Sangha Meeting Notes — December 12

December 18, 2021

This was the first hybrid session[in-person and Zoom], a trial run. The challenges seem to be in two-way communications. The key is muting and unmuting.

Attendance: 4 on zoom, 6 at KCC

Linda G reported that the Reorganization of administrative operations is underway. When asked to name the Working Groups (WG) she listed them off with the lead coordinator and others helping: Finance/Development (Linda Besant), Human Resources and Volunteer Support (Rosemarie Sweet) with Volunteer Support led by Sally Mead,  Facilities (Willa Rabinovitch) with expert “consultants” from the sangha, SCOL (Chehale Alexander), and Community Life (Judatha) with support from others for social activities. And Program Support (Linda Grove) with help from Linda Logan covering retreats. While there is no WG for Communications, miscellaneous communications are continuing with Newsletter (Doug), and Announcements with Ryan and website with Jennifer, etc.  One idea is that each WG handles communications for their work and there may not be a central communication WG.

WG coordinators are meeting every other week to coordinate and tomorrow they will be discussing how to communicate with the Board. WGs are taking more time to think through how they work together and communicate on shared tasks.  And how decision making will be done.

John mentioned that as part of the Reorg and the related introduction of Working Groups and Working Group Coordinators, the Board’s role and responsibility will be shifting away from administrative toward more mission and vision of KCC with a focus on policy, legal, and personnel oversight. The details are still to be worked out as the Working Group process develops.

The Community Life WG is just forming led by Judatha and will include a subgroup focused on needs and care of sangha members, how to find out and how to be available to help. Another sub-group will focus on the social activities, beginning with determining what the sangha would be interested in.

There are three Strategic Planning Process (SPP) Sangha input sessions in-person and 3 parallel Zoom sessions in January spread across different days of the week and times to maximize opportunities for attendance. It is expected that people select one session to attend. The schedule is on the KCC calendar.  The first pair (in-person and zoom) is January 9, 12:00-2:00pm; the second is January 15, 10:00am-12:00pm, and the third is January 17, 6:30-8:30pm.

Dora wondered if there was a way to provide input outside of the January SPP sessions. Will there be specific topics and/or categories one could weigh in on? The plan is to just hear wishes, hopes, and concerns. These can be provided remotely outside of the sessions via email or phone call.

There was a concern that we are adding another layer of bureaucracy with the WGs, but the notion of a more open and horizontal structure is encouraging. There was support for being open to all input.

The Buddha statue decision process was raised to be used as an example of how it would have been handled under the new structure. There was a concern mentioned about the original process where it went through a few people and not through the bigger group. It was felt that broader sangha input would have been more appropriate, particularly because of the design and architecture impacts. The hope was expressed that no future projects are handled this way. However, it was pointed out that this was the domain of the PC since it related to the altar and Buddhist iconography.

The WGs are primarily implementation and communication focused and several found this to be good and exciting.

John reported on Board member status. Linda B, Sandy and Rosemarie are all stepping down at the end of the year. Linda and Sandy’s terms are up, and Rosemarie and Linda are taking on Working Group Coordinator roles. John Rothermich has been elected to the Board and will start this month. New Board members are needed, and a recruiting effort is underway.

There is a need for posting program activities as far in advance as possible, e.g. announce now the Month-Long Retreat in mid-June to mid-July.  People need advance notice to plan to attend events, particularly longer ones. Just sending out a simple save-the-date message would help.