P&E Team Minutes – 25 June 2020

Attending: Merlin, Jane, Tessa, Rachael, Jez, Jim

Minutes – Jez

Agenda

* Appoint minute-taker

* Minutes of last meeting

* CDI team proposal for meeting(s) on July 4th onwards

* Advertising of the Pandemic practices.

* Team representative on the council

* half day retreats online

* Open of centre from 6th July onwards

* Scheduling

* Next meeting: chair and possible dates

Minutes

* Minutes of last meeting

ACTION – Jez to put up Monday and Wednesday on calendar

ACTION – Tessa to look into MI’s offer interviews

* CDI team proposal for meeting(s) on July 4th onwards

  • First meeting is fine  in principle- However the team does feel that moving it to a later date in July is important as giving only just over 1 weeks notice to members is not enough.
  • The second meeting should then be moved to August or even September.  
  • Non-members – They are invited to the first meeting but should not be allowed to vote in the second meeting.
  • Dharma brat letter and Khandro Rinpoche Talk should be issued to members as part of the materials. 
  • Some members of the team want to have an option for the centre and its members to take it’s time over this process.In other words a Middle Way position whereby we can find a way to include all members and all opinions. The idea that we need to hurry towards a position doesn’t take on board our role in helping to develop and foster Buddhism in the West. That takes time and care and patience and tolerance of divergent views, ie: kindness. 
  • Some members felt that it was urgent to decide because they believe that more and more members are leaving due to a failure to address these issues. Also possibly because of the fact that we couldn’t go on constantly being distracted by the crisis which had affected the work of the Centre.  The Centre was already losing money and we need to be able to pull together to get it to work.
  • There was a feeling that the format of the meeting with the 4 options and then break out groups under each banner was not going to work.
  • Another option was to invite people to give a 5 minute presentation on their vision for the Centre going forward and/or their vision about the process of decision-making.  Those that want to offer a presentation can give one: they will need to let the Chair/ organising team know ahead so we can keep an eye on numbers and timing. Then people break out into random groups and discuss how the presentations landed for them and how they are feeling about the issues raised. We then return for a full group discussion.
  • How we decide what happens next is a big question. One option that is offered is – a straw poll about what to do next which can be done at the end of the meeting as an anonymous poll within Zoom.  This would not be about binding decisions but just to get a sense of how the wind blows. (eg Timing of process:  ‘I would like to take time for any major decisions (eg 6 months to a year or more)’ ‘I would like the Centre’s future relationship to SI to be decided as soon as possible’  ‘I am unsure’). The question of how the bigger decisions can be legally made is  something that the trustees should be thinking about.
  • One thought that came up about the 4 options that are proposed is that really there are 2 options, stay or leave.

Looking at the various options put forward by CDI, P&E would say that:

  • If we were to disaffiliate – we could not teach Shambhala Training or use the name Shambhala Centre, or Shambhala Meditation Centre by law.  
  • Would there be a  vajrayana path?  We do not know currently who is in a position to continue to offer those empowerments.  It is possible that something might arise but we can’t say with any certainty.
  • Could we take the teachings from the path of the warrior, who would authorise that.  As before, we can’t use the term ‘Shambhala Training’ but could a syllabus be taught from Trungpa Rinpoche’s book ‘The Path of the Warrior’?
  • There are varying views within the P&E team, so it seems that any consensus about what may happen is difficult to achieve.

* Advertising of the Pandemic practices.

There are separate public practices and vajrayana practices offered as  different practice sessions on different days of the week.

ACTION – Agreed, subject council / trustees approval as a “controversial “ issue.

* Team representative on the council

ACTION – Rachael confirmed as representative on an on-going basis, but with emails to the P&E representative still to be sent to all members of the team

* half day retreats online

postponed

* Open of centre from 6th July onwards

Need risk assessment before opening – For trustees and council to decide

* Scheduling

Postponed

* Next meeting: chair and possible dates

ACTION – Doodle poll for 3 and 4 weeks on a Thursday – Jez to send. 

Chair of next meeting – Rachael