On Sunday February 19, Honey Locust Sangha Care-Taking Council (CTC) met with a full, but reduced, complement. No one has volunteered to join us so we will meet this next year with eight members: Patrice Watson (Facilitator), Tina Ray, Mark Watson, Mike McMahon, Juanita Rice (notes), Dave Watts. Jim Cox, Mike McGann.
We begin always with a Prayer or Intention to bring our best and deepest Dharma practice and to meet without Tension: to stop and breathe if disagreement or tension becomes noticeable. With that goal, we sit quietly for five minutes, enjoying the energy of sangha.
Agenda:
1. Update on the 2023 spring retreat from the retreat committee members
2. Afterthoughts about the recent DOM
3. Treasury update. The current balance is $ (PayPal, $, US Bank, $)
4. Update on resources and teachers for expanding our understanding of our community and our inclusiveness. In a full two-hour discussion we did not really address Item 4, although Patrice did briefly mention our plan to share on the Honey Locust listserve dates and websites for dharma resources like Larry Ward’s events on Zoom through The Lotus Institute.
5. Sangha Monday night meetings: comments on the current format.
Agenda Item 1: Report on planning for Spring Retreat to be held May 11-14 at the Creighton Retreat Center near Griswold, Iowa.
Jim Cox, planning chair, said the committee has consolidated plans for the date and the Dharma teachers, BK (Brian Kimmel) and Terry Cortes Vega. In the coming week the committee will issue an announcement flyer and verify the number of rooms available. We are returning to our original policy of double occupancy in the two-bed rooms. There are not plans to offer a remote (Zoom) option. At that time they will also be able to set a cost. The general theme is often set by the Dharma teacher/s.
Agenda Item 2: Evaluation of Day of Mindfulness (DOM) on February 4.
Everyone in attendance agreed that the day was an excellent experience and that Jim Cox and Tina Ray had beautifully articulated the vision of amplifying diverse voices. We realized that by organizing the DOM successfully “our own selves,” we could envision doing more than one a year. We may possibly plan one for this coming early fall, for instance.
One thing we would like to improve is to spread the work around. Gina Matkin, an Order of Interbeing member (OI) and frequent CTC member, is too much our go-to Zoom-techie. Last year she taught the rudiments of Zoom problem-solving and responsibility to three of us (Mark Watson, Jim Cox, Juanita Rice). Mark makes use of that in cooperation with Dave Watts, and other volunteers like Brian Hallner??***** at our hybrid events, but we still depend on Gina when we have questions. The challenge is that once having learned Zoom management the skills seem to go right out the window without exercising them. We will ask Gina for another of her good teaching sessions and then must work out a plan to rotate responsibility for Zoom/tech so that the lessons stick with us. Tina Ray will write her a letter of love and gratitude for all she does and explain why we want another teaching.
Agenda Item 3: Honey Locust Finances.
Usually our financial report is only that: a statement of what we have in bank and Paypal. Discussion of increased costs (see below) led, however, to some informative consideration. The amount is basically $XXXXXX**. Internet costs at the Yoga Path studio were raised recently and it begins to be a drain in excess of $1200/year on the resources of the studio. As a small sangha, we are very fortunate that Mark Watson, proprietor of the studio, OI, and a stable sangha supporter since 2009, allows us to use the studio as sangha home. We store pillows, books, records there and use the space for our sangha meetings including a Noble Silence gathering Friday evenings and a Women’s group each month on Sunday. To keep that as a home throughout the Pandemic, we were able to reserve our Monday evenings there, a prime time through a nominal rent. As we came back to in-person meetings we returned to paying full (though nominal( rent and also invested in some equipment for hearing assistance and the hybrid meetings. Costs have increased, including the internet service. We agreed that having hybrid meetings is now an established practice. To discuss costs we asked Mark to recuse himself temporarily and voted unanimously to cover the internet from now on, at $110/month.
Increasing costs: Several times in the past six months the CTC has discussed how to handle the topic of financial support for the sangha. As long as we met only in person and had a Dana basket somewhat prominently set out, people seemed to see and understand that it was somewhat expected, although voluntary, that the sangha had expenses and that our only financial resource was donations. Once we changed to Zoom meetings, that income was much reduced. The discussion of Dana, then, was how we could or should or should not remind people of ways to donate to our expenses. Since the rent was much reduced and in-person retreats were also not possible, some people felt we didn’t really need increased donations, and also especially early in the pandemic, we knew that some people’s incomes were tightened up and some of us hated to mention money for fear of oppressing those with limited money.
Since there were different opinions we kept postponing any decision. But now finances for the first time became inadequate.
Sangha income has two sources: personal donations by Paypal, Venmo and personal checks plus cash offered at sangha in-person events. Our costs are mainly rent and the costs for bringing Dharma Teachers to retreats (both necessary reimbursements for airplane travel and accommodations plus a donation to the Teachers for their service). Of course we also place downpayments to the retreat Centers for food and rooms. If a particular retreat doesn’t bring at least a minimum of attendees, the sangha covers the difference. Last spring’s retreat was an example of incurring a deficit for the sangha.
Conclusion: We agreed that it was going to be necessary to instigate programmatic attention to donations, and that we needed a policy for casual reminders, as well as the Dharma concept of Generosity as one of the “Heavenly Abodes of the Mind.” We use the Buddhist word “Dana” to refer to Generosity in numerous forms, generosity of spirit, of love, of kindness, and of material gifts to support the Dharma and the sangha. Patrice will look for a model email generated some time recently.
Related but separate: Speaking of retreat expenses.
Creighton Retreat Center has already set an available date for the 2024 spring retreat and we need to make a downpayment. There were several unanswered questions about how to make that decision: The date is the last weekend in April but is it the only weekend available? We were unable to get Michael Ciborski for this year because his schedule fills early. If we take the date at Creighton it may be a week he can’t come.
The CTC has turned over retreat organizing to a committee and empowered them to make decisions about teachers, topics, etc. But of the teachers we have had frequently was an East Coast Dharma Teacher Michael Ciborski with a family and 3 children who of necessity sets a certain Dharma minimum for his trips to Nebraska along with plane fare, etc. We briefly specified that in cases of choice our preference should not be limited by expense. We therefore asked the committee to go ahead now to try to set an available time for Michael Ciborski, and if that Retreat Center date does not match, check to see if there is an earlier time. Having the teacher we want is to be a priority over questions of expense and dates available. We aside Mark to pursue this, since he has been frequently in touch with the teacher.
Agenda Item 4: Evaluating Monday night hybrid meetings. It seems clear that the balance of Zoom-to-Studio attendance effects the meeting’s quality, and that without pressure we should stress the benefits of having attendance in person when possible. The more we find means to integrate the two groups the better. We don’t want a completely split sangha. Methods for influencing integration suggested: 1/ Pass the camera from face to face at studio with each person saying name and some relevant fact like how long in attendance. 2/ Appoint someone on Zoom to call on each Zoomer to do that brief introduction, while in Studio Zoom is set to Speaker View.
There was brief discussion of the Check-ins we used to have at In-Person and the great advantage of them to cause sangha interrelationships. If we were to reinstigate; however, we would need to extend our time to two hours. That will be an agenda item next time.
There remains a disadvantage to hybrid: our dear heroes who set up and work on and tweak the equipment are shut out of meeting new people and having that personal involvement. We have hybrid sessions only in service of the Zoom attendees and when we get started with meditation most of the Zoomers blank out their screens, again emphasizing the split between the two groups.
This whole discussion led to uncovering how much all sangha members benefit from each other’s presence, and that this gift of presence is shut off by those with cameras off. We know that there are reasons that one or another attendee will shut off camera and do not want to seem judgmental. Possibly a solution is to 1/emphasize how much we all benefit by seeing the smiling (or otherwise) faces, to humanize our togetherness. We don’t want to limit what people do, but we do want to emphasize that there is no “rule” that they should not be seen during meditation OR discussions. Each facilitator will find their own way to emphasize how much “presence” is a “present,” or gift to others,