ZANT May 2013 Newsletter 1

www.zant.org

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.

May 2013

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Upcoming Events 2

Upcoming Events, Past Events 3

Past Events 4

Past Events, Angels in the Back-ground, ZANT News 5

Kid’s Corner 6

Treasurer’s Corner, Miscellane-ous, ZANT Pledge Form 7

ZANT Membership Form 8

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

05/03 through 05/05: FEZANA

AGM

05/04: ZANT 2nd. Anniversary Cel-

ebration

05/12: Children’s Religious

Class and Vohu Manah Group

meeting

05/12: Children’s Arts & Craft

Class

05/25: Graduation and Ghambar

06/09: Vohu Manah Group

meeting

06/09: Children’s Arts & Craft

Class

06/30: ZLC Event

07/07: Jashan-e-Tirgan

7/14: Vohu Manah Group

meeting

07/14: Children’s Arts & Craft

Class

07/18: Kadmi New Year

07/28: ZLC Event

MESSAGE FROM THE ZANT BOARD

Our membership is substantially down this year. Membership dues are the funds that we use to pay for our various events like pot-luck ghambars, Mehergan, Jashan-e-Sadeh, Muktad prayers, religious classes, graduation ceremonies, educational events, etc. Our dues are $50 per adult which is approximately $1per week or $4 per month. We are requesting our Zoroastrian friends to show their support by becoming members. The membership form is attached to this newsletter.

With the blessings of Ahura Mazda, this May we commemorate two years of our ZANT Center building’s inauguration. During this time wehave been able to utilize this wonderful place for prayers, social gatherings, religious festivals, meet-ings, classes and other functions. We have also rented the space for personal events and generated some income for the Center. Many thanks to all of you in the community who have made monetary contributions

through ZOMF or otherwise and to those of you who have unfailingly volunteered to help with repairs, installations, decorations, grounds maintenance and cleaning whenever needed. Without your help and dedication, we would never have been able to achieve this. As mem-bers of ZANT, we should all be proud to call the Zoroastrian Center of North Texas OUR OWN. Let us continue with the zeal and ardor that has been shown in these two years to keep our Center operating for a long, long time. Congratula-tions to all who have made it come to pass. THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

This year ZANT also has the honor to host the FEZANA AGM during our Anniversary

celebrations. We welcome FEZANA dele-gates to Dallas-Fort Worth and particularly to our Center. We hope the delegates have a fruitful meeting. Please enjoy our Texas hospitality and a memorable stay in our great city.

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ZANT May 2013 Newsletter 2

UPCOMING EVENTS

ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION & FAIR

Saturday May 4, 2013 at 6:30 p.m.

Program:

Tandarosti Prayers, welcome to FEZANA guests, food, fun and entertainment for all!

Come and enjoy chicken biryani, chelo kebabs, aash, dhansak, shrimp pulao, tandoori chicken, khoresh, vin-

daloo sandwiches, pizza, chaat, rus malai, ice cream, falooda, tres leches cake, and many more delicious

dishes…

Take home baklavas, batasas, bhakras, pickles and achaars, cakes, cookies and other

surprises!

Bounce house for kids!!

Games and fun for the young at heart!

Remember to bring cash for this ZANT Fundraiser.

Special this year – Early Bird Discount!

Send your check for $ 50 and receive 60 $1-coupons to be redeemed at the Fair. Check must be sent to

the ZANT Treasurer, 1605 Lopo Road, Flower Mound, TX 75028 and received by April 27, 2013. This

amount is non-refundable.

VOHU MANAH GROUP

Date: Sunday, May 12, 2013

Time: 1:30 p.m. Place: ZANT Center

Topic: Why bad health happens to good people - A

Gathic response

Presenter: Mr. Firdosh Mehta

This talk is based on some stanzas of the Gathas and the Yasna, that of knowing the nature of Ahura Mazda and

relating it to what happens to us and around us.

The talk is not about any medical treatment or faith heal-

ing or medical miracles for the believer. But Mr. Mehta

will develop an analysis of the medical complexities that occur in an individual’s life, and how one can garner in-

ner strength to face these health challenges. Based on

Asho Zarathusthra’s Divine Message of the role of Ahura

Mazda in such occurrences, an individual can benefit in

facing and surviving such challenges.

A corollary thought that will also be presented is the na-

ture and role of those individuals who work in the life-

saving, pharmaceutical, medical and care-giving industries

from a Gathic perspective.

For more information please contact Anahita Sidhwa.

ZANT May 2013 Newsletter 3

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

ZLC will be manning the Take-Away booth and a game booth at the upcoming

ZANT Anniversary Fair. If you have not signed up to help out please contact Mary Tengra to

do so. Also, please donate items to sell at the Take-Away booth.

The month of May is a very busy time for many of us. ZLC wants everyone to enjoy time

with family and friends during graduations, end of school parties and the Memorial Day

Weekend. ZLC will see you in June under the leadership of Rakhshandeh Dhalla.

FEZANA ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

The 26th. FEZANA Annual General Meeting will be hosted by ZANT from May 3 to May 5, 2013. Delegates will be

staying at the Hyatt Place Hotel in Grapevine, where meetings will take place Friday, Saturday and Sunday. ZANT

members will have opportunities to meet with the out-of-town guests. On Friday evening ZANT will host a home-cooked dinner for FEZANA delegates. ZANT members and non-members are welcome to attend. There is a nominal

fee of $5 for ZANT members and $7 for non-members, ages 5 and older.

Please RSVP with Dilnawaz Rustomji by Friday, April 26, 2013 if attending the dinner. Please send your check, made

out to ZANT with FEZANA AGM dinner in the memo line, to the ZANT Treasurer by the above date.

For more information on the FEZANA meeting, please contact Sherazade Mehta.

UPCOMING EVENTS (CONTINUED)

ANNUAL GRADUATION CEREMONY AND

GHAMBAR

Date: Saturday, May 25, 2013

Time: 6:00 p.m.

Place: ZANT Center

Coordinators: DelnaGodiwalla and Saghar Beh-

roozi

Please join us in celebrating and acknowledging our

High School and University Graduates for the year

2013.We will start the evening with the Atash Ni-

yaesh prayer at 6:15, followed by the Graduation cer-

emony. A Gahambar celebration, which will consist

of a potluck dinner and a few fun activities will fol-

low. ZANT will provide drinks and dessert, so all

those attending should please bring an entrée of your

choice to share. However, the Event Coordinators

and the Board would be happy to welcome any com-

munity member(s) who would like to sponsor the

Ghambar portion of the evening. If you are interested

in this sponsorship, please feel free to contact Delna

Godiwalla or the Board by May 5, 2013 and pro-

vide details regarding dinner arrangements for the

evening. Delna and Saghar will be happy to assist

you in any way.

***Parents and graduates, please note that the

deadline for turning in the names of graduates to

be acknowleded is May 10, 2013. Please email the

graduate’s full names and their

institutions to DelnaGodiwalla.

We look forward to a great even-

ing.***

CHILDREN & YOUTH SEWING & ART/CRAFT CLASS

We will meet at the ZANT Center on Sunday, May 12, 2013 at 1:30 p.m. For details regarding this

class, please contact Dilnawaz Rustomji.

ZANT May 2013 Newsletter 4

ZANT NAUROZ CELEBRATION

“NOURUZ 2013 is a wrap!” - a message from Your Event Directors, Ruth-

Dinaz Sarkari and Sherry Raghani:

We hope everyone enjoyed the evening. They say it takes a village to raise a child and we say it takes

all of ZANT to make NouRuz happen! We are delighted that so many of you attended ZANT’s

NouRuz 2013 event and we thank you for being there.

We had a crowd of 200+ members, children,

guests and out-of-towners. We had the most gor-

geous Haftseen table ever, thanks to Parvaneh

Khosravi – now that was a 100% crowd pleaser!!

We tried some different things/different angles

and overall we hope a good time was had by all.

Our children performed a beautiful dance choreo-

graphed by Nancy Yazdani. Also, Farook Ra-

ghani graciously volunteered to take free family

photos of our members.

We are very grateful to the ZANT Board, our

members and the many individuals and families

who helped in many different ways, big and small.

We would also like to thank several members,

who came forward to have their children partici-

pate, help with donations and provide their exper-

tise, time, guidance, assistance, insight and en-

couragement to make this event possible!

Here’s to an even larger and more spectacular

NouRuz 2014!! We hope more of the ZANT

Community steps up to the plate to take charge

and handle a large event such as this! No doubt

this has been a great experience for us!

The ZANT Board and community sincerely

thank Sherry Raghani and Ruth-Dinaz Sarkari,

our event directors, for their dedication, the

hours spent planning and setting it up and all

the efforts made to put together this largest an-

nual event for ZANT.

Photographs courtesy of Farook Raghani

PAST EVENTS

ZANT May 2013 Newsletter 5

PAST EVENTS (CONTINUED)

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

For our March charity project ZLC made and donated 82 cloth bags to the Ci-

marron Living Center in Lewisville. Thank you to all the ZLC Ladies - Shahin Samia, Chris-

tina Mistry, Anahita Sidhwa, Keshvar Buhariwala, Saghar Behroozi, Afsaneh Samiya, Darys

Irani, Mohnaz Karkaria, Ruth Dinaz Sarkari, Sherry Raghani, Rakshandeh Dhalla, Dilnawaz

Rustomji, Neenaaz Dilucci, and Naazneen Johnson - who made this happen. Many meetings

were devoted to this project and several members worked on this project at home. This pro-

ject could not have been done without everyone’s help.

We delivered the bags to the Center on March 26. Tthe director and residents were very excit-

ed to receive them and expressed their thanks to us with hugs and gratitude. ZLC will be al-

so working with them in March 2014. We are collecting new socks and other items yet to be

determined. Your thoughts on this are welcome.

CHILDREN & YOUTH SEWING & ART/CRAFT CLASS

Spring is officially here, and we wanted to welcome the warm weather with a homemade

picket fence welcome sign. We painted the popsicle sticks, cut out the flower petals and

stems, and glued everything together for the cutest flower patch that can be hung up at

the front door to put a smile on every visitor's face.

Photograph courtesy of Niloufer Bustani

COMMUNITY SERVICES SUBCOMMITTEE

ANNOUNCEMENT

If you have seniors at home who would like a so-

cial phone call on a weekly basis, please email

Nina Kalianiwala. We have volunteers who

speak Farsi or Gujrati in addition to

English.

Angels in the BackgroundAngels in the Background Each month Pearl Balsara, Nina Kalianivala and Sherazade Mehta have taken up the task of edu-

cating our children, youth and teens in our religion, culture and history. These three ladies have

been providing this wonderful service selflessly for several years. On behalf of the ZANT commu-

nity we would like to thank them wholeheartedly and mention that we greatly appreciate their time

and effort to imbue this knowledge in our kids. You are indeed our Angels in the Background!

ZANT ENTERTAINMENT COMMITTEE

An Entertainment Committee is being formed to help

out with entertainment, including organizing dances,

shows, skits and other events, for future ZANT func-

tions. This Committee will be there to help Event

Directors who may need help from the community.

If you are interested, please contact Neenaaz DiLuc-

ci or Pearl Balsara.

ZANT NEWS

ZANT May 2013 Newsletter 6

KID’S CORNER

A Mother….

When you’re a child

She walks before you,

To set an example.

When you’re a teenager

She walks behind you

To be there should you need her.

When you’re an adult

She walks beside you

So that as two friends you can enjoy life

together…

Source : Internet (Author Unknown)

Religious Class:

At our April Religious class, our little ones had a fun time. With our second anniversary celebrations coming up, they worked on their contribu-tion to this grand effort. Yes, the

little children are fundraising! They created beautiful greeting cards that we are going to sell at the anniversary celebration on May 4th. We are hoping that they get sold out and we will be ready to accept orders for more! We look

forward to seeing all of you there.

Continuing with our Religious Class Theme of “Zoroastrian celebrations”, our middle-age

group had a Power-point presentation about Khordad Sal and Zarthost-No-Diso . They

learnt that:

Khordad Sal is

the Birthday of our Prophet Zara-

thushtra

the sixth day of the New Year

They also studied celebrations today vs. in ancient Iran and heard a short story

about Zarathushtra’s life.

Zarthost-No-Diso is the

death anniversary of our Prophet

Zarathushtra

eleventh day of the 10th month

A short story about Zarathushtra’s death

was also narrated. On this day our Prophet is honored by remembering his life & work through lectures & discussions. Jashan-

prayers are also held.

We ended our class watching a short video of “Also Sprach Zarathushtra” (Thus Spoke Zar-

thushtra)

This month our teen group was privileged to have guest speaker, Anahita Sidhwa, present

"The Numbers of the ZANT Center.” Anahita Aunty explained the monthly cost to run the ZANT center, and what the ZANT community

brings in through donations, mem-berships, etc. She also asked the teens what they would like to see the ZANT Center have, how they could help and their thoughts in general. The hour held interesting discussions, ideas and suggestions by the teen group. This finally led to the teens volunteering for the up-coming ZANT Anniversary celebra-

tions. Thank you Anahita Aunty!

Children’s Religious Class:

Our next religious class will be held on Sunday,

May 12, 2013 at 11:30 a.m.

Our Firdosh uncle (Mehta) is going to talk to the

ZANT kids about the “Cyrus Cylinder”.

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 Reli-

gious Class.

For further details about the Religious Classes,

please contact Pearl P. Balsara.

(Kid’s Corner logo courtesy of Zoroastrian Studies, India)

ZANT May 2013 Newsletter 7

We welcome our new annual members (checks received through 04/15/2013):

Zal Bahadurji

Kurush Dehunagara

Farzin Dinyarian

Hormuzd Karkaria

Monaz Karkaria

Aspy Mistry

Roda Mistry

Afsaneh Samiya

Manouchehr Samiya

Sohrab C. Sohrab

Bomi Zarolia

Current membership for 2012-2013:

Life Membership 42

Annual Membership 122

Honorary Members 7

171

TREASURER’S CORNER (CONTINUED)

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.

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS

Jamshed Rivetna, our current ZANT President, is leaving the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

His departure will leave the position of ZANT PRESIDENT vacant starting in June

2013. We also still have the position of ZANT SOCIAL DIRECTOR open too. The

Board would like interested persons in our community to step up and volunteer for these

two very important positions in our organization. Interested persons, per our bylaws,

should be Zoroastrians and have been a member of ZANT for at least one year prior to

seeking the nominations. Please let any of the Board members know if you would like to

volunteer for either one of these positions. Thank you.

MISCELLANEOUS

ZANT May 2013 Newsletter 8