funding
A important part of the work of our Order is that of helping the men and women who have asked for ordination. This 'training' is overseen by the College of Public Preceptors, a body of over 30 senior Order members, some 13 women and 18 men. Between us we work with all those who have asked to join our Order, and with the growing number of private preceptors, strengthening our underlying unity while encouraging a diversity of approaches to ordination training.
Those of us involved in this aspect of the Order are very happy to be so, and their is agreat deal of enthusiasm and altruism among the public preceptors to engage in our work.
jobs
There is a lot of organisational work to the effective functioning of the College. In order to carry out this work the preceptors' college needs to financially support a part-time administrator and the college chairman (at least partially). This year, 2010, we also hope to start providing the chair with part-time secretarial support so that he or she can focus on more essential work.
We also try to find funds for the public preceptors from India and Australasia to attend our meetings in the UK: this is one of the important links that keeps the Indian and Western Orders spiritually unified.
The work of the chair and the administrator are central to the effectiveness of the college, as is our ability to come together in relatively large numbers once or twice a year. To support all this we need to find just £20,000 per annum.
a chance to support our work
In 2008 we managed to raise some £8,000 from amongst the men and women who have asked for ordination. Last year (2009) we aimed to raise £15,000. In the end we managed to raise some £14,000, through standing orders, one-off donations and gift aid. That was fantastic. This year we hope to build on that growing financial support for the college and raise £20,000, enough to start providing some secretarial support to Dhammarati, the chair of the college. To do so we need to keep the donors we have and find about another 100 donors. One of those could be you!
At present the chairman is Dhammarati and Moksananda is the administrator.
As a direct result of people's generosity Moksananda is able to cover a number of essential jobs, such as maintaining our web page, support private and public preceptors in a number of administrative ways, register names for ordinations as well as follow through decisions made at our meetings, write reports and respond to queries, and give Dhammarati some help. And of course, find the funding we need!
Dhammarati works directly with the college of public preceptors to help us focus and develop that all important shared understanding of going for refuge'. He also works with the private preceptors, and meets with the chairs of fwbo centres, the presidents, the mitra convenors and Dharma teachers, as well as with Bhante. This link between the college and the Order and movement is vital and it's essential that we are able to support him to be able to do this work. Though Dhammarati holds other responsibilities too, through the generosity of donors he is able to give a considerable amount of his time to these important tasks.
With the money we raised in 2009 we were also able to pay for Public Preceptors from Australasia to come to our meetings in the Uk and also to help public preceptors from Europe to attend our college meeting in Inida.
we are asking for your help.
Our work is of most benefit to the men and women who have asked for ordination. If you are one of them, we hope that you will understand its importance and want to make it possible for us to do what we need to do in order to support your ordination process. If you are an order member, then please consider helping us in our work for the order. Of course, any one else is very welcome to support us too!
We're suggesting a donation of £50 a year, less than £1 per week, for those in the UK, or the equivalent in Euros for those in the rest of Europe.
standing orders + gift aid
A standing order would make this simpler and more reliable for us. This could be a monthly or an annual standing order.
The details are here if you want, and are able, to help. There is also a gift aid form for those who pay tax in the UK. Receiving gift aid makes a big difference to how much we receive, so please do consider it if you pay UK tax.
justgiving.com
Alternatively you can give us a much appreciated one off donation over the internet. If this is what you would prefer, then please go to 'donate.
If you have already set up a standing order to the college, we want to thank you for your continued support into 2010. If you haven't yet set up a standing order to support the preceptors college then please consider it. Please do help us to help you or others prepare for ordination into the Western Buddhist Order.