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Director Reports to the Board of Trustees, 2006
November 2006
Update on Practice and Education
To follow up on October’s report on this area it is worth noting that we had a good P&E Council meeting the other week and names came forth for various roles that need to be filled, most pressing of which being Advanced Committee Chair and overall P&E Coordinator. I am following up on those suggestions.
On the programs end events have ranged from well-attended (Lady Diana’s book release, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche’s visit) to the expected (20-25 people for Acharya Bercholz’s program, Great Eastern Sun) to low attendance (18 people at Tulku Thondup’s program). On the financial end it appears that while we at times did not do as well as expected (Tulku Thondup’s program) the surprising number of events previously not expected and hence not in our updated form of the budget made up for that gap. Overall it was a very busy Autumn.
One last thing to note in this sphere is that Chris Pleim and Diana Evans have organized a bi-monthly meeting of sadhakas for treckhod study, which has 22 regular participants. This class provides on-going study for our most senior practitioners, and appears to have a lot of energy behind it.
Other Events
President Reoch spent a weekend in Boston presiding over the international Networking Shambhala conference. The weekend was based on the inspiration of gathering many Center Directors and people with technological leanings together under one roof in order to launch projects such as a new look for Shambhala.org, make audio and video recordings more accessible, and many other projects that would enable Shambhala to reach more people via the internet.
On Saturday evening 60 people gathered to meet with President Reoch in an open dialogue on the state of Shambhala, how Shambhala spends its money, the differences between the student/teacher relationship between students of the Sakyong and students of the Vidyadhara, diversity, and other issues. Before the meeting President Reoch met with about a dozen members of the Boston leadership and, as Jon Wyman put it so eloquently, within that discussion it became clear that we have a very good ground from which to move forward at this point. He said that he very much appreciated this opportunity to meet with the leadership.
October 2006
Practice and Education
Our Shambhala Training Level I saw 57 participants. 20 continued onto the new three-week Thursday night follow up class entitled Basic Goodness. Another major event was the sold out evening with Khandro Rinpoche.
On another note the Practice and Education Council has had a hard time meeting and general communication in that sphere does not seem as good since Frank retired from the position of P&E Coordinator. I have asked the Council to recommend names for Frank’s replacement and have heard back from only one member thus far.
Other Events
The 35th anniversary party was a big hit, specifically amongst the senior student crowd. 100 people attended the evening. The next day’s Harvest of Peace celebration was very lovely, with an air that some reunion attendees referred to as “dignified yet relaxed.”
The following is a break down of money raised last month for the Genuine Expressions Scholarship Fund.
GES Fund Event |
Amount Raised |
35th Anniversary Party |
4043 |
Harvest of Peace |
703 |
GES Marathon |
2455 |
Total Amount |
7201 |
On Harvest of Peace an additional $400 was raised for the environment and $500 for the general fund.
September, 2006
New Curriculum Update
The new curriculum kicks off with Shambhala Training Level I this upcoming weekend. We expect to have somewhere between 40 – 50 participants based on current registration.
Teacher Invitations
The Teacher Invite Committee met and issued several invitations to Tibetan teachers that we would like to host at the Shambhala Center in 2007. Thus far we have received word that we can expect to have the honor of hosting both Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche and Mingyur Rinpoche next year. We expect to hear back from many more in the month of September and October.
Fall Calendar
Much of my time this month has been spent working with teams of people on the upcoming events this Fall. As mentioned above, we expect to have a full and rich Level I. We also look forward to a potentially sold out event with Khandro Rinpoche a few days later, a very nice 35th anniversary party on the 23rd, Lady Diana reading from and having a book release party on October 13th, Acharya Bercholz leading a public program on Dzogchen the following two days, and then Tulku Thondup Rinpoche teaching at the end of that month. Lots of details, but all promise to be terrific events.
Other Miscellaneous Items
Dan Danielsen has gotten underway with the summer/fall membership drive and already has secured one new member, Eric Weil. Expect updates on this around Harvest of Peace time.
As you may have seen, Jeremy McDowell is now working part-time at the Center and has really thrown himself in enthusiastically. I look forward to working with him very much. Bo Williams has taken on the role of Rusung, which is also very exciting (see the following post for more information).
August, 2006
Transitions in Leadership
Following the report last month in this area I began to realize that we are having a very large turn over of leadership positions including:
Rusung Ericsson, Center Coordinator Justin Stone, and P&E Chair Frank Ryan in September
Warrior Joe Inskeep, Chair of the Board Charlie Byron, Finance Manager Jane Milliken on Shambhala Day
Thus far I have been working on the decision for Justin’s replacement, Tara Halwes is appointing the next Rusung, and Frank and I are in discussion about the next P&E Chair. I feel that it is important to note these transitions both because these people have given so generously of their time and energy to the Shambhala community but also because we need to recognize the time and energy that will be spent in training their replacements.
New Curriculum Update
Fifteen members of the community gathered to discuss the new curriculum at a community meeting in July. It was excellent to have in-depth explorations of how people view this curriculum and how it may fit in with their personal path.
There was some time spent this month re-thinking the calendar for the new curriculum. The acharyas made very good proposals for changes which ultimately did not work with the overall logic of what was designed by the Manjushri Council. At the end of the day minor changes were made to include a three-week class between Levels I and II and dates were moved for the summer/fall of 2007 but otherwise the calendar remained intact. The trade off is that the time spent re-thinking the calendar means that we are behind schedule on generating publicity materials to communicate the new curriculum. Hopefully they will be available shortly.
The Teacher Development Committee met with Acharya Lobel and Resident Director Pilfrey and came to decisions about who could teach the new curriculum. Those people are being approached by the chair of the committee, Chris Pleim, as well as by Catherine.
Other Practice and Education Updates
Venerable Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche’s visit was a very large success. 75 people attended his day-long teachings and 20 came to the tantrika audience that evening. After expenses we made $3234, which is $459 more than originally expected.
To balance that we have just learned that Khenpo Gawang has to cancel his East Coast teaching tour due to health reasons. It currently appears that the Khenpo is not seriously ill but is suffering from the flu and has been advised to stop traveling so frequently and take some recovery time.
Acharya Bower led nine participants in a very moving bodhisattva vow ceremony. The seven local participants are Susan Brown, Alison Cimino, Dan Danielsen, Dan Glenn, Maris Handley, Anne Richmond, and Marek Tresnak.
There has been much discussion of late about the format of the Under Thirty Night. Many senior members of the group as well as the local acharyas voiced concerns that not enough guidance has been given to the rising leadership about the type of readings the group studies. As a result a Curriculum Working Group has formed made up of Diana Evans, Nick Kranz, and a handful of members from the Under Thirty group. The purpose of the group is to develop a formal curriculum that includes more of a path structure in the readings and includes regular visits by senior students. Acharyas Bower and Lobel are also involved as advisors to the working group.
Last but not least, work has begun in planning for our 35th anniversary party over the Harvest of Peace weekend. Diana Evans, Mary Lang, and Kathy Vieweg have been incredibly helpful in designing the view for the weekend which currently includes:
Friday, September 22 - A night of story-telling with members from the community ranging from the founders in 1971 up to the current day
Saturday, September 23 - Our anniversary party, ideally held on an off-campus location, formal, Shambhala Ball-esque
Sunday, September 24 - Harvest of Peace celebration, talk by the Sakyong, fundraiser, and Werma feast
Overall the work currently being done will lead to an incredibly potent autumn. I look forward to it very much.
July, 2006
June was by far one of the busiest months since I have been in the Center Director role. Here is a snapshot of what has been going on:
Transitions in Leadership
Justin Stone has come on as Center Coordinator and has been extremely helpful in providing a professional and friendly face to the greater Boston community, catching up on old business such as expense reports, and publicizing Traleg Rinpoche’s program. I have received seven applicants so far looking to fill his shoes in late August and am expecting a few more. I will begin interviewing all applicants in mid-July.
Another thing to note is that Tom Ericsson is retiring as Rusung come September. I have been in conversation with Tara Halwes about his replacement.
New Curriculum Update
The calendar for the new curriculum has more or less been hammered out as this point and we have proceeded to the next step, which is clearly and concisely explaining what it is to people. This includes:
- having two printed forms of publicity, one for our September Level I with Acharya Hayashi, which already has five participants, and one for the “full path of practice and study” which is being developed by Acharya Lobel and me
- developing targeted e-mail lists for people ready for Level I, Sacred Path, and Sacred Path grads who might be interested in taking just the new classes and community weekends
- communicating with these people via e-mail and, in the case of the potential Level I candidates, personal conversations to explain the new curriculum and give them the pertinent dates involved
- meeting with the community on Saturday to explain the new curriculum and field questions and concerns that arise
Future steps include identifying who is teaching which programs in the Fall, generating the publicity items mentioned above, and inviting the Level I candidates to pursue the curriculum.
Venerable Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche
We have also been diligently preparing for Traleg Rinpoche’s visit this weekend. Due to the short time Rinpoche is in town we expect expenses to be low and, ideally due to high turn out for his day-long program, income to be high.
Midsummers Day
Our Midsummers Day was very nice and laid back. Justin and I called the membership to invite them personally. Thirty members of the community as well as Lama Migmar came for a lovely lhasang, barbeque, and miscellaneous activities such as frisbee, wiffleball, and volleyball.
Miscellaneous Items
It has been my experience that it is easiest to take a step back and review our overall situation during the summer when there are less programs occurring. This often leads to a general tightening of the screws, such as noticing the need for a stronger coordinator for our Wednesday night program, developing a system of reporting finances with our on-going intro programs, reviewing our membership situation and setting Dan up for our summer membership drive, and so on.
As you know I have also taken some time this past month to review our parking situation and enter into a dialogue with real estate agents about our property and potential need for a new location.
By renting three of our seven available spots to Zipcar we have increased our annual rental revenue by $3900. Note this is a different figure that originally presented because we negotiated renting each space at $175 a month instead of their original proposal, $150.
June, 2006
Changes in Personnel
As you are aware of at this point Gabrie’l Atchison has decided to leave the Boston area due to the high cost of living. Sangha member Justin Stone has agreed to step in as her replacement until he leaves for Korea at the end of the summer, by which point I hope to have identified a new long-term Center Coordinator.
In addition to welcoming Justin I hope you will join me in welcoming Barbara Hopcroft on as our new facilities manager. Barbara is hard at work investigating solutions to our spray paint and rebar problems.
New Committees
The Environment Committee has been revived as a result of our discussion last meeting.
Carolyn Krusinski and Hazel Bercholz have agreed to serve as advisory chairs while Louise Miller and Artemis Akchoti have agreed to serve as committee chairs for the group which also includes Karen Kaye, Eric Palilunas, David Williams, and Patty Sutton.
Projects for the Environment Committee include painting the wall and buying new furniture for the community room, a partition for the entranceway, painting the director’s office (I voted for hot pink but will probably be swayed by Hazel), building a platform for the tantra shrineroom, purchasing blinds for the tantra shrine room, and painting the restrooms. A budget to be presented to the Board is forthcoming.
There is also now a small Archive Committee committed to identifying our audio resources, listing them, and designing a system by which they could be easily accessed by the community as a working audio library. Along these lines it should be noted that thanks to the genius of Dan Hollocher we are now recording our talks to mp3 on our Zen Nano. It turns out that these talks are quite small; Dan has said that the recent ones he has test recorded for the Journey without Goal class could even be e-mailed. In the future if one is taking a class or weekend program talks could be loaded onto a password protected aspect of our website such that if you miss a talk you can log in with your class password and hear it. Other talks, such as introductory talks by acharyas and senior teachers, could be loaded onto our homepage in the future.
Calendar
The awesome team of P&E Coordinator Ryan, Resident Director Pilfrey, Senior Advisor to the R.D. Wyman, SSBS Coordinators Glenn and Gussen, as well as me has developed a calendar that implements the new pre-seminary curriculum beginning in September and running until January 2008. I am now working with other committees to plug in introductory and advanced programs, as well as out-of-town acharya visits. Developing this calendar took a good amount of my time this month I would say. A community meeting is currently planned for July 15th where Acharya Lobel will formally present the new curriculum. This will be communicated to the community by e-mail and letter next week.
Miscellaneous Items
Delegs – At this point I have asked the following people to serve as interim dekyongs for their delegs, organizing a few more meetings until things are at a point where a long term dekyong could be put in place:
Boston area – Brian Sutton
Dedham area – Michael Mclellan
Cambridge area – Jeffrey McIntyre
Newton area – Kathy Vieweg
Lincoln area – Larry Teitelbaum
Wedding gift – Boston sangha members contributed a total of $1000 towards the Sakyong and Semo Tseyang’s home, the Kalapa Court, as a wedding present
Midsummers Day – Has been postponed until July 2nd due to issues concerning finding an adequate space. We now have one, with Brian Sutton coordinating the event.
May, 2006
The main April events to report on were the visits of His Eminence Namkha Drimed Rinpoche and a consultation I had with Eva Wong concerning our building. I have also included in this report a short synopsis of what is going on in the Boston mandala at this time. Overall the visit of His Eminence was a great success. Between 35-55 people came to the various talks. The translator left something to be desired at first but over the course of the weekend he adapted to His Eminence’s dialect and by the end was acceptable. His Eminence had a nice time and expressed his profound appreciation to the Boston sangha.
[Please note: at this point in the Director's Report there was a summary of the financial breakdown of His Eminence's visit. If you would like to see this summary please contact Center Director Rinzler directly and he will make it available. The bottom line was that we came out of the visit $544 in the black.]
Other Major Happenings at this Time:
New Website – should be up by the end of June
MP3 Recorder – Dan Hollocher is researching both an mp3 recorder and a massive hard drive space for us to store our talks on. This allows for limited production of CDs but flexibility in loading talks online and sending them via e-mail. Estimated cost: $250. It would cost us a few thousand dollars more to be able to do massive CD burning. Dan recommends we outsource the few times a year we are interested in doing that (major teaching visits) to Karme Choling since they invested in that technology and make a financial arrangement with them so they get a cut of proceeds.
New Curriculum: Boston has been asked to be one of two centers to pilot a new pre-seminary curriculum that combines Shambhala Training, Shambhala School of Buddhist Studies, and other aspects of our path into one streamlined journey that a student can follow from the moment they attend an open house up to the point that they choose to go to seminary. Details about specific changes in the curriculum are still forthcoming.
April, 2006
Major Program Events
In March we had very nice talks by both Acharya Levy and President Reoch. They were both well-attended and much enjoyed. Acharya John’s program was also well-attended (about 20 people) but due to the cost of flying him in ($600), his honorarium ($1000) and miscellaneous expenses we did not make any money off of that program. None-the-less, it was great in that it brought together people from various stages of the path to practice the essence of our teachings.
Of course, the last few weeks have been focused on setting up His Eminence’s visit April 13-15. The organizational aspect has come together nicely. The financial implications are not as good right now.
Also, please note that Jeffrey McIntyre has started a small but successful substance-abuse group entitled “Heart of Recovery” which meets on Monday evenings at 7:30 PM. Heart of Recovery joins the Twelve Step traditions and meditation practice.
Major Community Events
We had a small but pleasant community meeting on March 18th. 12 people attended.
Short term priorities included targeted outreach campaigns, focusing on diversity, having a member-supported budget, developing ways of receiving more feedback and:
P&E related things – continue to run ST/SSBS, support under thirty group, develop intro programs, development of specialty programs (death and dying, social action, etc)
Generosity related things – making dharma available as mp3s on website, a long retreat scholarship fund
Long term priorities included a move to a new building which is handicapped accessible, having a larger staff, and in general have the space and resources to be much more vibrant than we currently are
The short-term discussion seemed to be in synch with our I Ching reading for the year: Perseverance.
Coming out of my March retreat, as well as the Mandala Governing Council meetings, I am struck with the idea that in the coming year we need to consider that it does not matter as much what we do in the coming year, but how we do it. With this in mind I believe we should take the time to develop what was started last year, including outreach, programming, delegs, and so on, and make sure that we have systems to keep what appears to currently be success functioning in the near and far future while taking into account the other short-term goals as outlined above by the community.
Mandala Governing Council
Both the Leadership Academy led by President Reoch and Director of Shambhala Europe Chris Tamdjidi and the Mandala Governing Council meetings were very refreshing and inspiring. The Leadership Academy focused primarily on the teachings we have been given in connection to the path of leadership, specifically the paramitas and four dignities, as well as lungta. Having developed a basic understanding that leadership is a very fortunate path to follow we plunged into the workings of the mandala, discussing such issues as connection between the center and fringe, the Build Shambhala campaign of the brick and mortar plus core services projects coming up in the coming years, updates on the Commission on the Status of Women and Feminine Principle, review of the 2005/2006 financials, the future of Karme Choling, and updates on the forthcoming shared international database.
Other things to note from these meetings:
- A "Welcome to Shambhala" brochure is forthcoming
- It is time to implement the preliminary version of the Rigden Shrine
- New pre-seminary curriculum – to be released this summer
- New Shambhala Website forthcoming - Talks available in audio/video, live streaming of addresses, mandala wide program search
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