Membership Policy Working Group

August 31, 2004 - minutes

Present: Jane Ward, Wendy Layton, Corey Simpson, Mary Whetsell

Next Meetings:    Tuesday, September 7
                                     Tuesday, September 21
                                     Tuesday, October 5

            For all meetings: Dial-in #: 1-831-600-1000. Access code: 1110811
            9am Mountain, 10am Central, 11am Eastern, noon Atlantic, 4pm BST, 5pm CEST


1. COMMUNICATION. Within the next few days Wendy will be issuing a bulletin through sangha announce describing how everyone can keep up with and participate in the “Congress process”.  Please check out the Congress website, particularly the Bulletin Board, once it is up.

2. INVITING FEEDBACK.  We would like to increase our sources of feedback, particularly as we move into the stage of making recommendations.  This will be done in two ways: (1) Mary will distribute draft membership recommendations to the membership review group, with requests for feedback. (2) Working group members will be asked to gather feedback from their local communities regarding our proposed recommendations. This does not need to involve their entire communities at this point; it’s more like piloting our recommendations in small think tanks to help us refine them. We hope to have a recommendation document ready for review in the next couple of weeks, at which time we will begin the process described above.

3. IMPLEMENTATION. Recommendations will also require implementation if adopted. We should be thinking about how adopted recommendations might be implemented now, at the development stage. A recommendation that can’t be implemented is not likely to be a good recommendation.

4. SHAMBHALA EUROPE/ SHAMBHALA INTERNATIONAL. Our recommendations document will delineate the relationship between S.E./S.I. vis a vis membership issues. Jane is working to revise the recommendation document accordingly, and hopes to have these revisions prepared for us to review at the next meeting.

5. SHAMBHALA OATH. We discussed whether the oath, as it now reads, accurately reflects the correct view of membership. Corey has bravely agreed to take a stab at writing the oath in a way that reflects our best understanding of  the Sakyong’s vision, including his recent statement that the binding factor in the mandala is basic goodness.  Mary will write a short section at the top of the document describing view of membership.  This section will attempt to address some of the more difficult membership issues  - membership in what? And to what/whom is one connecting when one becomes a member? It was noted that input from the Sakyong and the President on this issue could be quite helpful. We will offer our work concerning view and the oath to the Sakyong and Mr. Reoch for review prior to distribution to the mandala-at-large.

6. DOCUMENT LANGUAGE. Wendy will review the entire document for language which is not clear, or which in some way may appear “leading” to the reader.