Sacramento Dharma Center

On April 14th, your Dharma Center board adopted an implementation plan with timeline to accompany the new strategic plan, soon to be posted here on our website. New President Susan Orr, VP Julia Mullen, Treasurer John Penfield, Secretary John Phelps, and members Linda Dekker, Joette Sebastiani, and Helen Hobart warmly invite your participation! Your continuing encouragement and sense of possibility has buoyed the SDC board through months of very focused work.

We now have a pragmatic set of tools for the work ahead: criteria for assessing the suitability of buildings; checklist to choose a realtor, fundraising targets based on numbers of supporters and amounts, by key dates; more conversations with donors and Sanghas; guidelines for day-to-day tasks at the Center, and much more, are spelled out in the implementation plan. Board energies are high. Frank and lively discussion at the late March brunch with the Founding Sangha boards from Sacramento Insight Meditation, Valley Streams Zen Sangha, and Sacramento Buddhist Meditation Group, sparked everyone’s can-do spirit. Person-to-person conversations make all the difference!

What’s Coming Up?

1. Party time! Save the evening of Saturday, June 13th, for a time to come together in The Courtyard in midtown for live music, refreshments, a raffle, and conversations, all in the flow of Second Saturday goings-on. You’ll have a chance to get free raffle tickets when you sign up to participate in the Sustaining Circle of donors, the critical building block of our ability to meet the Center’s monthly costs.

2. Monthly giving is the key to our future. Please be on the look out for the letter you will receive shortly, explaining this new phase of developing our community Dharma Center. If sharing the benefits of your practice, and contributing to growing compassion and wisdom in our community, speaks to your heart, please offer your generous support.

3. Your help is essential and we welcome you to participate in an upbeat Volunteer Program where you can express your love of the Dharma, use your talents, and get in on the very foundations of creating the Center with like-minded friends. Do your interests lie in graphic design? Working with finances? Scouting buildings? Hands-on work when we have a building? Social media and photography? Special events? You are needed!

You will be seeing concrete steps this month and throughout 2015 to ensure we are ready and able to enter into negotiations for a lease or lease-to-buy building without delay. Together with your help, we will offer the community the benefits of sitting groups, Dharma classes, Sangha programs, retreats, and workshops, family programming, and much more, available every day in our own home.

First, we are excited to tell you that we have three new board members Julia Mullen, Joette Sebastiani, and John Phelps. They have brought a breath of fresh air to our Board and really rolled up their sleeves and dug into the work.

Since we did not complete the purchase of the B street property, we have embarked on a re-examination of our goals and purpose in order to move forward in the most effective manner to achieve our vision of finding a stable, long-term home for our three Founding Sanghas. We surveyed each of the Sangha Boards in order to clarify their expectations regarding the Dharma Center. As always, their input informs our planning.

On December 5th the entire SDC Board attended a professionally facilitated work shop clarifying our vision, core values, decision making process and roles as board members. Additionally, on an ongoing basis we have been revising and renewing our strategic plan which will be completed soon after the holidays.

The past seven months have been busy ones for the Dharma Center Board with meetings, inspections and evaluations related to the proposed purchase of the property at 3240 B Street.

We must report that we were unable to negotiate a purchase price that would allow for enough reserves for the repairs and upgrades that would need to be done.

We are taking a breath, and some time, to process our disappointment and the lessons learned from this experience. We will keep you informed about our next steps as we move forward.

We are grateful beyond measure for our supporters and advisers; financial, spiritual, and emotional, who have traveled this road with us so far. Stay tuned…

We want to thank all the wonderful folks who attended the open house at the 3240 B Street property on the 14^th. We had a great time and hope you did as well. Your input was very encouraging, here is a sample of the comments we received in our ‘suggestion box’:

• Fabulous opportunity, please stretch to make this happen.
• I love that it is already a sacred space…Overall it is …quite charming. I like the back yard lawn that be available for open air activities.
• Interior design plans by professional please. Then work can be done slowly by ourselves. Like the feel of the space.

• Loved this – big open space a lot of potential – with 2 kitchens and little house next door – but I wondered if it might be more than the groups need, consequently more money…

• I hope we get to keep this facility for ourselves and make it into a temple and develop synergistic energy between all three groups, and change the decor to reflect our values. I love the possibilities and would be happy to help.

• I like the activity room with the wooden floor…It seems as if the repairs and upgrades would require a lot of money – both in the main building and the little house… I very much appreciate the effort, thought and consideration that has gone into the pursuit of a Dharma Center!! Thank you.

• Love the space. Two rooms are better than one acoustically. A larger room would not be on a human scale. Good feeling to both rooms. Great energy in this location.

• I love it & the potential to make this a green, loving, peaceful sanctuary & center of great fun. Love that it is older & has a very good vibe…

• This property looks very workable – good space & opportunity! I am willing to do more financially if we acquire the property!

• The building and grounds could definitely be transformed into a workable and beautiful space. It’s clear it would require a lot of work… My chief concern is about the transportation problems for sangha members who can’t bike or drive a car… The carpools and ride-sharing would have to be very well-constructed.

• I like this space. It has potential in spite of the repairs that are needed. The two large spaces allow two groups to meet simultaneously: Go for it!

• Lovely opportunity – Hope it works out. Nice spaces – great kitchen which could help provide some bit of income for special events.

• I am grateful to those who have sought & found a home for SDC. I would love to have a place where our Buddhist practices can deepen & thrive. This space is good! What a joy & contentment I feel. As with the SDC board, my only concern is our financial ability to purchase, renovate, & sustain SDC. I am reminded, though, of the Zen saying: Jump and the Net will appear.

Join us for an Open House, or should we say Open Dharma Center, at the site of our proposed new location at 3240 B Street in Sacramento Saturday June 14th. Have some treats and take a tour. Come any time between 10 am and 3 pm. The Dharma Center board members will be around and will be your guides, they want to hear your suggestions and answer your questions.