Over the weekend November 23-25, Malcolm Lake, a member of the Omagh Bahá'í Community, attended a residential weekend for men, 'Body, mind and spirit', at the Liverpool Bahá'í Centre, in Wavertree. He was one of ten participants, from several parts of Britain. Because of travel timings, he had to arrive a day early, on Thursday but—on the Friday—he was able to spend an enjoyable, sunny day in the centre of the city (Liverpool is to be 'European City of Culture, 2008'), visiting Liverpool Pierhead and Albert Dock.

The weekend event started on the Friday evening, when the content was discussed and participants were invited to talk of their 'hopes' and 'fears' for the two days to come.

For each day, the programme broadly followed the pattern of: optional morning prayers, breakfast, devotional, followed by three morning sessions, interspersed by a morning break, lunch, two more sessions in the afternoon, with a break in-between, evening meal and it concluded with an evening session.

Subjects for the sessions included 'a prayer workshop'; 'The Gazza Phenomenon - men and their emotions'; 'creative writing workshop'; 'healthy men – problems we don't admit to', presented by a GP who is a Bahá'í, a session on 'meditation' and several involving the psychological differences between the sexes.

A highlight of the weekend was 'Following in the footsteps of 'Abdu'l-Bahá', a tour of places visited by the Son of Bahá'u'lláh, who was in the city for just over two days, in 1912 when aged 68, on His way back from a year's tour of the US and Canada.

Said Malcolm, 'though my visit was brief, I really enjoyed it. Apparently, the weekend is a follow-up from an earlier unisex event that didn't attract nearly-enough males... I was told that this is to be followed by another event for females only, already fully-subscribed!'