Hi all.
This week
...at sangha we have our monthly sutta study. Please make sure you've read Sutta #1 'The Hawk' and the commentary on this sutta in the second half of the book. Oh, and be ready for some good discussion!
Change to sangha fees
For over 9 years now, it's cost only $5 to come to sangha. This fee is our individual contribution to cover rent of the venue and supplies cupboard, insurance (which we need to book it), and tea & bikkies. A couple of years ago, Council put up the rent, and since then we've needed $50-$60 per week in donations to cover our costs. So most weeks we haven't actually covered our costs.
This has been okay for a while because we'd saved a bit before the rent went up, and we've been able to draw on this to keep things going. However there's not much left, so we are going to have to put up the sangha fee. As of this week, we're going to suggest $10 as the fee to cover our sangha's expenses.
As always, we don't want a lack of money to prevent anyone from coming to sangha, so if you truly can't afford $10, then please just give whatever you can, and perhaps speak to one of us about other ways you might be able to contribute. As the Buddha said, 'if you knew what I know about generosity, you'd never let a day go by without practising it'. Our sangha only exists while we are all engaged in that practice.
Dana
As you know, when someone has spent time preparing and facilitating a session, we also like to offer them donations ('dana' means generosity). The way we've structured our program this year, we don't need dana every week, as we don't always have prepared sessions. To help clarify things, if the 'dana' basket it out on the bench, it means we're offering dana to the person running the session. If only the 'sangha fee' basket is out, that's all we need to give.
Selena is making up some new signs to attach to the baskets so it's clear which one is which.
Hope to see you for sutta study!
LL
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