We recently had a productive session with all the volunteers in the White Heron Sangha. There were many more volunteers than most of them realized, and many discovered the roles and responsibilities of a variety of people and committees.
One of the take aways from that session included some suggestions from the group for the Sunday Program. The first suggestion was to explore the possibility of changing the time of our meetings. As most of you know, that is already in the process, and we will soon be sending out a survey so everyone can vote on their preference. You will be notified of the outcome as soon as we are able to tabulate the results.
Other suggestions from that session included a tryout for playing music and having a quiet time prior to beginning our session. We are working to balance the need for members who wish to have a quiet contemplative time prior to beginning our program with other members who prefer to socialize before rather than after our meeting. We are almost ready to roll out a program allowing for ten minutes of silence prior to commencement of the program. Those who wish to continue to socialize for a bit longer are welcome to gather outside the center. This will be a trial based on members requesting this and we will determine from your feedback whether we wish to continue this way.
Another suggestion was to have our newsletter reflect future plans, so we have started that with this report. We plan to ask or have already asked our returning teachers to continue to join us once per quarter for another year. We are not able to have Vance Pryor for another year because he has several other commitments, but he did let us know how much he enjoyed being with us and he will return for one last session in mid-December. We are in the process of finding another returning teacher in the Insight tradition.
Lastly, Nisa King will be joining the Sunday Program Committee sometime in January and her role will be to take on part of Linda Elder’s responsibilities in scheduling invited teachers. We are fortunate to have someone with such a wide background in Buddhism, and someone who has strong relationships with many teachers especially through her training with the Community Dharma Leaders program through Spirit Rock. Her commitment to our sangha is well known. Welcome Nisa and many thanks.