INFORMATION ABOUT STATISTICS ON HOME VISITS
FROM THE GEORGE TOWN BAHA’I GROUP(REG.)
(21 October 2007 to 21 April 2009)
Preamble:
After 18 months(10/07 to 4/09) of discussing, defining and redefining the term Home Visits(HV) at our Bahá'í Group(Reg.) level, as well as collecting data for the statistician of the northern cluster of Tasmania; after discussing the concept of HVs at Cluster Reflection Meetings(CRMs); after reading about the concept in various print sources; and after receiving various messages and letters from the institutions of the Cause in relation to HVs, the George Town Baha’i Group(GTBG) has summarized its experience and its views in the following outline. This summary provides the definitional base for its provision of monthly statistics on HVs. When appropriate the GTBG forwards this summary to other individuals, groups and institutions of the Bahá'í Faith for their use and reference.
1. Definition:
1.1 For statistical purposes the GTBG defined a HV on 15 November 2007, one month after the concept was first introduced and was first required in the statistics of the Baha’i Council for Tasmania, as: “a visit to anyone’s home, Baha’i or non-Baha’i, with some degree of regularity with the intention of teaching and/or deepening.”
The National Spiritual Assembly Baha'is of Canada at its 9 March 2006 Institutional Meeting made the following point about HVs, a point which has influenced the definition which the GTBG has run with in the first 18 months of gathering statistics(10/07 to 4/09): “The pattern of HVs signifies a return to human relationships that are free of the kind of estrangement that has become characteristic of our western culture, particularly in urban centres.....it includes regular home visits to Bahá'ís and seekers. These HVs will tell us how successful we have been in overcoming hesitations in teaching the Cause.
Our Bahá'í Group came to define a HV as an opportunity to enter into a conversation on spiritual matters. It has been our experience now, after some 18 months of engaging in HVs, that when the visit is clearly just a social call in which: (a) the Faith is not even mentioned and (b) there is no real engagement with the person in any serious/intimate conversation, then that visit does not come into the category HV.
There is a type of educational process, a type of dialogue, in which the Bahá'í teacher is clearly building a path to a direct discussion of the Cause and a path he or she has followed before if they are experienced Bahá’ís. This path gives shape to the individual and collective activities that come under the rubric HV.
On 18 January 2008 during the consultative part of the Feast of the GTBG and after further discussion with the statistician for our cluster, the full membership of the GTBG discussed the definition and application of the term HV that had been in use for the first three months of gathering statistics, 10/07-1/08. After this discussion it was decided that:
1.2 If a Baha’i visits the home of another Baha’i with the intention of discussing the Cause, such a visit could be considered a HV. It would be up to the individual who makes the visit to consider such a visit a HV. Ron and Chris, for example, might consider such a visit to be a HV, but Simon and Narda would not consider any of their visits to Baha’is or non-Bahá’ís, relatives or friends HVs because they do not visit people “with the intention of teaching or deepening.” It is, rather, their intention to visit with the simple aims of: (a) furthering an already existing friendship or (b) taking part in some aspect of family life.
N& S have 6 children, 14 grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren. There are at least 10 homes in this consanguineal family. The homes of the affinal families, that is families by marriage: (a) the homes of their married children's spouses’ parents and (b) the homes of their married children’s spouses’ brothers and sisters--consist of an additional 10 homes. This makes a total of 20 homes in all these family members. There are a minimum of four visits to: (i) the homes of all these family members and (ii) to the homes of friends of their family every 30 days. But none of any of these visits in any of these homes, family and non-family, are to be considered HVs.
1.3 If Ron and Chris both visit the same home at the same time with the intention of teaching and/or deepening, then only one HV is recorded for statistical purposes. Chris has 3 children and these constitute three possible homes to visit. Chris has a brother with two children, a sister with two children and a mother for a total of an additional 7 separate homes. Chris, then, has a total of 10 possible homes in her consanguineal family to include in HVs. Visits to these homes are always included as HVs.
1.4 Chats over the back fence, when on walks, in town when putting up posters or during casual meetings at a wide variety of other places are not to be considered HVs. They can be called, if a term is indeed necessary: (a) back fence visits, (b) deli visits, (c) garage visits or (d) any one of a number of terms for the several locations for visits/chats/meetings—again, all in the hope that these visits would turn into serious discussions about the Cause. None of these people in these venues, as of 21/4/09 could be termed, “serious seekers,” at least not as presently perceived.
1.5 HVs do not include those occasions when others visit one’s own home whether those others are: (a) Bahá’ís, (b) those seriously interested in the Cause or (c) anyone else. It goes without saying that, if the visit to one’s home is by someone for business, for personal or as part of a friendship in which no serious interest in the Cause exists, then that visit is not a HV.
2. Implementation:
2.1 By June 2008 there was an average of 9 HVs per 30 day period by members of the GTBG; by October, one year after the introduction of the term HV, this average had arisen to 11, by January 2009 the average was 12 and by April 2009 it looked like 14 would become the average. Chris visited 3 family members as well as 3 non-family members and Ron visited 8 non-family members every 30 day period by 21/4/09. Unless the statistical report indicates otherwise, this is the present statistic and the definition for HVs after eighteen months of defining and redefining the term and collecting data.
2.2After the visit to the GTBG by the delegate to the National Convention for the northern cluster, Edward Broomhall, and his report-back on 5 June 2008; after reading the half-page summary on HVs in the National Convention booklet; after reviewing the concept of HVs at a number of internet sites from Baha’i communities and after reading the emails from various Baha’i institutions around the world received by the end of BE165(21/4/09), it was clear that: (a) the literature on HVs puts the stress on visits to fellow believers and/or serious seekers as the group of people who are the beneficiaries at the core of the HV concept but (b) there was some latitude in the definition of what constituted a HV, a latitude the GTBG utilized in its application of the definition of the term HV.
2.3 All of the homes and people visited thusfar were not initially serious seekers and still are not in this category. It was obviously the hope that some of these people would become “serious seekers.” We want to emphasize as of 21/4/09 that: (a) there is no one in this category and (b) there are as many as four in this category—depending on how one defines “serious seeker.”
2.4 It is left to the Bahá’ís outside the GTBG locality who come to the home of a member of the GTBG to include that visit in their HV record. The GTBG assumes no responsibility for contributing formally to the statistical records of other Baha’i communities in the HV category.
2.5 The HV program of the GTBG has developed some interesting facets in the first 18 months of its operation: 10/07-4/09. The GTBG reported in Issue No 2(July 2008) of The Northern Cluster Newsletter that the GTBG had an average of nine HVs per statistical period. The HVs to any one home are in various months, but they have averaged various numbers of HVs for any one statistical period by 21/4/09.
2.5.1 Three HVs are with various people Ron has got to know during his walks: an old Dutch couple in their eighties, a single man who lives at Low Head and a man with bipolar disorder. One HV has resulted from his putting up posters: a business couple with whom Ron has long chats once a month in their home at the back of their shop. He also has several long chats each month with people in shops, businesses and government agencies where he goes to put up posters. One visit he calls “a deli visit” because the man he visited owns a deli and he (a) knew Michael Curtotti a mainland Bahá’í and (b) engages in lengthy chats with Ron about religion. In addition Ron visits a local poet and one of his former colleagues at the university who lives in George Town.
2.5.2 Three HVs take place at an aged care facility, Ainslie House, where Ron visits old men in their rooms. These relationships have developed as a result of Ron leading a singalong once a month with his guitar. The aim of all these HVs is to: (a) foster friendship and (b) discuss the Cause insofar as that is possible and in varying degrees of depth in each of these exchanges. None of these people want to come to a devotional meeting or a study circle, but friendships are being slowly fostered as is knowledge of the Faith. There are “no hard and fast rules” regarding the methods of teaching in which one engages and this note, this tone which the House of Justice strikes, animates much of the practice, method, style and content of the teaching that takes place in these HVs.
2.5.3 The HVs are but one element of what the GTBG sees as “a coherent pattern of action” in a campaign in which HVs relate to “other activities being undertaken” in George Town: devotional meetings, advertising, a display, joining and taking part in local groups, developing friendships. Again, the GTGB sees “no hard and fast rules” regarding the methods of teaching in which it engages.
Concluding Comment on Home Visits::
The GTBG trusts the above is a useful commentary on the subject of HVs for the period ending 21 April 2009, the 60% point in the current Five Year Plan, 2006-2011, the Plan when the term HV was first introduced. This summary is a revision, an update, on the GTBG’s application of the term HV from its previous statement on the subject on 21 November 2008, the end of the first year(10/07-11/08 circa) of statistical collection. It is the GTBG’s intention of updating this statement in the months and the years ahead as further discussion takes place at the individual, the group and the LSA levels as well as the cluster, the regional, the national and the international Baha’i community levels.
The GTBG
Ron Price, Secretary
For: 21/4/’09.
No of Words: 1900