1. The Civil Rights Movement was birthed out of the Church with the support of many faith based groups. That is why the organizations that form Black Hamilton are calling on faith based groups in Hamilton to join the “Rally in Support of our Black Community” in the face of longstanding systemic Anti-Black Racism in Canada: Sunday Oct 4, 2020 at 5 pm, Hamilton City Hall Forecourt. Organized by the Centre for Community Engaged Narrative Arts and the Ubuntu Music Collaborative.
2. The community-wide capital campaign for the Music Hall at New Vision is launching this Friday Sept 25 at 9:30 pm with the Do Well by Hamilton album launch. Come to New Vision’s launch watch party! You can join our Facebook watch party by following this link to New Vision’s facebook page. We’ll get the watch party happening around 9 pm for the 9:30 pm start. Get some snacks and a beverage and settle in virtually with me and others.
3. Sitarist and friend of New Vision Neeraj Prem was interviewed on CBC radio’s Fresh Air this past Sunday in celebration of the album launch and Hamilton’s deep music scene. Neeraj’s track from our Do Well By Hamilton is featured. You can listen to the segment and to the whole track here.
4. New Vision is partnering with Cobalt Connects to start the Music Hall social enterprise. New Vision’s primary role in the capital campaign is to build social capital through an intercultural consultation with Hamilton’s diverse communities. We hope the result will be a network of empowered people who have been marginalized to contribute to programming at the Music Hall at New Vision guided by a Music Hall social enterprise charter. You will be hearing more about this consultation in the weeks ahead as the fall gets going.
5. Finding ourselves in September during the novel coronavirus pandemic and looking to the times ahead, we are thinking now about how to accommodate ourselves to the new-normal post-the-pandemic-emergency. There are two themes that stand out for us. First, we need to make use of the stage three provisions on social gatherings to develop accessible options for those who are not able to join us on Zoom and yet could attend a hybrid worship service in person — provided carefully observed distancing and hygiene protocols are in place. Second, we need to exercise caution with respect to the possibility of a second wave of Covid-19 in the weeks and months ahead.
6. We are going to maintain our virtual worship gathering on Sundays as they are for the time being into the future. We will work in the weeks ahead on developing an accessibility option at 24 Main West in which those who cannot join our virtual worship gathering elsewhere can join the virtual gathering from 24 Main West. We will keep in place our phone network to share with such folks the distancing and hygiene protocols we will implement in a few weeks time.
7. At no time will we encourage people to attend an in-person gathering without giving them the resources to self-screen and to be fully informed of the safety and health measures we have in place for in-person gatherings.
8. New Vision Virtual Worship is experiential, participatory, image-rich and collective, just like worship in person at New Vision! Join us on Sunday mornings 10:30 am week to week during the Covid-19 emergency by clicking here. If you want to put the link someplace easy to find each week, here it is: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/782292511. Please share it with others and invite them to a “different” kind of time on Zoom from the usual.
9. You can also call in to the gathering on the telephone toll free. Call 1 855 703 8985, then, when prompted, input the Meeting ID 782 292 511 followed by the # sign. Ignore the prompts for Participant ID and Password. You are in when the recorded voice says, “You are in the meeting.” If you can only connect by video on your computer with no audio, you can use the phone connection for audio and the computer connection for visual.
10. For updates on New Vision plans in the post Covid-19 emergency recovery, please visit http://newvisionunited.org/new-vision-covid-19-updates/.
Hope to see you on Sunday ~ again, or for the first time!
Rev Ian