Dear Members of the Y’s family
Rise up and respond to the challenge of love
CHRISTMAS is here again. How quickly a year has fled! One
would fain like Charles Lamb, lay a finger upon the spoke of the great wheel!
It is the feast of everyman – the feast when barriers break down that divide
man from man. Even if you don’t believe in Christ you can still celebrate
Christmas. It has come to be the season of goodwill
One of the joys of Christmas is that we take time off to
bring to mind all those whom we carry in our hearts and let them know they are
wanted and loved, that they mean much to us, that we wish them the fulfillment
of their deepest desires!
Christmas gives us, especially Y’s Men’s Clubs throughout
the world, a chance to lend a helping hand to those in need. Do we not need,
then, to rediscover anew the theme of Christmas and ask ourselves whether, when
we are anxious about a lot of things during Christmas, we are concerned about
the right things? Do we not need, as Y’s men and women, rise up and respond to
the challenge of love? The real way to keep Christmas is to honour Christmas in
our hearts and learn its lessons of love and kindness.
In the midst of our eating, drinking and revelry, do we not
need to look at the other side of Christmas? The voice of Christmas cries in
the wilderness.. Christmas calls for a change of heart, a turning away from
oneself to one's neighbour, and therefore to God. Christmas reminds us that in
the creative relationship there is God, man and always his neighbour — only in
such a co-operative partnership can we hope for a restructuring of the social
fabric which is permanent.
Looking back
Since
taking over as
International Service Director in charge of public relations, I have written
four monthly letters to all our international, area and regional leaders -
sharing my thoughts and vision for our Movement’s past, present and future. The
responses to them from various leaders have been encouraging and positive. They
have given me added strength and courage to move forward with reinforced
commitment to the ideals of Y’s Movement and take it to greater heights.
In order to achieve this goal I have coined a new slogan attract new
members. It is: THINK ‘Y’/Each
One/Reach One. I believe it will inspire Y’s Men throughout the world
to bring in new members to our clubs.
In the meantime, I have been nominated as a member of the Task Force
entrusted with the preparation of a Promotional Visual Presentation.
A PR Exercise
On 30 November Y’s Men International for the first time joined hands in Bangalore with another
voluntary organisation, the Bangalore Initiative for Religious Dialogue (BIRD)
in organising the 11th Rev. Dr. Stanley Samartha Memorial lecture. Rev.
Dr. Israel Selvanayagam, Professor, Gurukul
Theological College
and Research Institute who delivered the lecture on “ Commitment and Openness
in a Multi-faith Context”
It was an exercise initiated by the ISD-PR to promote Y’s Men’s image,
one of its kind in the long history of
our Movement. Several newspapers reported the event m their columns, especially
the widely read English dailies Deccan
Herald (circulation over quarter million with an estimated readership of
1.25 million) and Deccan Chronicle and the Malayala Manorama, the largest circulated
Malayalam news paper in India.
The well-known Christian fortnightly, People’s Reporter, published the excerpts from the lecture in a
one-page report. People’s Reporter is
read by highly respected Christian theologians, thinkers and writers world over
and is available in almost all the libraries of prestigious theological
colleges and seminaries everywhere in the Christian world.
The Catholic News letter
ucanews.com,
has published the full text of the lecture on 2
nd December 2012.
I propose to write to you again in the first week of the New Year. It’ll
be a long piece on how to attract new members to our clubs and retain them in
our fold.
In the meantime, a promotional visual presentation is being prepared
which will be sent to the members of the Task Force for approval.
I am
signing off for the moment. May your Christmas be a grace-filled one, with all the blessings
and the New Year full of happy surprises for you and for many, many through you!
Yours in the service of Y’sdom
K.C.SAMUEL
ISD-PR
