Dear Sangha Members,

It has been several weeks since our community meeting to reflect about how the Shambhala Center can most effectively expand and extend outward toward Greater Boston. Our programs continue to experience record attendance with space at a premium. With the leadership of the Sakyong and the continuous growth of our programming and community, we find ourselves in a unique moment in history where we can make significant contributions toward building an enlightened society here in Boston.

We want to keep all of you abreast of our activities and ask for your continued support. There is so much to be done…and we know we can only achieve this by working together.

We have expanded the board of trustees in an effort to add specific skills and wisdom from the community. We know that we must meet the challenge of expansion with a wise mix of both prudence and possibility.

We have also organized the five task forces listed below to continue moving forward with our reflections and actions. Two of the committees will meet next week. Please consider how you would like to support the sangha in this endeavor. We would love to have you join a task force or offer your ideas and energies in other ways.

1. The Community, Leadership and Program Development task force is working on two primary tasks:

a. To develop human capital to meet our current growth by encouraging new and intermediate students to continue on the path of training, and to take on leadership positions such as coordinating, and becoming Meditation Instructors and Assistant Directors.

b. To develop programs and collaborations with the broader Boston community such as the recent volunteer group working at Haley House, a non-profit providing support for the homeless of Boston.

Contact: Tom Ericsson abundancesun@gmail.com and Gary Shapiro garyischapiro@aol.com

Next Meeting: Tuesday, May 11 at 7:00 at BSC

2. The Membership task force is contemplating the sense of belonging and what membership means to our community. They are also working on ways to clarify what membership is, and on attracting new members.

Contact: Andrea Sparks membership@shambhalaboston.org

Next Meeting: Tuesday, May 11 at 7:00 at BSC

3. The Communication task force is working on developing a communication plan that will help us communicate the expansion efforts to each other and to the broader community. There is also a smaller group working on developing a logo for the expansion efforts.

Contact for the Communication Task Force: Mary Lang mslang@comcast.net and for the Logo group: Anne McLellan annemclellan@verizon.net

4. The Drala Spot (Building) task force is looking for appropriate, affordable spaces for a new center, and is looking into other options for expanding. They are also working with the Resource Development task force on financial projections.

Contact: John Ranco info@johnranco.com and Anthony Miller Anthony.L.Miller@Verizon.net

5. The Resource Development task force is working on obtaining the necessary financial and other resources for the expansion and move.

Contact: Larry Teitelbaum lteitelbm@aol.com and Tara Hawles tarahalwes@gmail.com

We welcome and encourage your participation and feedback. Please click on the Expansion News tag/category for updates, and feel free to contact any of the task force chairs or me with your ideas. We look forward to the journey together.

Mary Coonan

Chair of the Board of Trustees
Shambhala Meditation Center of Boston
coonanma@comcast.net

Sat April 17th: 9:30 AM - 1:00 PM

The Board of Trustees and the center leadership will host a half-day planning retreat facilitated by Julie Soquet. This will be an opportunity to share ideas and have community discussions regarding our aspiration to expand and move the center. We are in the process of writing a Strategic Plan for the center’s future and need input from the community. We will continue the discussion afterward over lunch at the center (donation requested).

Have you been wondering:

What’s next?

Where will our center be in 2 years? in 5 years?

We are expanding and starting to burst at the seams…

We need everyone’s ideas, energy and talents.

Make sure your voice is heard and your views included!

–
Julie Soquet has worked as a consultant, trainer and facilitator for business and not for profit organizations. She provides an environment and design to bring forth the wisdom and heart of the group, to achieve their intended goals.

Click Here to Register

For the last few years, the Board of Trustees and several other community members have been investigating what it would take for the center to expand as the Sakyong has requested us to do. In December of ’08, the Board gathered for a ½ day retreat and made the decision to begin the process of moving the center. Since that retreat, almost all of the Board’s energy has been devoted to this issue. First, we created a move-related vision and mission statement that can be found on our website on the director’s blog. Next, we began calling many community members to gather people’s views, answer questions and see what people were interested in doing. Through these calls, we were able to find a group of people who were inspired to work on the move and they formed the Move Committee in June 2009. This committee began to analyze our present financial situation in the context of the current economy and what our needs are in a new building. They created various types of models looking at different options and how we could implement them.

Early on, they realized that this process was about much more than moving to a new building. This will be an expansion on many levels, perhaps unlike anything we have experienced before. To illustrate this expansion process, the Move Committee developed this mandala to map the areas that we need to address. The Move Committee also researched the current real estate market and created scenarios based on purchase price, cost per member and the amount of funds needed to be raised through new membership, programs or fundraising. It was determined that we have equity of around $700,000 and would need another $1,000,000 or more.

In January, the Board, the Move Committee and The Shambhala Council attended an all-day workshop facilitated by Julie Soquet. During the workshop, we worked together to delineate a specific, down to earth plan to develop these 4 areas that together will form the foundation for our expansion. We have elaborated on this and now have a project management timeline in each of the 4 areas. We are now beginning to form the committees who will take this process to the next level. In addition, the Board has committed to developing a Shambhala Center vision & mission statement, list of objectives, and strategic plan (including a business plan for the next 5 years).

We are very aware that it has taken some time for these plans to emerge. Our thinking has evolved slowly but is now building momentum. We would like to share some of this evolution and progression with the whole community. We know that we will definitely need everyone on board to take the leap that we are planning to take. We hope to communicate our ideas as well as listen to new ones at the April 17 workshop with Julie Soquet, “Bringing Shambhala to Greater Boston” to which the whole community is invited.

On Shambhala Day Center Director Jill Blagsvedt, and Board of Trustee’s Co-Chairs John Bailes and Anne McLellan remarked on the expansion of our center, and shared the following five slides with the community.

Dear Shambhala Sangha,

The Board of Trustees is happy to announce the Boston Shambhala Center’s Move Committee. Please come to our Harvest of Peace community celebration, and the follow-up community meeting about the move on October 12th, 7pm at the Shambhala Center, to hear directly from them and the Board of Trustees about the move. Below is the Move Committee’s directive, followed by descriptions of each member. We are very excited to have them on board.

The Move Committee has been given the directive, by the Board of Trustees, to research, develop, and locate the new location for the center. Our goal is to work with the entire Boston sangha in gathering lungta and wisdom to find a fresh and exciting new location for the center. A center that naturally provides new opportunities for us to both enrich our practice and more fully engage the greater community. The committee sees this move as both a practice in and of itself, and also a chance for our community to manifest what a group of open hearted Shambhala Warriors can accomplish.

Click here to read the full announcement.

Sakyong makes the suggestion to Lodro Rinzler, Director of the center at the time
Richard Reoch brings this up to the Board during a visit to Boston

Fall 07-Spring 08

A year of envisioning exercises led by Charlie Byron, then Chair of the Board, of meeting with many segments of the community and exploring the possibilities relating to moving

Spring 08

Explored the idea of a satellite center in Somerville

Formation of first real estate task force to test the waters. Collected information about pricing in various areas of the city

Fall 08

Priorities of building and strengthening the community are begun to support the move process, such as: increasing membership, empowering a new generation of teachers, and reaching out to new groups of people.

Click here to read the full outline of major events leading to the decision to move the Center.

An article from the Shambhala Times

From the article:

On an Outer level, the activity of a Shambhala Center is dedicated to the benefit of all beings and reaches to our world.

On an Inner level, the activity of a Shambhala Center nurtures the warriors of the kingdom and deepens our practice.

On a Secret level, the activities of a Shambhala Center are the rays of the Great Eastern Sun in the midst of the Dark Age.

When we plan programs, organize our schedules, consider the various logistical and personal issues that arise in the center, it might help to consider these three levels. All three need to interact in order to fulfill the potential of every Shambhala Center. We can stop and ask: Are we skillfully relating to all three levels? If there is any disharmony, it might come from missing one of these levels. When all three work together, the Dharma will flourish and it will be obvious to all people who enter the space of Shambhala

Click here to read the full article

Our Vision: why we’re moving:

In order to attract more of the wakeful energies - the dralas - of Boston and to meet the needs of our growing community we are planning to move the center in the next two years. Our goal is to expand out to a greater audience and become a seed for enlightened society in Boston. Locating our Center and the Shambhala dharma in a drala location will positively affect our local community and the entire Northeastern Mandala. Our aspiration is that Boston will be the seat of the Sakyong and Sakyong Wangmo in the Northeast.

Our current building has many wonderful qualities and is the only meditation center that many of us have known. But it is not in an ideal location, and we will soon outgrow it. In recent years, we have also become more and more aware of the building’s other limitations: it is not handicap accessible nor family-friendly, and there is no soundproofing between the shrine rooms.

Click here to read full two-page statement and plan outline.

Boston drive around with Eva Wong and Gina Stick:

Carolyn Krusinski- driver
John Bailes- navigator
David Williams- recording

Given the large number of people entering the Boston Shambhala Center’s doors every day Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche has encouraged the community to work with feng shui master Eva Wong on finding a space in Boston that would allow us to continue to grow for many years to come. We are very much in the exploratory phase of a potential move but would like to share the transcript of Eva Wong’s most recent visit in the vein of transparency.

Click here to read script from this visit.