents in the early 1970s and laid an important foundation of faith and substance. In her later years she lived in Livingstone House supporting workshops and was one of a group of senior sisters who maintained a daily prayer over many years for our members including 2nd generation.

What’s the significance of the trophy?
Tim Miller purchased the Trophy in 2000 after the seung hwa of his mother, Grace. It was purchased from money donated by those who attended the seung hwa. It was born of an inspiration that Grace Miller’s name and investment for the providence be remembered in a way that connects to the future and hence to the 2ndgeneration.

As a grandmother she had a deep heart, affection and concern for young people and a strong prayer that they could know True Parents in their youth in a way which had not been possible for her.

The trophy was to be awarded to a 2nd generation young person who had made an outstanding contribution to the Unification Community in UK (and the wider world) in the preceding year.

Who won the trophy in the past?
There have been 9 recipients of the trophy over the last 9 years, although nobody was awarded in 2009.

Francis

Michael

Miriam

2002 – Miriam Zaccarelli

2003 – Michael Franklin

2004 – Francis Stacey

Yoshiko

Matt

Maniyer & Parmy

2006 – Matthew Jubb

2007 – Yoshiko Chellew

2008 – Haesul Fagcang

The latest winner, Haesul

Nominations for 2010
If you would like to nominate a young person for this year’s award, please complete the nomination form. It doesn’t matter if the young person attends the same church community as you or not. Send your completed nomination forms by email or by post to 43 Lancaster Gate, London, W2 3NA. Applications must arrive before 5pm on Wednesday 18th August 2010.

Judging & Awarding the Nominations
All nominations will be judged by the trustees of the FFWPU, the trustees’ advisory board and the youth ministry directors. Their decision will be final and the recipient of the trophy will be informed by Sunday 22nd August.

The winner of the Grace Miller award will be publicly announced at the FFWPU Annual Gathering, taking place this year in Cleeve House, Seend, on Tuesday 24th August. The winning young person will have their name etched onto the Grace Miller Second Generation Trophy and they will receive a cash prize.

We look forward to receiving your nominations!

Download the cover letter here.

We would like to invite you to the UK HARP 7 Day Divine Principle Workshop 2010. This workshop is designed to give an understanding of the core teachings of the Unification Church, focussing on the content held within the Exposition of the Divine Principle book.

This workshop is targeting those who are new to the Divine Principle, creating an experience in which their first Divine Principle workshop is one to remember, as well as for those who would like to explore that bit deeper into their understanding of their own faith.

Age: 12 to 18 years old.

Dates: Evening of the 25th of July to the Afternoon of the 31st of July

Cost: £110 per person (£100 for every other child from the same family after)

Application Deadline: Spaces are limited to 30, so early application is advised. Unfortunately we cannot guarantee you a place even if you apply within the deadline – but we will do our best.

Please apply by sending an email to ukharp@gmail.com – please include your name, date of birth, contact number, parents’ email address and your local church community.

If you want to inquire about helping out as staff, please send us an email and we will get back to you to discuss the possibilities.

After the application deadline we will send out a confirmation email to all the participants and in that we will detail things that you need to prepare, the code of conduct and any more information that will help you prepare for the Workshop.

We look forward to hearing from you.

The HARP committee

It  has been confirmed that our International President, Pastor Hyung Jin Nim and his wife, Yeon Ah Nim  will come to the UK on Monday 23rd August and spend  a few days here to meet brothers and sisters before going on to visit the rest of Europe.

I am sure you will all look forward to meet them with your families and guests, so let us all prepare well to receive them and inspire them.

FFWPU Annual Gathering at Cleeve House

We have decided to move the Annual Gathering in Cleeve House to Tuesday 24th August (originally set for Saturday 21st August) so that all our Blessed families can have a chance to meet with Pastor Hyung Jin Nim and Yeon Ah Nim in our own beautiful environment .
We did not want to miss our traditional summer Annual Gathering and it was thought  difficult to gather UK members from all over the nation twice within a few days, so it seemed a wonderful opportunity to ask Hyung Jin Nim to speak to everyone at Cleeve on 24th.  We have there facilities for the younger children to enjoy the bouncy castles, games, etc.
Please try to book time off work if you need to. More details will come soon.

L-R: Keishin Barrett, Yoshiko Chellew and Mariam Trubshaw

Yoshiko Chellew, Keishin Barrett and Mariam Trubshaw have joined two Swiss and five other people from the UK (Kunimasa, Kuniyoshi Hayashi, Rose Taylor, Sophie Redihough and Seijin Thomas) for a month stay in Japan. They are doing grass rooots witnessing, teaching English, and service work for one month during the summer period. Three CARP centres are supporting the initiative: Horoshima, Tsukuba and the Keisei centre in Tokyo. At the end of their stay they will will meet together in Hiroshima for three or four days for a final service project, and sight seeing.

See Yoshiko, Keishin ands Mariam’s blog here , the Hirosima blog here and Tsukuba blog here. [ed: blog links work now]

Forgotten? Well – lets do something about that!

Here’s the article from the SUN newspaper today (readership of 7.6 million):

click to view - and zoom in - or right click to download

“It was a nice coincidence when I met Emma Cox the journalist that we found out we both studied English Lit. at Newcastle, just I finished two years before she arrived there. I think she has done a good job of creating a narrative through simply telling the story of two couples.

There is so much incredible content to share from The Divine Principle and True Parents life, so we should keep on working on how to communicate it.” (Simon Cooper)

After the exams our chaplaincy group went to Oxford to have a picnic at the holy ground. Come and join us …

Captain Michael Dick and the team

After 3 years of entry our team finally won the Interfaith Diversity Cup here in Scotland which is played amongst a diverse group of religious and charity groups. Today 16 teams took part in this annual 5 aside football indoor tournament played in Edinburgh.

Stephan Williamson (currently in Germany on work experience)organized a team of his university friends who came together in a good display of team unity.

We won the final against a Glasgow side,who were the winners last year,on a penalty shoot out after the final match drew at 2 -2

We not only won the cup, but Murray Scott, our goal keeper won also the man of the match trophy!

Once again I would like to thank the players: Michael Dick Captain, James Steel, Ross Baird, Scott Fusco, Murray Scott, Calum Wright, Murray Scott and also our photographer and kit manager Eric Williamson.