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SUMMARY OF FOSA BOARD AND FRIENDS MEETING
SRAVASTI ABBEY, MAY 16-22, 2007
BY KATHLEEN HERRON AND DIANNE PRATT

Attending all or part of retreat: Venerable Chodron, Venerable Tarpa, Venerable Ghache, Nanc Nesbitt, Barbara McDaniel, Kevin Conlin, Kathleen Herron, Leah Kosik, Susan Mitchell, Deb Walker, Jo Simpson, Pat Simpson, Tanya Lasuk, Mary Comfort, Tracy Morgan, Carl Willmott and Dianne Pratt

Each morning of the retreat, we meditated together on Chenresig, the Buddha of Compassion. Each evening we purified all negativity with Vajrasattva and 35 Buddhas.

Motivation was set by Venerable Tarpa; to carry out the long term vision of Ven Thubten Chodron to establish Sravasti Abbey to cultivate Western monastics in order to deepen the roots of the authentic Dharma in the West, for the good of all beings.

WELCOME; INTRODUCTIONS; ROLES FOR THE ABBEY

The FOSA Board members warmly welcomed everyone. Participants introduced themselves, described their roles and shared what inspires each of us about the Abbey.

SUMMARY OF VENERABLE’S OPENING COMMENTS AND VISION:

Venerable’s vision for the Abbey began long ago, when she first ordained, in 1977 and there was no monastic community in the West.

The Abbey is completely dependent on all the many, many people involved. FOSA was formed in June 2003 at a meeting of long-time students with Venerable at Cataldo, Idaho. This is the 4th FOSA Board and friends meeting.

A monastery presents a crucial question to society: What we are doing with our lives? It is not a question of leaving society, because no matter where we are, we are always in relationship to all beings. But at the Abbey, we relate in a different way. As monastics we strive to live simply and not to grasp at possessions, reputation, and sensual pleasure.

PLANNED OUTCOMES FOR THE MEETING:

  • Revisit FOSA mission
  • Celebrate FOSA’s 2006 accomplishments
  • Enhance our understanding of FOSA roles with the Abbey
  • Increase our knowledge and understanding of the Abbey mission and current needs
  • Make plans to grow the resident community
  • Make plans to recruit and support more volunteers
  • Plan to prepare for annual giving, the capital campaign; public relations and the Web.

CELEBRATION OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS: We rejoiced in all the activities we accomplished this past year, including Jan Howell taking novice monastic vows with the ordination name of Venerable Tarpa, Nanc taking eight precepts, having the second Exploring Monastic Life Program, the third three-month retreat, the first Young Adult Program, and many other activities.

SUMMARY OF HOW FOSA EVOLVED: Nanc Nesbitt shared the journey of some critical events in the formation of FOSA, even before the formation of FOSA in 2003 at Cataldo, Idaho. FOSA supporters are ambassadors for the Abbey, which relies on the generosity and willingness of people to do the necessary work. As the Abbey grows, we need to look at how we get help and support using our Dharma values. We are so grateful for everything people have given, and that so many have contributed. There has been support for the Abbey all along; a natural mutuality between lay and monastics as in the Buddha’s time, when the lay people offered requites to the sangha. We need to nurture that mind of generosity.

MASTER PLAN

Four crucial elements are necessary for the success of the Abbey: the leadership of qualified teachers, good monastic candidates, appropriate facilities, and the support of FOSA. Regarding facilities, Ven. Tarpa reported on the Master Plan. Ven. Chodron, Ven. Tarpa and Nanc met with Pat and Jo Simpson to revisit the master plan. They found that first building a monastic residence would be most practical.

DISCUSSION ON OUR EVOLVING ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

The organizational structure must grow to keep up with the vision and development of the Abbey. Now, the Abbey is a large enterprise, given the vision, the plans and about 4500 contact names in eTapestry. The logical next step is to further develop the structure of the organization in order to reduce confusion and assure success. In that process an organizational chart was developed and the Sravasti Abbey Action Team (SAAT) was formed, including all the Abbey residents. We all looked at the new Sravasti Abbey Organizational Chart, with Kevin Conlin as the Office Manager, Venerable Tarpa as Programs Coordinator, Nanc Nesbitt as Facilities Manager, Barbara McDaniel as Venerable’s personal assistant and head of Public Relations and Inviting Generosity.

Our task was to revisit FOSA to more effectively support this newly organized Abbey team. The FOSA Board does not really function as a traditional non-profit board. It works more as an association of people who do many Abbey support tasks. Discussion ensued regarding various roles of FOSA:

  • Respond to Abbey mission and needs, defined by Venerable, as best we can
  • Provide support for projects
  • Recruit new people to FOSA
  • Mentor new FOSAs
  • Provide 3 requisites of food, clothing, and medicine, and support the fourth requisite of shelter (facilities)
  • Help with Inviting Generosity, Public Relations, Volunteers, Facilities, Grounds and Forest, Disseminating the Dharma programs, Prison work etc.

We agreed that the FOSA Board is not truly a board. Instead of a “Board”, we propose a FOSA Leadership Team, including the chair of FOSA, the coordinators or chairs of each program area at the Abbey, and the 3 requisites coordinator. Currently FOSA interacts with all the program and service areas on the new Abbey Chart. With that in mind, we adopted a new structure, showing how FOSA supports the Abbey. It reflects both management lines and communication lines. As time goes on, it will need to be further clarified and developed. We decided to “live with it for six months and then look again.” Each person attending placed his or her name on the chart with their areas of responsibility and their roles to help the Abbey. See Org Chart >>>

FINANCIAL REPORT

Leah Kosik provided us with the Statement of Activities and Financial Position for the past year. View Statement >>> . The goal is to create a budget related to each area on the organizational chart.

INVITING GENEROSITY- Barbara McDaniel

Barbara pulled together recommendations from Laurel and Celia, who acted as consultants for Inviting Generosity. The first priority is to stabilize regular annual giving and begin to build more capacity for a successful capital campaign for constructing the monastic residence. We are infusing the Dharma value of generosity deeply into this entire effort.

GROWING THE RESIDENT COMMUNITY: Ven. Tarpa & Nanc shared some ideas with everyone:

Ven. Tarpa asked how can we encourage FOSA to help build community and be emissaries of the Abbey. We need to talk about the opportunities for monastic life. The Exploring Monastic Life and Youth Programs work to build the community—how do we increase spreading the word on these programs? Nanc shared that one benefit she has felt from living in a monastic community: she is learning to relax and give up being “right”. She gets the opportunity to work on her mind, because of Venerable’s incredible skillful means, and she hopes others will have that opportunity also.

VOLUNTEERS – Facilitated by Nanc

Nanc described the present process of offering service at the Abbey. The volunteer coordinator needs to be someone on site. We have been successful in getting things done in the moment, but have not had an official volunteer coordinator, except for a short while with Melanie. Volunteer coordinating is a full time job here at the Abbey and is all about cultivating relationships. For now, Nanc will continue as coordinator, as well as lead on facilities management. Local volunteers Mary, Tracy and Carl shared that they want lots of Dharma infused into their volunteer experience, with setting motivation, learning mantras to say while working, receiving short teachings when they come and dedication of all merit for all beings.

CLOSING: Each participant shared what they appreciated about meeting together and helping with this effort to spread the authentic Dharma for millions of years. Each participant placed themselves into the new Abbey and FOSA organizational chart and shared what areas they are coordinating and what tasks they are doing and plan to continue to do. We dedicated all merit to the end of suffering of all beings everywhere.

 
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