Barbados Reiki Association

The date for the International Reiki Gathering in Grenada has changed to September 16 to 19, 2010, one week in advance of previously announced date. Please update your diaries.

The Grenada Reiki Association will be hosting an International Reiki Gathering in Grenada from Thursday, 23 September to Sunday 26 September 2010 at the Grenada Grand Beach Resort. More details will follow.

We have just added three new albums to the Barbados Reiki Association’s Facebook page. The photo shown here is one of the most inspiring from the opening evening ceremony.

See the rest of the albums here.

If you have photos to share, upload them to our Facebook page or contact us for details on how to submit them to the site.

This is the text of the welcome speech delivered by Barbados Reiki Association President, Kathleen Hurley, for the 2009 Reiki Gathering in Barbados:

Ms Michelle Hustler, Project Officer, Trade in Services, Barbados Coalition of Service Industries

Featured Speaker, Dr Winthrop Wiltshire, Specially Invited Guests, Gathering Participants, Ladies and Gentlemen

On behalf of the Barbados Reiki Association it is my pleasure to welcome each and every one of you to this, the Opening Ceremony of the very first Reiki Gathering ever to be held in Barbados and indeed, I believe, in the Caribbean.

You know that the modern trend is to check everything out on the internet, so when I knew I had to give this talk, I thought ‘Let me look up welcome speeches on the web and see what I find – see if I can learn something new about welcomes’. And what I learned is that a welcome speech should be between three and five minutes long. Well, that suited me (and I’m sure it suits you too)! And while I cannot guarantee you just three minutes, I can promise that my talk will be relatively short.

We at the Barbados Reiki Association are particularly pleased to be hosting this Gathering because it represents a dream that has taken many years to come to fruition. but you will hear more about that later in the programme. This idea started when a few of us, way back in 1995, attended the North-East Reiki Gathering held in the Catskill mountains in upstate New York. That experience was so enriching that we all felt that one day a similar event must be held in Barbados. For many years it remained a dream, a thought, and finally in 2007 we began to make plans. Eventually we started to see what it would look like and what was needed to make that happen.

The journey from then to today, though extremely rewarding, has not been without its challenges, but with the help of the Reiki energy and support from many people, some of them not even Reiki initiates, we have been able to overcome those challenges and still keep our sanity – and remain friends. And so here we are today – the dream is about to become a reality.

We are honoured to have here today a representative from the Barbados Coalition of Service Industries (BCSI) – Ms Michelle Hustler. The BCSI has been working with our Association and has given its full support to helping us develop into a recognised organisation with a set of internationally-recognised standards. We very much appreciate that you have been able to make time in your busy schedule to be with us on this occasion. We welcome you and thank you for coming.

Next I would like to acknowledge our overseas participants – from the Caribbean region and even further afield. In particular I would like to welcome Dr. Winthrop Wiltshire from Trinidad and Tobago and Rev. Lynn Armor from Vancouver, Canada. Both Dr. Wiltshire and Rev. Armor have played major roles, together with our own Verity Dawson, in the introduction of Reiki to Barbados and Rev. Armor has been the initiating Reiki Master of many of our participants. Read more

The recently concluded Reiki Gathering was a resounding success, with around 50 participants representing Jamaica, Trinidad, Grenada and of course, Barbados. Over the next few weeks, we will bring you photo albums, videos and other information from the Gathering, but for now, here’s a group photo of most of the participants.