Chelsea Old Town Hall

On Sunday 29th in the evening Hyung Jin Nim and Yeon Ah Nim will be arriving in the UK. The next day on the 30th August, the English Bank Holiday Monday, they will meet with all of us in Chelsea Town Hall. Please see below for more details. You should be receiving information from your pastor at church this Sunday and by email.

What I want to talk about right now is understanding why he is coming. I think it is good to ask ourselves that question, and take our time to prepare the heart and mind so that we can connect to our international church president and his wife. Firstly, let us think of what it means for them to come here together. They have several children, and for any parents that is surely a big step, to have to leave them in the care of others, as they visit different continents. Let us not take that for granted.

Hyung Jin nim and the Dalai Lama (click to enlarge)

The next thought that comes to me is that I can already grasp a strong sense of what Hyung Jin Nim’s message is by watching his sermons online, or reading them when Bruno emails them through to me. So what does it add by him coming here? Of course, importantly, it allows him to see where we are, and maybe a bit how we are. But also they are coming representing True Parents and all that that signifies.

Hyung Jin Nim and Yeon Ah Nim are constantly developing their life as disciples to the returning Christ. That is something I believe we all grapple with in our different circumstances in our daily life of faith: ‘I believe, but I often don’t know how to practice.’ So when someone is able to demonstrate a practical vision, in their own life, of how to live with sincere devotion, it can help us enormously.

Being a host:

Being able to host them also allows us to develop a different type of relationship. Recently when visiting members of my congregation in their homes in the evening I am always struck by how special it is to meet like that. How meaningful it is for us to host each other in our homes rather than just meet in meetings or at events. When we are in someone’s home we share an intimate moment/part of their life, because our homes are like the little universe that we create. We pretend less when we are at home. Hyung Jin Nim’s visit to our nation allows him to visit our home – the place where we live, and of course while he is here he will also visit ‘a’ home of one of our family members.

True Father never really stopped inviting us in to his home, but it’s not quite the same when it is hundreds and thousands of people. Father’s hope is that we will adopt that culture of heart, that he pioneered, where people are connected to God’s heart through our hospitality and service.

The heart of a sincere host is that they prepare well, and so I hope we can all prepare a willing and open heart for our visitors at the end of this month. It is not a show, he is not a celebrity, or someone who will solve our problems for us. Rather the give and take that we all have together while they are here can bring a lot of blessing from God if we take the time to pray and reflect about ‘why are they coming.?’ These are just a few of my thoughts, so if you have any good realisations please feel free to post them below. If we want to find meaning it often helps to ask ‘why?’

In 43LG we are offering morning prayers and study at 5am everyday so if you live in London feel free to join us sometime. There is one brother who comes each morning by night bus. We also are doing a 21 day prayer condition every evening that you are welcome to join. But why not get together with some friends in your community, in your home, and pray, or study together over the next week – preparation and a thoughtful heart is a big part of any successful offering.

Here are some practical details:

There will be a meeting where Hyung Jin Nim  will meet and speak to all UK members and children 10 and over.

Venue : Chelsea Old Town Hall, Kings Road, London SW3 5EE
Date and time : Monday 30th August at 10:30 for 11:00am

click map to enlarge

Immediately after his speech, there will be an opportunity to take family photos with Hyung Jin Nim and Yeon Ah Nim. This will need to be organised very smoothly so parents should quickly, after the speech, gather their children together. Immediately after their photo is taken, we encourage families to leave the hall.

Unfortunately it will not be possible to bring younger children to the event due to lack of space, so please try to arrange for care in your community to    allow as many as possible to attend the speech.

The talk will last about 2 hours and the photo sessions should be over by 3:00pm.

In order to cover the costs of this visit there will be a small fee for all those attending. Please pay this to your Pastor and receive an entry ticket from them.
Adults – 18 and over              £10.00
Young people aged 10 -17    £5.00

Call Simon Rosselli for tickets!

Balloon Race for LG Facade

In the afternoon after the Hyung Jin Nim has spoken to members we will be holding a Grand Balloon race. Some balloons travel to France and Holland. It is a great event and all proceeds will be going to support the façade at Lancaster Gate. As you know this is going to cost in the region of £150,000 and we aim to borrow around £100,000, so we need to look at raising another £50,000 ourselves.

Already bills have started to come in as we have had to appoint a project manager who will liaise with the council, health & safety and the conservation officer as well as sending the project out to tender and to see it through from start to finish. At present we have had bills in excess of several thousand pounds, in order to hire a platform lift so the façade could be inspected and paint samples taken. The paint is then analyzed in order to find how best to get it off and what paint needs to be put back on. Once we have the results we can then send the project out for tender. Being already August and by the time the quotes have come back in, in reality work will probably start in the spring next year. (Paint and other work can’t take place if the temperature drops below a certain level).

Our first fundraising event will be the balloon race after Hyung Jin Nims speech. Each ticket is £2.50 or five tickets for £10. The winners will be the balloons that go the furthest.

We have three marble vases for the winners (kindly donated by Alec Herzer) and are hoping to ask Hyung Jin Nim to sign something (for the overall winner – although this can’t be guaranteed) and it may be possible for him to release the balloons with Yeon Ah Nim. We are also hoping to source other prizes.

Ticket £2.50 – Five tickets for £10

All you need to do is put your name and address on the bottom of the card. Please don’t tear it off, we will do that at HQ. If you have any spare tickets please also hand them back into HQ as they cost money and it takes a lot of time to put labels and numbers on each ticket.

If you run out of tickets please call Simon Rosselli on 0208 516 8276 for more.

Please hand them back to your regional representative as soon as possible so we can get them processed. It makes it very difficult if I get them all back on the day. Better odds than the lottery but you have to be in it to win it!!!!

One question we get asked is “Is it environmentally friendly?”

All our balloons are made from latex which is a natural product and breaks down at the same rate as an oak leaf. We do not use foil balloons and we do not use string, or use plastic valves when attaching to the balloon.

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]

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)

Come and have some fun - and learn a bit too!

The children’s Summer Camp for 2010 will be held at Cleeve House from Tuesday July 27^th to Monday August 2^nd.

Details and the application form are available HERE.

Please return completed forms by post to:

Chris Le Bas, 17 Jubilee Close, Pinner HA5 3TB

or contact Chris

I want to inform you about plans that are being made to continue with the upgrading and restoring of our national headquarters in Lancaster Gate, West London.

A lot of changes have taken place here in the last 9 months or so. We have been in the process of making it once again a spiritually active community centre where people can find it easy to connect to God and True Parents. We now have a regular congregation that meets here every Sunday and we are edging towards a regular attendance of 100. We plan in September to start holding two services every Sunday.

As you may know, for a variety of reasons the front façade has been allowed to get into a state of serious disrepair over the last 25 years or so and has reached a point where immediate action is needed. Since last year the finance committee agreed to start taking £6000 per month out of the income that No.44 provides through rentals, in order to start budgeting for the upkeep of our building. The reality is that so far that money has gone to pay off old debts where significant progress has been made.

Since the beginning of March our LG community church congregation has taken ownership by starting with the internal restoration of our building. They set a goal of £21,000 and have so far raised more than two thirds of that total. As a result they have redecorated the ballroom, created a new reception area to welcome members and guests, and are now continuing to make progress on beautifying the inside of the building.

I am sure many of you never get the chance to visit our HQ, and if you live outside London its daily relevance in your life is probably small. However, it does represent something very meaningful for our community. It was purchased with money that was raised by our early members, and has for decades represented the public face of our True Parents and Unificationists in the UK. It has an incredible potential to become a genuine community centre that can help to demonstrate the power of our True Parents message for this era we live in.

Our trustees and finance committee want to avoid the sale of other business assets for purposes other than business investment, and so the decision has been made to borrow two thirds of the cost and fund-raise an extra £50,000 to make up the final third. The loan will be serviceable due to our finance committee’s budget planning and careful approach to spending. But I want to put it to you that as a community we can raise the other £50,000.

This is not a direction that is being put on you but a request that has to be conveyed through a culture of heart. If you were blessed or matched by True Parents in LG, if you worked or grew up there in the past when Father was staying here or at any other time, or if you are able to connect to the vision of making LG a genuine flagship in the heart of our nation’s capital for True Parents message, then I want to encourage you to do your best to support through making a donation and or helping to raise funds towards a goal of £50,000.

If 250 families or members were able to donate £200 each we would reach our target. This building belongs to you and your descendants as part of our Unificationist heritage. Here in HQ we are committed to making it a place that plays a part in fulfilling the needs of our religious community and ultimately making it a place that can contribute to our wider British society in a way that True Parents would like to see.

I believe that if enough us catch the vision and don’t feel afraid of the size of the goal then we can reach it quickly and with ease. I know that some of us have donated over the years a lot of funds for various projects which are often what we could call on the world level. This one is in that respect  a bit more local.

We aim to start the restoration of the façade in June and finish before autumn sets in. If you can feel connected in heart please join in with this effort and be part of the change. I will send you an update very shortly to show you the developments we have made recently in LG.

Here are some different ways to donate:

• Donate via PayPal on the right —>
• Make a cheque out to FFWPU and post it to 43, Lancaster Gate, W2 3NA
• Make a donation through your online banking and/or create a standing order: (a/c name: FFWPU, sort code: 16 00 82, a/c no. 10017942)

God bless you,

Simon Cooper

Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, President

click to enlarge

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Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Above are the graphs for the year so far. Whilst they tell some of the picture they don’t tell all of it. Below are some of the main points so far.

1)      We’ve paid off about £30,000 worth of debt in February. This was from monies that were due in last year but due to timings came in this year.

2)      We are due to pay off about another £12,000 of debt in June.

3)      We’ve managed to sort out a legal situation on the farm, which has taken over one year to resolve. It has meant many trips down to the farm for numerous meetings and has cost us about £6,000 in legal fees, but basically in 2013 we will be in dominion of our own land/property again.

4)      We are trying to sort out another legal situation in LG, again with a sitting tenant. They are claiming sitting tenancy rights (a right to live in the property for as long as they wish for a very much reduced rent) due to the time first moved into LG as missionaries. We have tried to sort it out for over three years in a peaceful and amicable way however all correspondence (from anyone) dealing with this matter have been completely ignored. We are now having to go down a legal route but this so far has cost £3,700 and counting.

5)      So far this year we have an income deficit of £6,783. A large part of this was spent on renewals in the LG flats, especially on one flat which hadn’t been touched for over 6yrs.

6)      We currently expect to have a cash flow surplus for our national finances of £28,000 in 2010 at the end of the year but this doesn’t take into account the following two points:

1a) Matthew Huish was due to go to Germany for STF and a new Youth Ministry Director was going to be needed to replace him. This post was advertised and interviews carried out. Two of the candidates were asked to take up the responsibility and work together: Patrick Hanna and Sung Jong Che.

We now have more than 500 2nd generation Unificationists between the ages of 12 and 25 and there was a strong case put to have both these two applicants working full time together on continuing to build a successful youth ministry. In one sense it’s an investment in our future and if we don’t invest in them who will? In addition things for Matthew have now changed and he is no longer going to Germany and instead will take up a new responsibility in the UK to develop an outreach department.

Basically these developments will mean an extra £12,000 of outgoings to HQ expenses (very good value when you consider it’s a 24/7 job) however this will effect our budgets. It was felt that the 2^nd generation are our future and we need to support them as much as possible when they put themselves forward in a public and professional manner.

2a) The façade at LG has now reached a point of no return. We were hoping to wait one more year before tackling it, but because of the very severe winter it has made the situation much worse, to the point that bits are falling off it and we almost had a serious incident a few weeks ago. Unfortunately it’s not only the façade, the chimneys are also in a very bad shape and in addition some underpinning needs to be done at the back. A ball park figure for this is going to be in the region of £150,000 but until we get scaffolding up and see first hand how things really are we don’t really know.

This is money we simply do not have. We are now looking at borrowing £100,000 from a bank over a loan period of seven years. We will do our very best to raise another £50,000 internally and from other sources. (see Simon’s letter) We could have borrowed more money over a longer period but it was felt we don’t want to be leaving debts and loans to future generations. At present we don’t know how much this will cost as we are still in negotiations with the bank but this will also have an effect on our end of year budgets.

If you have any questions about any of the above or anything else please feel free to contact me at energy1@btconnect.com

God Bless – Simon Rosselli

On behalf of the finance committee