Our annual general meeting - decisions and discussions
On Wednesday 28 April One Mindful Breath held it’s annual general meeting (AGM). As a secular dharma sangha (community) we're led by our participants and everyone is welcome to contribute to our future direction. Our AGM was a great opportunity for people to express an interest in being more involved in planning and organising, and on general policy changes.
Our AGM was well attended, with some great discussions and thoughtful inputs. The only issue was running out of time!
Annual report and financial report
Alex welcomed participants and gave a report on One Mindful Breath’s activities and growth over the last year. Overall the number of active members increased considerably over the period, attributable to varied topics and presenters, better advertising, and easing of COVID restrictions in Wellington.
Pete gave a finance report for the period 2021/2022, observing that our finances were healthy, but we still had a net loss of approximately $300 over the period, attributable to lower attendance (and therefore lower dana).
Care committee elections
OMB has an Care Committee of participants who make decisions about the operation of the sangha. The following people were unanimously elected to the Care Committee (listed alphabetically):
Alex Carr
David Chittenden
Max Clarke (until December 2022)
Damon Vassiliadis (from December 2022)
Julia Wells
Policy issues
We decided to park discussion on changing the start times, as we didn’t know enough about what start time suits people. We decided to undertake a survey to ask people what start time works best, focused on increasing attendance.
We agreed (with some abstentions) to remove the vaccine pass requirement for attending in-person sessions. We have updated our website and event advertising to make it clear that we strongly encourage participants to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
We reiterated our commitment to improving inclusion of everyone who attends our sessions and initiated discussion on how to improve our inclusion and diversity ,with some excellent suggestions received. This topic will also be the subject of a future survey for more ideas to be actioned by the care committee.
On checks and balances and safety, and also on better managing discussion topics, we ran out of time. These issues will be referred to the care committee for future action.
The AGM finished with a meditation.