Bath Inter Faith Group - chair’s full report 2025/2026

This report records the main activities and developments for the Bath Inter Faith Group from the 2025 to the 2026 AGM.

After some years of consolidation Bath Inter Faith Group trebled its membership during this year, added humanist and Rastafari members to its Executive Committee, developed its online presence, organised or participated actively in two dozen diverse and interesting events, researched faith organisations and leaders in Bath and engaged more strongly and directly with Bath Abbey, secular society in Bath and with the rapidly evolving national inter faith context.

Here is the chair’s full report.

William Heath
Chair, Bath IFG

Events during 2025/26

18 Feb 2025 we held our AGM and elected new officers.
12 March Narinder William and Aiham were guests of University of Bath Islamic students at their grand Iftar celebration
15 March Bath IFG guests celebrated spring and the eternal and divine love of the deities Radha and Krishna with Bath’s Hindus in a colourful Holi festival as guests of Bath’s Hindu community
19 March invited Bath IFG Officers celebrated Iftar at the Bath mosque with our patron Lord Lieutenant Mohammed Siddiq, as guests of Imam Mohammed and Bath’s Muslim community
8 May members held a second internal strategy day Shaping the Future of Bath IFG at the chapel of St Michael’s Within, hosted and facilitated by vice chair Jackie Wise.
29 May all were welcomed to share multiple faith perspectives in a discussion on Assisted Dying at an event Assisted Dying and End of Life with our MP Wera Hobhouse. Panel speakers were Buddhist chaplain Dr Jan Gentaku Mojsa, Roman Catholic RUH consultant John Bunni, Isabel Russo (humanist), and Imam Mohammed Gamal (Muslim). About 55 people attended and there were moving contributions from the floor. We achieved respectful “agonistic dialogue” on this deeply divisive topic, and the faith perspectives were well received by Wera Hobhouse MP.
7 June several Bath IFG members attended the inauguration of the new Mayor (and Bath IFG patron) Cllr Bharat Pankhania. Bath Abbey provided an inclusive and welcoming environment for the event, which had an address by the first-ever Bath Mayor’s humanist chaplain, Isabel Russo (a new Bath IFG member)
15 June we supported the first Bath Refugees Festival to which all were welcome. Held at Fairfield House this was organised by Sudafest with food, music and poetry and featuring refugees from Ukraine, Afghanistan, Sudan and elsewhere.
Sat 28 June Bath IFG guests joined the Hindu community to celebrate Rathyatra for Lord Jagannath
27 August we held a small Closed Conversation led by David Musgrave to start to explore how to talk about vexed and divisive events in Israel/Palestine, and what language and principles we apply in talking about it. We agreed a set of broad principles, and also agreed it is important this work is followed up.
3 Sept all were invited to a members’ social picnic at Roundhill Barn, Kelston, well attended with splendid views and a beautiful sunset.
14 Sept David Musgrave and Charles Hayward co-ordinated a walking pilgrimage as part of the Bathscape walking festival. A dozen walkers braved driving rain cheerfully, starting at the Al-Muzaffar Mosque and walking via Beckford’s Tower and Kelston Roundhill to end up at Fairfield House
Sun 19 Oct Bath IFG held Prayers for World Peace at St Michael’s Within with contributions from several faiths, led by Jacky Wise.
Mon 6 Oct our Patron the Mayor hosted Bath IFG in his Parlour. He invited faith perspectives on his theme Education as Empowerment from William Heath (Quaker), Charles Bleakley (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), Iris Segall (Judaism), Matt McCabe (Druid), Isabel Russo (Humanist), David Musgrave (Methodist) and Ras Benji (Rastafari and Ethiopian Orthodox)
31 Oct Bath IFG led a talk and panel discussion at BRLSI at the invitation of the Royal Commonwealth Society. William Heath spoke on The role of inter faith work in Bath, followed by a panel discussion with Martin Palmer, Isabel Russo, Imam Mohammed Gamal and Revd Heather Smith.

Inter Faith Week was Sun 9 - Sun 16 November 2025.
The theme was Community: Together We Serve

Mon 10 Nov Bath IFG played an active part in the Spirit of Peace interfaith event Finding Beauty in Community, with words, music and food at Christ Church, Julian Road
14 Nov we invited all comers to hear what the great Sufi Poets can teach us about facing the great challenges of our times, an experiential event with Peter Hawkins and musicians
23 Nov for the first time Bath IFG organised an activity for Mitzvah Day, a Jewish initiative which is the UK’s largest faith-based day of social action. Bath IFG organised a ceramics workshop in Bath Artists’ Studio in which participants created Srebrenica flowers
27 Jan 2026 Bath IFG co-organised Holocaust Memorial Day at the Guildhall with Bath & NE Somerset Council. The theme was Bridging the Generations. David Musgrave spoke for the Bath IFG and Iris Segall offered a personal perspective.
30 Jan Bath IFG supported Sudafest’s Sounds like Home - Palestine evening of poetry food and music at Fairfield House
1 Feb Bath IFG took part in the Mayor’s Multi Faith Event at Guildhall, with various faith perspectives further developing his theme Education is Empowerment.
3 March was the date for a first home discussion group, with a small group exploring the shadow side of our faith and religious traditions
5 March we had our first ever fun choir evening, led by world musician Su Hart
The 2026 AGM date was set for 11 March.

Bath IFG Exec

During 2025 we welcomed as new members and to the Exec Cttee

Ras Benji, our first Rastafari and Ethiopian Orthodox member. Benji is operations manager at Fairfield House.
Isabel Russo, our first humanist. During the year Isabel was appointed chaplain to the Mayor of Bath

We said goodbye and thank you to

Charles Hayward, Christian Scientist and
Jacky Wise, CofE Christian

Officers

At the Feb 2025 AGM chair David Musgrave and vice chair Charles Bleakley stepped down.

Members elected as new officers for 2025/26 William Heath (Quaker, chair) and Jacky Wise (CofE Christian, vice chair). Jane O’Hara (Baháʼí) continued in her role as Secretary and Iris Segall (Jewish) continued as Treasurer.

During the year Jacky Wise stepped down owing to work commitments. Narinder Tegally took over as vice chair. This is in addition to Narinder’s existing roles as lead chaplain at the RUH, inter faith adviser to the Diocese of Bath & Wells and Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Somerset.

Jane O’Hara stated her intention to step down at the 2026 AGM as Secretary after 15 years’ service. Iris Segall stated her intention to step down as Treasurer after eight years’ service.

Internal affairs

At our strategy day we adopted as vision:

The Bath Inter Faith Group (IFG) extends and celebrates friendship across a wide community of all faiths and diverse spiritualities. We respect, are curious and show understanding about each other’s differences and commonalities. We aim to be visible, reliable and authentic advocates for matters of conscience and faith.

After our “closed conversation” we adopted a broad set of principles (see web site). Recognising that our work is challenging and that feelings were easily bruised we explored, but did not conclude, a pastoral support mutual relationship with another inter faith group. We shared a Code of Conduct, drafted by Narinder Tegally.

Engaging with secular society in Bath

Recognising the need for Bath’s faith communities to be more meaningfully active in secular society we started to engage with key groups including:

B\&NES equalities, adult and child social services
Bath Quays development project (B\&NES with University of Bath)
National Trust Assembly Rooms (activity suspended during refurbishment)

William Heath now sits as Bath IFG chair on the Bath Future Ambition Board, a civic collaboration of the anchor institutions of Bath & NE Somerset set up in 2020 which aims to help address the major local socio-economic challenges.

Recognising the significance of Bath Abbey and its sacred place at the heart of our community we developed our relations with Bath Abbey. The Rector Guy Bridgewater joined Bath IFG, as did the new Missioner Betsy Blatchley. With the Rector retiring in October 2025 we engaged with Simeon’s Trustees (the historic charity which owns the right to appoint the Bath Abbey Rector) and with Bishop Michael of Bath & Wells to make the case for candidates who would continue the trend towards a more inclusive and welcoming culture at Bath Abbey.

Comms

A year ago an online search for “Bath Inter Faith Group” would lead to a Bath IFG Facebook page with 384 followers, also to our entry on the now defunct national Inter Faith Network web site. Facebook was at that time our only live online presence. But we recognised its growing shortcomings in terms of user privacy, misinformation and hate speech. We discussed other social media platforms but decided X/Twitter was toxic, and Instagram and TikTok insufficiently professional and serious in tone. We discussed the issues with using US-owned and based service providers.

Therefore during 2025

We created the Inter Faith Group’s first web site at BathIFG.org using the European Ionos service for domain, hosting and web tools. Online search for “Bath Inter Faith Group” now leads to our own web site.
We introduced a “join” page allowing for easier sign up for new members
Early in 2026 we replaced the Ionos web site with a “Mark2” web site written in MarkDown, developed with help of ChatGPT and hosted on Github. It offers cleaner, easier navigation and promises to be free to host long term. We still use Ionos for registration of the BathIFG.org.uk domain
We launched a BathIFG YouTube channel, and uploaded three videos
We created domain-based generic email addresses: chair@BathIFG.org, vicechair@BathIFG.org, secretary@BathIFG.org, treasurer@BathIFG.org, info@BathIFG.org. These can be transferred when Officers change

We still maintain the Facebook page. It has 445 followers and still gets some engagement. We started to use Eventbrite for event bookings.

We printed business cards to help with introductions and outreach.

We agreed to reviewed our historic logo at the 2026 AGM, conscious of the need for a logo which works well in various formats on line.

Statements issued by Bath IFG

During the year we made statements on the death of Pope Francis, the Yom Kippur killings in Crumpsall, Manchester, graffiti on the Jewish cemetery in Bath and the killings on Bondi Beach. We commiserated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) who in the same week lost their long-standing President and suffered a violent attack in the US. We congratulated Archbishop-designate Sarah Mullally on her appointment as the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury, and thanked Guy Bridgewater who retired as Rector of Bath Abbey. We wrote to Simeon’ Trustees, the charity which owns the right to appoint the next Rector.

We discussed the Met Police’s violent intrusion into the Friends’ Meeting House in Westminster and decided not to make a statement. We remained silent on many other faith-based travesties and injustices around the world.

We agreed it would be helpful to have a clearer policy to establish clarity about the basis on which we do or not issue statements.

“Act as a resource centre…”

Bath IFG has a stated aim to act as a resource-centre for information about local faith communities.

Historically this aim was an ambition to offer a physical location. Bath IFG would like to be faithful to this aim in a relevant and up to date manner. But until recently it has held very little information on faith organisations and leaders.

During 2025 we collaborated with Bath Spa University to conduct research which identified just over 100 faith organisations and leaders in and around Bath, with contact details. We were grateful for additional oversight from Revd Heather Smith of Christ Church.

We then emailed all the just over 100 contacts. Twenty eight confirmed they would be happy to hear from Bath IFG, which we interpret as taking an “inclusive” approach to inter faith matters. Three stated that they did not want to hear from Bath IFG, which we interpret as an “exclusive” position in inter faith terms. Around 70 did not reply; their position would need to be clarified before we could for example send them regular newsletters under data protection law.

Bath Spa University has indicated it would be happy to do more and deeper research into Bath’s faith landscape with Bath IFG, so that remains open to pursue further in 2026.

Members

In March 2025 Bath IFG had 27 Members
By Feb 2026 this had grown to 81 members. There are also 45 “friends” (who receive the mailings but have not signed up to the principles and are therefore not entitled to vote for Officers)

National context

Bath IFG is rightly focussed on Bath, but there is a changing national context to be aware of. The national Inter Faith Network for the UK (IFN) was dissolved Jan 2025 after withdrawal of government funding.

That same month David Musgrave and William Heath engaged in Bristol in a Faith and Belief Forum research process into the future of Inter Faith Week and nationally co-ordinated inter faith work. This resulted in a national report Bursting the Bubble which recommended that local inter faith groups “commit to being courageous, seeking to expand (or burst) the ‘interfaith bubble’, addressing difficult or controversial topics, and trialling new ways of working”

Matt McCabe and William Heath then participated in ASHA Faith in Society event which built on the Bursting the Bubble report and prepared the ground for future national inter-faith support. We co-signed on behalf of Bath IFG the statement of intent shared with HM Government after that conference.

On 27 Nov Narinder Tegally and William Heath attended a follow-up meeting on the future of national inter faith work, chaired by Canon Hilary Barber and hosted at the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is in London. This led to the creation of a national steering group, also a Sounding Board, on which the Bath IFG chair is invited to sit. That work is ongoing.

Meanwhile we reaffirmed the millennial act of commitment referenced in our Constitution, and highlighted the King’s Sept 2022 speech to faith leaders as providing a strong national context for inter faith work.

International context

Internationally we signed the Charter for Compassion and became part of the global, multi-faith movement founded by Karen Armstrong the Charter for Compassion, which advocates the “Golden Rule” and aims to restore compassion in religion, politics, and morality.

And we joined the United Religions Initiative (URI), a global grassroots interfaith network built on local “Co-operation Circles”. We’re still getting a feel for the benefits and the commitment of effort needed on our part.

William Heath
Feb 2026