Summary of Sangha Organising Meeting discussion - 30th August 2025

White Clouds Sangha Organising Meeting 30^th August 2025 Summary

Matters arising from last meeting

Arrangements for break out groups for dharma sharing both on line and in person seem to be working well with facilitators being able to hold these smaller groups.  Having someone familiar with the practice to welcome attendees into the library at Redland also seems to be working well.

1.       Day Of Mindfulness - 4^th October, Bedminster Meeting House

Theme - “Being Peace” was agreed.

This is a joint DoM with Wake-Up and we were so pleased Caitlin from Wake-up could join us for the meeting.  We agreed the draft Programme for the Day including the content (recorded talk, meditations) and who will bring necessary equipment.  Around 7 or 8 people from the sangha have offered to help on the day.  These individuals will be contacted about being part of one of the Caring Teams (see below) involved in making the day run smoothly.  We are most grateful to those who have volunteered.

There will be a final meeting on zoom at 6pm on Wednesday 1^st October to check all is in place.

The Flow as a Sangha document has been updated.  This sets out the Roles for the Caring Teams for DoMs and is now a generic document which will be made available to all those involved.

Caring Teams for a DoM (numbers of people needed)

·         Welcoming team – caring for our attenders (2)

·         Announcers/closing circle (2)

·         Bell Master

·         Dharma Hall Care team (2)

·         Food Caring team (2)

·         Kitchen Care team (3)

·         Offering Drinks Care team (2)

2.       Succession Planning

We agreed to move forward with the Succession Plan strategy.  It was recognised that many of the existing members of the organising group have been in these roles for years, and in some cases decades.  Some of the team will be stepping down over the next few months. 

In light of this, we have decided to move towards an organising team model which has inbuilt succession planning within it.  We envisage the following: 

• Individuals who volunteer to take up roles will be asked to commit to carrying out these out for 2 years as the main role holder after a period of 3-9 months of working alongside the current role holder.  

• During the second year of the main role holder being in post, another person will be recruited to work alongside the main role holder. 

• This will enable the second person to learn about the role, with the aim of taking on that role at the end of year.  They will then carry out this role for 2 years, again having a second person alongside them during their second year.

In this way it is hoped that current members of the organising team can provide a well structured hand over to new people and that this model will provide a way forward for managing the sangha a rolling basis.  Individuals will have the opportunity to contribute to the sangha without the commitment being too onerous or too open ended.

The following roles have been identified:

Meeting Convener

Treasurer

Room Booking

Safeguarding

Communications and website

Day of Mindfulness Coordinator

Facilitator Coordinator 

A document setting out the details of these roles has been produced and will be circulated to the wider sangha asking people to email the sangha in box to express interest in taking up one of these roles.  We hope that the process of identifying new people to undertake these roles will be completed by the end of 2025. 

We agreed to mention succession planning at sangha evenings over the coming months and at the Day of Mindfulness.  Hard copies of the roles document will be made available at in person sanghas.  It will be posted as a News item on the website.

We will review this process at our November meeting.

3.       Facilitation Training

• 9 people have signed up so far.  There are 6 places still available.

• Zofia has offered to start the training on Sunday 12 October at 5pm.  Each session will be 90 minutes. 

• Sophia wants to meet everyone first on zoom and then work out how to take it from there, but probably she will meet with 2 people at a time for subsequent sessions.  It depends on people’s experience as to how many sessions they will need after that – anywhere between 2 and 6 subsequent meetings in small groups (2-3).    

• At end of the training 2 people from the organising group to meet with those who undertook the training to find out how it went and be there for them when they start facilitating.

• Existing facilitators to mentor /support new facilitators during their first few live facilitation experiences.

4.       Treasurer Report

We have  £2300 in the bank account.

We agreed to buy 2 small bells for breakout dharma sharing groups.

We may be able to make a donation to Being Peace at some point – We will wait to hear what is the next fundraising campaign.

5.       Date of next Meeting

22^nd November 2pm at sangha member’s house – please email bristolsangha@gmail.com if you would like to attend