Report on June 2015 Kalamazoo Interfaith Forum planning session

[Neil Chase]

Hello, everyone.

I hope your summer is going well.

We had a very productive meeting on Sun. June 14 at Water Street Cafe. The small group that met was able to choose topics for all the months in which we plan to have our regular meetings this year (September, October., November, December, January, February, March, April.). We'd also like to line up venues for each month's meeting in advance. Before we do this, though, we thought we'd address the issue of 'when' we hold our meetings. For a few of us, 4-6 PM on the second Sunday (Sept. - April) works very well. However, we're curious about what others think. Below is a link to a Doodle poll I've created. The poll lists the second Sundays of each month between Sept. 2015 and April 2016 with the option of a Sat. meeting on the same weekend. Three times are given for each day 2:00, 3:00 and 4:00. These represent start times. We decided that two hours for each meeting is still the right amount of time to present topics and discuss them.

Here's the Doodle poll: http://doodle.com/bnaz7iaumb4fr3er

Another important topic we addressed at our June meeting was adding a new element to our monthly presentations. We hope that each participant in future meetings will write a short summary of their presentation. The summary (no more than a one-page document) would help the participants keep their presentations succinct and would also serve as archives of our presentations that would be accessible online. Naeem is setting up a Wordpress site for Kalamazoo Interfaith Forum. After (or prior to) each month's discussion,  we can forward these documents to Naeem as Word or text files that he can upload to our site. This way members who wouldn't be able to attend a given meeting or those who would like to become familiar with our group could have access to our archived presentations. Also, discussions could  continue via the "comments" section at the Wordpress site. Stay tuned for more information about KIF online. When we've got the site developed, I'll send a link to this list.

Peace,

Namaste,

Gassho,

_/|\_

Neil

[Neil Chase]

Thanks very much, Robert. It's great to know your space will be an option again.

I understand about the Doodle poll. Were just curious to see if there might be significant interest out there for other weekend meeting times.

Thanks for the info. about the presentation on Buddhadharma.

_/|\_

Neil

On Saturday, June 27, 2015, <Dharm...@aol.com> wrote:

Thanks for this planning Neil et. al.

 

I'm not filling out the doodle poll because I can't say whether one of those times on

a Saturday or Sunday would be better than another. All look possible.

 

If you're looking for venues, our space can work much of the time. Sometimes,

our programming might get in the way, but much of the time, it could work.

 

And, I like the idea of providing written summaries and sharing them related to

any particular topic.

 

Best regards. I hope to show up more frequently in the coming year.

 

By the way, there will be a basic talk on buddhadharma at 1611 W. Centre

downstairs Sunday at 4 p.m. Directions: http://dharmagroup-michigan.host-ed.me/community.htm#directions

 

 

Robert Walker

SW Michigan Meditation Group
and Shambhala Training
Meeting at: 1611 W. Centre, Ste. 208, Portage, MI
269-384-4167
http://dharmagroup-michigan.host-ed.me/