White Heron Sangha’s Thirtieth Anniversary Party
By the Anniversary Party Planners
In 1991 three Buddhist friends decided to meet together for meditation and, as they say, the rest is history. The exact date of this first meeting has been lost to memory but it was most likely either October 20th or 27th. Thus, this year, on October 24, we will celebrate our Sangha’s 30th anniversary!
Our Sangha has survived numerous challenges over these past 30 years, not the least of which is the current pandemic! Thus, a celebration seems like a good idea. Since this is a special night, we have made some adjustment to the usual schedule, starting at 5:00PM and perhaps ending program as late as 7:45PM. As usual our temporary, in-person COVID guidelines apply. However we will have Zoom participation for the indoor portion the evening to begin at 6:00 PM.
Prior to this gathering, everyone is strongly urged to review the Sangha’s history provided on our website. This can be found by selecting the “About” drop-down menu and clicking on “History” option.
The planned schedule for the evening is:
5:00 to 5:55pm: outdoor social time with tea, COVID appropriate snacks and an anniversary cake;
6:00 to 6:40pm: our usual meditation/announcements inside the Center.
6:40pm: Rosemary will open the program and some of the Sangha’s long-time members will be on hand to answer any questions about our Sangha’s history that are not answered by the website history—hopefully everyone will have done their homework!
~ 6:45PM to 7:30pm (at the latest), we will have “open mic” night for anyone and everyone to share Sangha “stories of people, places and teachings”. These could be fond memories of people from the Sangha who have died, funny things that happened, lessons you have learned etc. etc. (It is suggested that this is a time when it would be best to write out what you want to say rather than speak extemporaneously; that helps prevent rambling and will allow time for more people to be able to share).
We will close program with a guided meditation/reflection on our personal commitment to Buddhist practice and to the future of White Heron Sangha.