Dear ZANZ members and other friends,

On behalf of the ZANZ 2011 - 2013 Managing Committee, I would like to thank you for electing us and for all your support and good wishes.  We look forward to a great term of growth and fellowship in the New Zealand Zoroastrian Community.

The ZANZ Managing Committee consists of the following office bearers –

• Jarafshan Mistry - President

• Dilshad Shroff – Vice President

• Roshni Daruwalla – Treasurer

• Delzin Balsara – Secretary

• Anaheeta Sethna – Committee Member

Since the formation of our Association in 1996, the Zoroastrian community in Auckland has grown dramatically.  This Management Committee is committed to making sure that ZANZ remains responsive to the needs of our dynamic community and generating fellowship among community members.  Accordingly, we have identified three broad objectives that we will focus on.

Firstly, we want to ensure that we are reaching all Zoroastrian families in New Zealand.  With this in mind, we hope to address four groups:

1. Loyal members—to ensure that we continue to offer a rich social and religious experience so that we have full participation in our activities.

2. Lapsed members—we hope to reach out to former members and encourage them to become active in ZANZ again.

3. Other Zoroastrians—there are a number of families who have been in New Zealand for some time but haven't yet joined ZANZ. We hope to encourage all Zoroastrian individuals and families to become members and participate in our activities.

4. New immigrants—we want to identify and encourage all new Zoroastrian immigrants to join and participate in ZANZ activities. If you aware of new Zoroastrian migrants in your area, please advise us so that we may personally welcome them to our community here.

Secondly, with the growth of our community and Association, we want to ensure that the activities and functions we offer are responsive to the range of our membership.  We want to have activities that will appeal to kids, teens, young adults and seniors and are planning several age-specific activities and functions.  For example, we plan to continue the highly successful prayer class and to build on its strengths.  We are also planning on hosting senior citizens coffee mornings, several sports activities and activities for our youth.

If you have an idea for an activity that you think would have wide appeal, please let us know.  We hope we can count on you to support these activities by not only attending the events but also by volunteering to assist with them.

Lastly, we hope to increase ZANZ’s profile, both in New Zealand and overseas.  We will continue to liaise with Zoroastrian associations throughout the world in order to share religious information, community events and news. We will also continue to reach out to the wider community of New Zealand and its leadership in order to firmly establish the important role and contributions of Zoroastrians in New Zealand.  Through the ZANZ website and through notices in international Zoroastrian publications we will be a point of contact for Zoroastrians planning to come to New Zealand.

The ZANZ website will be updated regularly.  Please forward items of interest that you would like to share with the community to any member of the ZANZ Management Committee.  We especially want to showcase achievements of the Zoroastrians in New Zealand.

We look forward to an exciting period for ZANZ as we all work together to make our Association stronger, more vibrant and responsive.

Ushta Te

Jarafshan Mistry

ZANZ President, 2011 - 2013