Meeting called to order at 11:47 am.
Attending: Yair, Dennis, Jane, Ken M.
Yair expressed appreciation of the service of Carol, Bryan, and Jane.
Tech Report: Carol is in Italy. Jane asked Yahir if he and Erica had finalized the Sangha Committee minutes and if they were ready to go to Kenneth to be posted on the website. ACTION: Yahir agreed to follow-up on this.
Treasurer Report: Given the recent transferring of money between accounts for the May 2025 retreat, the report is not yet finalized but will be by the end of December. The treasurer is familiar with the process of putting dana checks, dana from Venmo, and dana from PayPal into the Still Mountain checking account; moving May 2025 retreat registration deposits to the retreat account; preparing tax reports for Still Mountain and for individuals giving dana. The dana page on the StillMountain website will have our nonprofit ID and other information on avoiding taxes on nonprofit donations. This year there have been more expenses for technology (materials, payment for the Communications Manager, and payment for Termageddon).
Buddhist Global Relief Fund: Both the Board and the Teachers’ Council separately approved Still Mountain donations to BGR on a monthly basis subject to periodic review. ACTION: Yair will write an email message from the Board to the sangha members about giving to the BGR. The Board decided to start the monthly donation in January 2025 with discussion at the December Community Meeting.
Teacher Council: There will be a December 25 sitting at Turner and Yair will run zoom for it.
The Scholarship policy for retreats has been finalized. There will be language on the website stating that if there are financial needs to attend a retreat individual(s) should contact Ken Morley and the Teacher Council will review the request(s) and interact with the individual(s). Ken M. will inform the Treasurer for action on approved request(s). This overrides the statement from the November meeting to allow scholarship(s) for the May 25 retreat. The initial amount of $880 from the Retreat Scholarship account is approved for this purpose, but if there is need to exceed that amount the Board will consider it. Any amount left in the Retreat Scholarship account will be applied to subsequent retreats.
After the sitting on January 12, 2025, there will be discussion about topics for monthly dharma talks in 2025. Should there be a theme to the talks? Should each teacher pick a topic of interest? What suggestions for topics do sangha members have? Should there be input from an advanced spiritual leader?
The Teacher Profiles on the website have been updated for David and Mary.
Reenergize the Room Setup and Zoom Tech Team: We need more members to volunteer for zoom tech and room set-up on Sundays prior to the sitting. This will be announced at the December Community meeting. The Board decided that the 2025 Board should appoint a Board member to be the point person to build and coordinate the volunteer group(s) for setup each week.
Hurricane Helene and Milton Relief: The Board discussed the request to consider hurricane relief donation and decided not to be reactive to this request this year. Our donation to the BGR is totally inline with our values and world outreach including doing relief funding for crises.
ACTION ITEMS FOR 2025 BOARD:
- General discussion of the Board’s role – to rubber stamp or lead the sangha
- The role of a “weaver” who understands the momentum of the group
- How to align and address needs, how do we nurture this in others?
- Consideration of a longer Board or joint Board/Teacher Council specific retreat to deal with deeper issues. Who is responsible for planning this?
The meeting was adjourned at 1:30 pm.