Guiding Teacher Report (Hogetsu)
- The Young Dragons event was rolled out by Mike and Dylan
- 26 people attended at least a half day of Rohatsu
- 12 people donated meals for the sesshin
- Donations were $5100 pledged for the event
- Anastasia is forming a peer-led group called Zen Creatives that will meet on January 17th in the Zoom zendo – will be an online group – having zazen, creating, and then talking together
- In January, Taigen will give a dharma talk on having 50 years of practice
- There’s to be a sewing teachers gathering
- Hogetsu will be away in the first part of February
- New webmaster transition with Jordan has been successful
- The library books are unpacked and stored
- Wade W. is returning from Tassajara within the next few days.Perhaps have a returning student ceremony for Wade
- Would love to have temple adornments
- Hogetsu got our Kaz Tanahashi paintings back – Dale Kaufman had them. They are ready to be more permanently hung in the zendo
- Dylan shares gratitude for his participation in the Rohatsu
Treasurer’s Report (David)
- Checking account balances (Byline plus Citibank) as of 12/14/2024: $99,878.55, with outflows of $7,912.04 and inflows of $21,846.29.
- Building Fund: Citibank Money Market balance: $226,506.25(up $881.10 from 11/16/2024 balance of $225,625.15.32
- We had 63 active supporters in November, representing $2,764.49 in pledged donations.
Fundraising Update (Dylan)
- YEAA – going pretty well $26,501, which is 44 donations, 66% of the goal of $40,000 – ahead of what we raised last year, which was admittedly a down year – there’s still a month and a half to go
- Of all the donations have come in, 95% are coming online
- Hogetsu has been acknowledging donors personally and Dylan will be doing this as well
- Dylan is tracking donations on a spreadsheet. Next steps Dylan will email previous donors who have not yet donated
- Mailchimp email blast on the 31st of December to push last ask in 2024
- Mark is making social media asks, same with the webmaster team
- Nicolas Joyner is doing Instagram posts
- Last push will be the second week of January – Dylan will invite board members to do same thing Dylan is doing, asking folks via email to make final pitch
- February tax letters will be sent around the middle of February
- SalesForce update – contributions from September and October are now accounted
- Hogetsu wondered if the average donation amount was higher than previous. Data is not yet available.
Board Changes
- Ko and Beau departing
- Paula, Chris, and Howard incoming
Sangha meeting follow-up
- Very productive meeting
- Folks would like to see Thursday nights happen again
- Folks want more classes, programming in general
- People want a little more orientation about basic Buddhist ideas
- Welcoming is a huge piece
Technology Report (Kevin)
- Traffic to the website is consistent
Promotions Committee (Mark)
- Not a lot of changes since August or so
- Been posting pretty frequently with fundraising appeals, but also careful not to alienate folks
Hospitality and Sangha Care Committee (Chris)
- No updates