We suffered a great loss when our much-loved President Rabbi Albert Friedlander died on 8th July last year. It was never going to be easy to find the right person to follow him. We are, however, delighted that Dr. Indarjit Singh OBE has accepted our invitation to serve as President in his place.

We were also very sad to lose the services of our Administrator, Mrs. Trudie Charles, following the death of her Toc H colleague Peter Ellis on 1st May 2004. At our Annual General Meeting, which was held on 16th March 2005 at the London Inter Faith Centre, 125 Salusbury Road, London N6, we were pleased to welcome Mrs. Lesley Daisley as our new Administrator.

Lesley is the Centre Manager at the London Inter Faith Centre, and that is the address to which orders for leaflets, booklets and posters are now to be sent.

The meeting was also pleased to learn that five supporters have agreed to be new Sponsors. These persons are: Rabbi Janet Burden; Bhai Sahib Bhai Mohinder Singh, Chairman of the Guru Nanak Nishkam Sewak Jadha, Handsworth, Birminghaim Denise Moll, Secretary of the Gandhi Foundation; Mrs. Anne Noonan of the Roman Catholic Committee for Other Faiths; and Nina Shrewsbury, a member of the Baha'i Community,
who is active in furthering the Week of Prayer in her home city of Chichester.

At the AUM, Mr. Om Parkash Sharma was re-elected as Chair. The Revd. Megumi Hirota was re-elected as Vice-Chair, and Mr. Norman Taylor was re-elected Hon. Treasurer. I was re-elected Secretary. Other members elected to the committee were Sister Regina Baumgart BK, Ervad Rusi Bhedwar, Mrs. Maggie Brizzi, The Revd. Fergus Capie, Mrs. Sarah Dunning, The Revd. Professor Dr. Roger Grainger, Sheikh Nisar Abmed Hussain-Sulaimani, Mrs. Joyce Meadows, Ms. Cannel Momen, Dr. M.N. Nandakumara, Imam Mohammad Alimad Ovaisi, Mr. Martyn Payne, Mr. Sidney Shipton and Mr. Param Sandhu.

Those committee members who were unable to be present on 16th March are asked to note the dates agreed for meetings in the coming year - 15th June 2005, 21st September 2005, 16th November 2005, 18th January 2006 and 22nd March 2006. All Sponsors are asked to note that the 2006 Annual General Meeting will be on 22nd March, and will begin at a new time - 12.30 p.m., with the meeting of the committee following immediately after it. We hope that the new time will prove more convenient for Sponsors than the time of 11 a.m. which we have had up to now.

The Chairman reported on the two inter faith gatherings of prayer for peace which had been held in 2004. The first of these was the service of Evening Prayer at Westminster Abbey on 17th October, marking the 3Oth anniversary of the inauguration of the Week of Prayer for World Peace in Westminster Abbey on 19th October 1974. The second gathering was held on 24th October at the Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha, Havelock Road, Southall. This event was also in celebration of the four hundredth anniversary of the first opening of the Guru Granth Sahib. Our thanks were expressed to the Dean of
Westminster, the Very Revd.Dr. Wesley Carr; our preacher at the Abbey, the Revd. Marcus Braybrooke, President of the World Congress of Faiths; President Himmat Singh Sohi of the Southall Gurdwara, and those who translated the readings from the faiths into Punjabi.

The dates of the Week of Prayer for World Peace 2005 are 23rd to 30th October. The inter faith gathering will be held on Sunday 23rd October at 3 p.m. at the London Fo Guang Temple, 84 Margaret Street, near Oxford Circus, by the kind hospitality of the Venerable Abbess Man Jang and her community. We are grateful to our Vice-Chair, the Revd. Megumi Hirota, for introducing us to this temple.

While acknowledging that editorial responsibility for the prayer leaflet rests with the Executive Committee, the Chairman expressed his thanks to the principal compiler, Professor Roger Grainger, for his work in finding and arranging suitable items for inclusion.

Professor Grainger is planning to produce a book containing items from the past seven yeats leaflets, with all royalties going to the Week of Prayer for World Peace. The Executive has given formal consideration to this generous offer, and accepted it with warm thanks. The Chairman expressed everybody's thanks to our Treasurer Mr. Norman Taylor, to Mrs. Joyce Meadows for her advice on design and layout, to Mr. Martyn Payne for his work on the schools leaflet, to Sister Regina for her help in arranging the annual prayer gathering, to Carmel Momen and Maggie Brizzi for their work as Minute Secretaries, to Philip Austin of the Northern Friends Peace Board for maintaining our web site at minimal expense, and to me.

Donations towards the cost of this newsletter may be sent to our Treasurer Mr. Norman Taylor, 98 Merewood Road, Bexleyheath DA7 6PQ. Other correspondence should be sent to me. Secretary WPWP, 1 The Bungalow, Bremilham Road, Malmesbury SN 16 ODQ Tel. 01666 825249

SIDNEY HINKES