ZANT NEWSZANT NEWS - zantorg.files.wordpress.com · ZANT NEWSZANT NEWS We ... Ardeshir Godrej, Homi Bhabha and Nani Palkhi-walla. Since many of them were born in Navsari city,

ZANT February 2013 Newsletter 1

www.zant.org February 2013

A Publication of Zoroastrian Association of North Texas

ZANT NEWSZANT NEWS

We welcome and encourage feedback from our community. For comments or suggestions please call the Board mem-bers, fill in the “Contact Us” section on our website (www.zant.org) or mail them to ZANT, 1605 Lopo Road, Flower Mound,TX 75028.

INSIDE THIS ISSUE Upcoming Events 2

Upcoming Events 3

Angels in the Background, Past Events 4

Past Events, ZANT News, Treas-urer’s Corner 5

Kid’s Corner 6

Miscellaneous Items 7

ZANT Pledge form 8

NouRoz 2013 Celebration Form 9

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

President Jamshed Rivetna

Vice President Farshad Bidanjiri

Treasurer Neenaaz Dilucci

Secretary Ardeshir Mistry

Social Director

Director Dilnawaz Rustomji

Director Naazneen Johnson

ZANT EVENTS & CALENDAR

02/10: Children’s Religious

Class and Vohu Manah Group

meeting

02/10: Children’s Arts & Craft

Class

02/24: ZLC Event



meeting


Class

03/16 & 03/17: Gahanbar Pan-

jeh

03/23: NouRuz celebration and

dinner



meeting


Class

04/28: ZLC Event

MESSAGE FROM THE ZANT BOARD

ZANT HAS A NEW VICE PRESIDENT!

At the ZANT General Body Meeting held on January 19, 2013 our

members approved the nomination of Mr. Farshad Bidanjiri as the

Vice President of ZANT.

Farshad was born and raised in Tehran, Iran. After

completing his Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engi-

neering, he moved to Texas about six years ago. He

is attending the University of Texas at Arlington to

pursue an M.S. degree in computer science. He is

currently also working as a Lenovo/ASUS Engineer

at Wistron.

We look forward to working with him during our current term and

thank him for accepting this position. Please welcome Farshad as

our newest member!

We still have a vacancy for the Social Director. Any takers please?


UPCOMING EVENTS

Get ready for a GRAND celebration with our ZANT com-

munity and guests for NouRuz 2013!

We invite all of you to come celebrate NouRuz on Saturday,

March 23rd 2013 at the DoubleTree by Hilton - Dallas

Campbell Centre, off the Caruth Haven exit on I-75. Our

program includes performances by our ZANT children, a

Magic Show by professional Magician, Kendal Kane,

Amoo NouRuz and a LIVE BAND - Jukebox Heroes!

You’ll enjoy a unique blend of magic and music with an en-

tertaining combination of theater, art, and audience participa-

tion in the “Night Magic” show! The Band will keep us

entertained with popular music through the genres as well as our most popular Indian and Iranian tunes. We

have done our utmost best to keep the cost down so all our members can come together and enjoy the evening

program with a delectable sit-down, plated dinner and then dance the night away!

Please see the flyer and form on the last page for more detailed information & registration. The performance

segment will start promptly at 7 p.m.. Other things to note please:

* There will be assigned seating, based on the order in which registrations are received. Family and

friends wishing to dine together MUST SUBMIT all forms/names/payments in one envelope - maxi-

mum of ten people to a table. If you prefer to not sit close to the band, check mark the box on the

form. This will also be on a first-come-first-served basis.

* There will be separate tables for children and teens. Let us know if your child wishes to sit with friends.

* Forms and payments MUST BE POST MARKED by Monday, March 11th 2013 to avoid late charg-

es.

* Preference for a vegetarian menu should be indicated when registering.

* Children between 4 and 9 years get the Kid’s Menu ($19) un-

less you wish them to have the Adult Menu in which case you

register them at the adult rate ($32).

For our Out of Town Guests, a special room rate of $89/night

has been contracted with the DoubleTree for Friday/Saturday

nights. Please reference the “ZANT” event and date when booking.

Farook Raghani has graciously offered to take family photos of our members free of

charge at the event . Details will be available in next month’s newsletter.

ZANT will look for a sponsor for any ZANT member interested in attending our NouRuz function but has

financial challenges. Please contact any Board member ASAP if you would like to be a sponsor OR require

assistance. As always, international students who are ZANT members will be sponsored by a generous mem-

ber if registered before the due date. All recipients will remain anonymous. We will do our utmost best to

accommodate all requests but it is helpful if you register in a timely manner, pretty please. Join us in cele-

brating NouRuz 2013!

Questions - please contact Ruth-Dinaz Sarkari or Sherry Raghani.

NouRuz 2013 Celebration! Date: Saturday, March 23, 2013

Time: 6:30 p.m. - 12:00 a.m.

Place: Double Tree by Hilton, Dallas -

Campbell Center, 8250 North Central

Expressway, Dallas TX 75206

Phone: 214-691-8700


UPCOMING EVENTS (CONTINUED)

VOHU MANAH GROUP

Date: Sunday February 10, 2013

Time: 1:30 p.m.

Place: ZANT Center

Topic: "Apru Navsari " - Our Navsari - Video excerpts produced by PARZOR

Last month, Ervad Poras spoke about many significant figures in Parsi history like Jamshedji Jijibhoy, Jamshedji

Tata, Dadabhai Naoroji, Pherozeshaw Mehta, Bhikaiji Cama, Ardeshir Godrej, Homi Bhabha and Nani Palkhi-

walla. Since many of them were born in Navsari city, there has been a recent movement called Parzor to document and

protect historically significant sites in Navsari. The video to be seen in February will show many interesting fea-

tures related to our discussions last month. Please join us, the only requirement is your curiosity and interest! For

more information please contact Anahita Sidhwa.

Navsari Atash Behram

Photo from

the internet

CHILDREN & YOUTH SEWING & ART/

CRAFT CLASS


Time: 1:30 p.m.

Place: ZANT Center

Please contact Dilnawaz Rustomji for infor-mation on this class.

FEZANA ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

ZANT is hosting the 26th. FEZANA Annual General

Meeting (AGM) from Friday, May 3 to Sunday, May 5,

2013. Delegates will be staying at the Hyatt Place Hotel in Grapevine, where meet-

ings will take place Friday, Saturday and Sunday. ZANT members will have many

opportunities to meet with the out-of-town guests. ZANT members are also wel-

come to attend the AGM as observers. If you would like to attend or volunteer to

help please email or phone Sherazade Mehta.

ZANT CENTER SECOND ANNIVERSARY CELE-

BRATION

The ZANT Center continues to make the transition from

bricks and mortar to the heart and soul of our Zoroastrian

Community in North Texas. With religious classes that

begin with the tranquil prayer of the Atash Nyaish, to cele-

brations that mark the changing seasons, as our ancestors

have celebrated them over the millennia, our Center has

come to life over the past year and a half! There have been

many firsts at the Center, but one that we would like to

continue, due to its unbridled success last year, is the An-

niversary Celebration. So we invite our ZANT Family to

mark their calendars, for Saturday, May 4, 2013, for

our ZANT Center's Second Anniversary Celebra-

tion. What a wonderful outpouring we had last year to

commemorate our first year and this year plans to be even

better. We will keep you informed of all the details as

they get finalized. The Anniversary Event planners are

Keshvar Buhariwalla, Delnaaz Irani, Nina Kalianivala,

Kashmira Mistry and Anahita Sidhwa. Please con-

tact any of them with your ideas and suggestions as we

want you to help us make it bigger and better. Since we

are also hosting the FEZANA AGM that weekend, the An-

niversary Celebration will be an opportunity to showcase

our community and we look forward to having many vol-

unteers! Thank you for your support.

Z L C - “The ZANT Ladies Club” Caring, Sharing, Daring – Living Life to the fullest!


Time: 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Place: ZANT Center

Calling all BUNCO players - not sure how to play? Don't worry, after two minutes of instruc-

tions you will be an expert player. Bring $5 to play and your sense of fun. You may bring a

friend too - the more the merrier! Tea and cookies will be served after our BUNCO game.

Come see the bags we have made that will be donated to Cimarron Living Center in March.

ZLC Coordinators: Mary Tengra & Rakshi Dhalla

SPECIAL ZANT

AGM

Some issues were left

over from the January

ZANT Annual Gen-

eral Meeting. These

will be addressed in a

special AGM on Sat-

urday, April, 27,

2013 at 2:00 p.m. at

the Center.


PAST EVENTS

Angels in the BackgroundAngels in the Background As most of you know the ZANT Center can be accessed using key cards which members can purchase for the

calendar year by paying a small fee to ZANT. Key cards are also provided as a benefit to members who con-

tribute towards the ZOMF Fund annually. With so many key cards around (and we hope more of you will be

interested in purchasing them), someone has to coordinate them. Since the Center opened, Arbez Patel has

volunteered to handle the key card update and distribution. She maintains a list of who holds which key card

and updates it whenever needed. Abbey, we really appreciate your help in organizing this and thank you for

your time and effort. You are indeed our Angel in the Background!

YALDA CELEBRATION

The Yalda celebration on Saturday, December 22nd began

with a pot luck dinner. Stivant Cama, the MC and sound

technician, started the program with a history of Yalda.

Nina Kalianiwalla started the recitation portion with poet-

ry by Rumi, Kabir Das, Wordsworth, Dickinson and

Birbal's story. Neenaaz Dilucci read a poem and a story

written by her daughter, while Saghar Behroozi recited

poems by the renown Iranian poets, Rudaki, Ferdowsi,

Hafez, Sa’di, Khayam and Moulavi. Rostam Bidanjiry

read Moulavi’s “Moses and the Shepherd.” Saghar Beh-

roozi , helped by Khshaeta and Mithra Cama, made the

audience play “Chak-e Dooleh,” a traditional fortune tell-

ing game using Hafez’s poems. Stivant and Tishtrya

Cama and Rohan Dorabshaw, acted out a skit based on

the book “Kelileh and Demneh.” Mahnoush Riahi

played two beautiful traditional Iranian songs on her

“daaf.” Kamran and Autusa Behroozi sang an Iranian

folk song and Serena and Cyrus Sarkari along with Fero-

na Bustani and Zahira Raghani closed this part of the

program with poems and songs.

After enjoying refreshing fruits, the program concluded

with Mobed Poras Balsara conducting prayers in the

Prayer Room. Several ZANT families spent the night at

the center playing games and creating beautiful art work.

They stayed up till sunrise to welcome the sun.

We thank all the religious class students who made beauti-

ful Yalda cards that were displayed during the event. All

donations of canned food went to the Bethlehem Place in

Prosper. We extend our appreciation to all who contribut-

ed towards this project. Finally, a special thanks to those

who participated in this celebration and helped make the

night a very special event.

Phot

ogra

phs

cour

tesy

of D

ilw

anaz

Rus

tom

ji

ZANT TEEN GROUP MEETING

Eleven good friends got together to mark the start of the holiday season. Following a crazy game of Apples to Apples,

we feasted on pizza. There was a gift exchange set to the story of "The Right family Christmas", where everyone had

to move either to the right or the left as the story progressed. This was accomplished with

much laughter and some dizziness. Opening some of the crazy gifts was a lot of fun. We all

then got together to make chocolate chip cookies, which were eagerly devoured. Suggested

by the girls, we then watched a James Bond movie! Hey....could have been "Gossip

Girls" (shudder). Hope everyone had a great time.

Thank you Arbez, Hoshang and Zayne Patel for hosting this event and making it such fun. Photograph courtesy of Arbez Patel


PAST EVENTS (CONTINUED)

CHILDREN & YOUTH SEWING & ART /CRAFT CLASS

We made map coasters using foam board and some old maps. The kids cut out the maps to size and glued

them on the foam core base. They added another layer of mod-podge for a sealed-in finish. This is a great

way to use maps you pick up at your favorite destinations. You can also find inexpensive cork coasters and

use those with the same idea to make a set as a gift.

ZANT NEWS

VOLUNTEERING AS EVENT DIRECTORS

Ladies and gentlemen, we appreciate the spirit of vol-

unteerism that so many of you have shown by becom-

ing Event Directors during the year 2012-2013 and

hosting our events. Our slate of current event directors

ends in May and we would like you to help us again by

signing up to host events during the upcoming year,

2013-2014. You can host an event by yourself or work

with friends as event co-directors. Please look over the

calendar of events (sent with last month’s newsletter)

and sign up to host one or more of them. You can let us

know your choice of event(s) by emailing Naazneen

Johnson. We appreciate your time and effort to host

such events and anticipate many of you signing up like

you did this year. Thank you once again.

CONGRATULATIONS

The ZANT community would like to congratulate Sohrab C. Sohrab on the completion of

his M.A. degree in South Asian Area Studies. Sohrab obtained his degree from the SOAS

University of London in the United Kingdom where he has been studying for the past

year. This is a great achievement for one of our members and we wish him all the best in

his future endeavors.

We welcome our new annual members (checks received through 1/15/2013):

Khorsand Bondari

Barbara Bondari

Bradley Bondari

Brian Bondari

Nozer Dhalla

Rakshandeh Dhalla

Nowzar Dinyarian

Ronnie Irani

Shahnaaz Irani

Anita Jamadar

Rhoda Jamadar

Kambiz Kaboli

Mahshid Kaboli

Mahervan Karbhari

Naaman Karbhari

Rajesh Madeka

Mehroo Madeka

Kavas Mistry

Kashmira Mistry

Daraius Mistry

Christina Mistry

Tahmuras Namiranian

Parivash Namiranian

Jamshed Rivetna

Tamara Rivetna

Current membership for

2012-2013:

Life Membership 42

Annual Membership 70

Honorary Members 7

119

TREASURER’S CORNER

ZANT’S MAILING ADDRESS

ZANT still receives some mail at our now defunct P.O. box re-sulting in delays. Soon the mail won’t be redirected to our physi-cal address. When communicating with ZANT, please use the

following address to ensure prompt delivery: ZANT,

1605 Lopo Road, Flower Mound, TX 75028. Thanks.


Lesson of time

Religious Class

At our January class, our little ones discussed Jashan - e- Sadeh traditions. The kids heard the story of

King Hushang and his men and their discovery of fire. We now know that children gather twigs to make a

bonfire during this celebration to commemorate this very significant event. Let's feed the fire and make it

glow!

Continuing with our Religious Class Theme of “Zoroastrian celebrations”, our middle-age group had a Pow-

er Point presentation about the Name-Day Feasts and Chahar-Shanbeh-Suri. They learnt …..

11 Name Day Feasts—Day and month have the same name.

11 Divinities have a day and month dedicated to them

Names of the 11 Feasts and their significance

Meaning of Chahar-Shanbeh-Suri

When it is celebrated

How it is celebrated

Its Significance

Celebration in Ancient Iran vs. celebration today

We ended our class watching a video of “Chahar-Shanbeh-Suri” celebrations in modern day Iran.

Our teen group did not have a class in January.

Children’s Religious Class

Our next religious class will be held on Sunday, February 10, 2013 at 11:30 a.m.

Please be at the ZANT Center by 11 a.m. so we can have the prayers and Tandarosti for kids in the

Prayer Room at 11:15 a.m. before the Religious Class.

For further details about the Religious Classes, please contact Pearl P. Balsara.

(Kid’s Corner logo courtesy of Zo-

roastrian Studies, India)

KID’S CORNER

When a bird is alive...It eats ants.

When the bird is dead...Ants eat the bird.

Time and circumstances can change at any time.

Don’t devalue or hurt anyone in life.

You may be powerful today,

But remember…

Time is more powerful than you!

One tree makes a million matchsticks…

Only one matchstick is needed to burn a million trees!

So Be Good & Do Good, ALWAYS!

Source : An E-mail from a friend


MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS

RECEIVED FROM THE ZOROASTRIAN ASSOCIATION OF HOUSTON

ZOROASTRIAN YOUTH OF NORTH AMERICA (ZYNA) ANNOUNCEMENT ZYNA is pleased to an-nounce its Young Profes-sionals Norouz Retreat from March 1 through March 3, 2013 in New York City. Join us, in the BIG APPLE, for a celebration filled with festivities, friendship and fellowship. This will be a social retreat for professionals (ages 25-45) who want to network. The new generation of

Zoroastrians will be able to strengthen friendships and connect with like-minded professionals who live and work by the core beliefs of our religion. ZYNA is on a mission to give profession-als the opportunity to con-nect, share ideas, re-sources, thoughts and op-portunities. Our vision is to cultivate a professional community of young Zoro-astrians that is focused on building relationships and working together to learn, grow and make a difference in the world we live in.

Professionals from North America, and possibly even abroad, will come together to connect. Regardless of your professional ties, you will be surrounded by like-minded people who do not just want to fit into this world, but shape what it can be. ZYNA is commit-ted to establishing FEZA-NA’s legacy by preserva-tion through generations!

For information please go to www.fezana.org.

“The CYRUS CYLINDER and Ancient Persia - A new beginning”

The Cyrus Cylinder, a symbol of tolerance and respect, was inscribed in cuneiform on the orders of King Cyrus the Great (559-530 BC) after he captured Babylon in 539 BC. It is often referred to as the first bill of human rights and appears to encourage freedom of worship throughout the Persian Empire and to allow deported people to return to their homelands. It was first found in 1879 and has been on display at the British Museum ever since. A replica is also on display at the United Nations. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is one of the few museums in the US where this artifact will be displayed along with other objects from ancient Persia. The exhibit runs from May 3 through June 14, 2013. For more information please go to www.mfah.org.

Photo from the Internet


Keep this stub Please detach and return this side Accept my contribution of: for your records. with your contribution payable to: “ZANT" and mail to: ( ) $10 ( ) $20 ( ) $30 ( ) $40 ( ) $50 ( ) $_____ To: ZANT ZANT Treasurer 1605 Lopo Road For: Check # Flower Mound, Texas 75028

Date ( ) General Fund ( ) Building Fund

Amount $ ( ) ZOMF ( ) Other_______

FROM:____________________________________

“Without a sense of caring, there can be no sense of community.” Help us pass on the Good Religion to future generations.


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ZANT NEWSZANT NEWS - zantorg.files.wordpress.com · ZANT NEWSZANT NEWS We ... Ardeshir Godrej, Homi Bhabha and Nani Palkhi-walla. Since many of them were born in Navsari city,