From the Director - May-July09 Newsletter

A message from Lyndsay (BH Director) published in the  May-July09 Newsletter.

Once again Buddha House is in the midst of change. As you receive this, Jampa Gendun will be in the process of leaving Buddha House to take up the next stage of his life in Sydney.  We'll miss Jampa's teachings and meditations, his challenges to our thinking and his support of our questioning. We'll miss his wisdom and the role that he has played in taking the dharma into the community at Uni SA School of nursing, Australian Dance Theatre and the Barossa Valley.  Thank you Jampa. We really hope that you will come back to us again.

There are changes at the Buddha House Office too. After looking after our office and administration for the past 2 years, our wonderful Jen Watkins has handed over the office manager's position to Nadine Morgan. Jen has been so important in the work that we do and generously took on so much more than we could possibly have expected of her.  Thank you so much Jen!  Nadine has been appointed for an initial three-month period while we review our office needs and centre needs. At the end of that time we may have decided to radically change our office, or we may decide to make only minor changes. Please make Nadine welcome to her new position and let her know if you can volunteer some time and energy to assist run Buddha House.

And while we are saying thank you, I must thank Sally Shipway who has retired as our Buddha House librarian after giving us ardent and much appreciated service. This is a quiet and often unnoticed job that brings so much benefit to so many people, but which requires dedicated effort. Thank you Sally, we are so appreciative of your constant efforts to provide the dharma through the library.  We are still seeking a replacement librarian.

At our planning day on March 21st, the Buddha House board faced the hard reality of our financial future.  With income from our invested funds reducing due to lower interest rates and with high rental costs for our Buddha House accommodation, we have made a decision to find a lower cost rental property to house our centre until we can find an affordable and appropriate property to buy.  If you can help financially, or in the search, please contact me through Buddha House.

Our running costs are high and although we can never hope to cover these by membership fees alone, taking or renewing membership is one way that individuals and families can assist us meet the costs of financially supporting Geshe-la, Venerable Jamyang, Rodrigo and our part-time office manager position.

As well as making sure that we can meet our obligations to our teachers and fund our rental accommodation, we need to raise funds to enable us to buy a new 'permanent' Buddha House.  We need your help in this, so please contact the office or talk to Chrys Dombriannis if you have fundraising ideas or some time to assist in arranging social and fund raising events or if you can help staff chai and cake stalls which we are planning at community fairs throughout this coming year.

This newsletter is our first newsletter designed to deliver a 3-month program instead of a 2-month program.  Apart from the ability for you (and us) to plan three months ahead, we will make considerable savings in office time, postage and printing costs.

In the months ahead you will find other changes in the way that we disseminate information.  Our most cost effective way to communicate is to use the Internet and email, so we are exploring ways of making this more effective. If you are not signed up to receive our email newsletter, go to www.buddhahouse.org and sign up. That way you'll not miss out on any of the news about people, events and developments at Buddha House.   

The world is suffering difficult times.  We believe that the dharma holds answers to dealing with these times so I look forward to working with you to maintain Buddha House's role in relieving the suffering around us.

With grateful thanks
Lindsay Holmes
Centre Director