Faith societies

Hi my name is Porter and I’ll be speaking on behalf of the St Andrews Buddhist Meditation Group

The Buddhist Meditation Group is co-facilitated by Victor who's a postgrad student and Sam who is the University's Buddhist Chaplain and we're open to anyone at the University with an interest in Buddhist meditation.

We meet on a weekly basis and our meetings consist of a meditation which is guided by Sam and an open group discussion in which we talk about a different Buddhist text every week.

I’d like to emphasize that our group is really open to anyone at any stage of interest in Buddhism or Buddhist practice, Buddhist meditation so it's a great place to come maybe if you have an interest in Buddhism and want to learn more about it see what the meditations are like or equally let's say if you have a background in Buddhism and have been meditating on your own or learning about Buddhism on your own for a while and are just looking for people with whom to discuss and meditate in a group setting.

But altogether it's a great place to come no matter what if you want to develop an engagement with Buddhist practise alongside others.

Depending on what the situation looks like in St Andrews at the time of the terms beginning we will be meeting either virtually on Teams or in person, but whatever the case our meetings will continue on a weekly basis.

Beyond that I’d just like to say a very warm welcome to St Andrews and that I hope you enjoy your time here very much. I also welcome you to get in touch with Victor if you have any questions about the group or Sam if you have any concerns related to Buddhist practice both of whom have their contact information posted on the Chaplaincy website and that's also where you can find a link to our website for the society where there will be more information posted about our weekly schedule coming up to term time.

So thanks a lot and hope to see you there.

Hi, my name is David, and I will be the President of the University of St Andrews Catholic Society for the upcoming academic year.

The Catholic society exists first and foremost to promote the Catholic faith at the University.

We aim to help facilitate a true encounter with the risen Lord, his love, and his mercy, so that students and staff alike can come to know the joy that flows from our relationship with him.

At the Catholic Society, we are blessed and privileged to have intimate links with both the Catholic Chaplaincy of Canmore run by the Archdiocese and the local parish of St James's headed by our Chaplain, Father Michael John Galbraith.

in this supportive and nurturing environment, we have so many ways to develop our spiritual lives, such as daily mass, frequent vespers and compline, weekly adoration, regular confession, and recitation of the rosary.

Students can look forward to seeping themselves in the sacramental life, which is such a gift and beauty here in St Andrews.

To complement such wonderful liturgy, we have a whole host of ways for students to enrich and deepen their faith.

Whether they are exploring it for the first time, or whether they were baptized long ago.

Weekly, Father Michael John holds a faith inquiry group for those who are interested in being received into the Church.

In addition, Dr Rebecca Lamb has continued in her generosity to host a reading group here in our Chaplaincy.

This year, we will be examining the work and wisdom of Pope Saint John Paul II and I hope to see lots of you there.

Further to being a place to enrich and enliven your faith, the Catholic Society is home to a lively social scene.

On a weekly basis you can expect events such as our Wednesday lecture series, given by renowned and engaging catholic voices from across the country, as well as our Sunday suppers for which we dress up, sit down, and enjoy a hearty meal prepared by members of the society, according to some chosen theme.

Throughout the year, we host a wide range of entertaining events from wine and cheese soirees, to beach bonfires, talent shows, hikes, quizzes, ceilidh dances, and so much more.

Beyond the bubble of St Andrews, we support the work of the archdiocese and organise pilgrimages, which in the past have attended plus cardinality in the Scottish Highlands, but have traveled as far across as Rome.

We are blessed abundantly at the Catholic Society to have access to the chaplaincy building which is located here on The Scores opposite St James's Chapel.

it really is a home from home for many students, and it's facilities are open to all seven days a week.

It's a fantastic place to forge lifelong friends, pour yourself a cuppa, or put in a study shift at the library.

I'm so grateful for the gifts that we have received through Canmore and I know that whatever time you spend here will be happy and joyful.

In the meantime if you have any questions queries or concerns about anything at all you can reach out to us via our social media or by emailing cathsoc@st-andrews.ac.uk.

We regularly update our social media pages so keep your eyes peeled for any news.

I wish you a joyful and peaceful summer and i hope and pray that we will meet one another soon.

God bless.

We are a group of students who believe we have something very important to share.

We’re a team reaching out to every student in St Andrews.

We are people whose lives have been transformed by Jesus and we want to introduce others to him

We come from a range of different church backgrounds and experiences.

Together we give every student in St Andrews a chance to hear and to respond to the good news of Jesus Christ.

We are the St Andrews University Christian Union.

We host a variety of events each semester giving people the opportunity to be Christians, to investigate the core claims of Jesus and to really just consider whether they want to pursue a relationship with Jesus themselves. As well as this we host weekly meetings for members, where we have the opportunity to gather together and pray, to be encouraged and equipped to continue sharing our faith with fellow students at St Andrews.

And we would love to hear from you, whether you’re a Christian, or you’ve never thought about Christianity before, or you’re anywhere else in-between. You can find our events on all of our social media, these include free lunch bars, open mic nights, an annual ball among other things and even hopefully in the not so distant future a ceilidh. At these events students tell stories of faith, we invite speakers along to discuss important topics and answer questions. Or if you just want to meet for a cup of coffee, we would love to get to know you and hear your thoughts. We’ll be sharing all the different ways you can get involved on our Instagram and on our Facebook, so please do get in touch we are so excited to meet you.

Hi, my name is Katie Scarbeck and I'm the convener and Christian Union representative
for the Interfaith Steering Group, or ISG, at St. Andrews.
The Interfaith Steering Group is made up of representatives appointed by each of the faith
societies at St. Andrews, as well as the university's Director of Wellbeing, one of our Students
Union officers.
Throughout this year, the Interfaith Steering Group has met every two weeks to discuss matters
about our faith groups and plan and organize events.
Typically, the events we run center around a certain topic and explore the topic from
different religious perspectives.
We have tried in the past to incorporate interactive elements as well.
For example, this year we ran an event we called Planting for the Planet, during which
different faith group representatives gave short talks about their religion or belief
system's approach to nature.
Following the talks, everyone present was given the opportunity to plant flowers in
one of our local parks.
We also host St. Andrews' annual Holocaust Memorial Peer Walk, which is run as a collaboration
between all faith societies in St. Andrews.
This year, we incorporated a new event at St. Andrews in memory of the victims of the
Holocaust, hosting an eight-hour-long public, continual name reading of victims' names
in St. Salvator's quad.
As everyone who attended will attest, the vigil was very moving and a touching tribute.
The Interfaith Steering Group is not an open society, so we can't accept new members.
But if you are interested in getting involved, contact the committee or any of the faith
societies that you might be involved in, and they can let you know whether they're in
need of a representative.
Usually representatives are members of the committee, but not always, so don't worry
if you're not a committee member or if you're a new student.
You might still be able to get involved.
Thanks for watching, and we look forward to meeting you at the ISG.
Bye!

Hey, I'm Gregor, I’m one of the Co-Presidents of Just Love in St Andrews.

We're a group of Christian students looking to act as a community in our little town and in northeast Fife and seek Jesus and the justice that we see in the bible and I’d love to share a little bit of the vision about what we do and why we do it. Then I'm gonna pass on to a couple of other folk in our group who'll explain a little bit more about the practicalities of what we do.

So the big vision is we wanna see every Christian student in St Andrews pursue the biblical call of social justice and that's a big jargon statement but basically, it means loving our neighbours, loving those who are more poor than us, loving the destitute and loving the orphaned. And we do that in various different ways but simply we're a group of Christians with a good community and we're just trying to help those around us in need.

Hey, I'm Kirsten and the local coordinator for this year so I organise the local volunteering opportunities that we have. We go on walks with older people and befriend them, we organise food bank collections for Storehouse, so we really try to get involved right where we are for as long as we are here and we'd really love you to join us there and give your time, give your money and give whatever you are able to. Yeah, it's just a practical way to love on those that are in our town.

Hi, I'm Emily, I'm the personal and prayer coordinator for Just Love and I just want to tell you about a recent thing we've launched this year at Just Love which are called strands.

So strands are a way to get our scattered student community into smaller groups to meet together and to dig deeper into a justice issue that we really care about so this past semester we've been looking at inequalities, global issues, politics, the environment and local issues and we think this is a really important part of what we do at Just Love.

If you're heading to St Andrews in September we'd love to hear from you and you can get in touch with us on our we've got a Facebook, an Instagram, a Twitter and you can find us on www.justlovestandrews.com as well which is our new website. And we've got a really exciting semester planned. We'd love to get involved and be part of our community so feel free to shoot us a message or any of the three of us on Facebook as well. We'd love to see you there.

Hi, my name is Sarah Rafiq and I am the Muslim Student Association President for this year.

STAMSA is a society in which we create a welcoming friendly atmosphere which is open to all, enables you and allows you to practice your religion freely with like-minded individuals.

So most of our STAMSA events take place in the Chaplaincy, we have designated rooms for both brothers and sisters to pray and a bathroom toilet which you can use for wudu. We also hold our Friday jumu'ah prayers in the Chaplaincy as well.

This year things may be a little bit different, we may have to hold two congregation prayers but we're hoping come September we have more details about that.

In the meantime, in the week we tend to have discussion circles for both brothers and sisters as well. This is a place where we get a chance to sit down, reflect, share our opinions, these are very much open circle discussions everyone's allowed to pitch in, in fact, we encourage everyone to share their opinions.

Fortnightly we have our games night which has proven to be very popular, it's just a time to relax, wind down with fellow students and have a cup of tea and play some games.

In terms of annual events, we have charity week in which we aim to raise money for a worthy cause. We all get to come together during the bake sale, during the interfaith dinner, which we're hoping to hold this year as well, and raise money as a student society, as a student body together.

For first-year students for some of them, it's their first time away from home, so when we sort of cater to iftar in the Chaplaincy building it sort of bridges the gap between being away from home. I feel like for myself and everyone else is it's the time when we essentially bond with each other, we're breaking fast together, we're praying together and we're eating. Catering is done, well cooking the food, by students such as myself. So although it's hard work it's immensely rewarding at the same time.

This is just a short snippet of what goes on during STAMSA during the academic year.

I want to extend a warm welcome to everyone, we have social media; Facebook and Instagram, the details will be on the website. If you feel like you have any questions or would just like to comment, give suggestions, anything like that please feel free to message any of those platforms and we'll be sure to get back to you.

Now I’d just like to welcome you all and hopefully see you come September.