Buddhist Hour
Radio Broadcast 237 for Sunday 11 August 2002
on Hillside Radio
88.0 FM
Glossary:
benevolent: desirous of the good of
others, of a kindly disposition, charitable
gratitude: the
quality or condition of being grateful or thankful,; the appreciation
of and inclination to return kindness; gratefulness
Today’s program is titled:
The President’s
Annual Report 2001 – 2002
Our Centre, the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd.
has been incorporated as an Australian company since 21 July 1980.
We plan by the year 2008 to be the fifth most popular global
e-resource for Buddha Dhamma.
On the occasion of our 23rd
Annual General Meeting, held at our Centre yesterday Saturday 10
August 2002, our President Mr. Julian Bamford B.A. App.Rec reported
to our Resident Practitioners, Directors, our heavenly advisors and
Members, on the many meritorious successes our Centre achieved over
the past twelve months and setting our policies for the
future.
Today, we would like to share our President’s
Annual Report 2001 – 2002 with you.
The President’s
Annual Report 2001 - 2002
This report assumes the reader is
familiar with the objects for which our Centre is established. They
are:
To introduce a philosophy of life based on the teachings
of Buddha Dharma.
To encourage the study, practice and
realisation of Buddha Dharma.
To promote activities associated
with Buddhism and Buddhist Culture in Australia and overseas.
To
investigate unexplained laws of Nature and the powers latent in
man.
To promote and maintain direct or auxiliary activities
for educational, social, charitable, philanthropic, benevolent and
humanitarian work.
To build, construct, maintain and alter any
buildings or works in accordance with the requirements of the
Centre.
Pali: somanassa-sahagatam nana-sampayuttam
sasankharikam ekam
English: one consciousness, prompted,
accompanied by joy, associated with knowledge
1.0 Our New
Committee and Staff 2002 - 2003
We welcome our new
Executive Members and our new staff. (See Appendix 1)
We
completed 3 years and 3 moons of Prajna Paramitta Teachings at our
Centre this year.
We began Abhidhamma teaching in 2001 –
2002 and it will be taught for the next nine years.
Our
Abhidhamma teaching program is directed toward team teaching. The
year before last we had two foci Teachers. This last year more
adaptive foci occurred at our Centre.
They are now four foci.
The four members of our Teaching Team, are three females and one
male, who have worked together for some years at our Centre.
Our
President supports all our team teaching endeavours.
Members
have remembered to increase regular offerings to the various Devas
and Devatas who help our organisation. We dedicate this President’s
Annual Report 2001 – 2002 to them with a series of requests that
they continue their advice and assistance in future.
2.0
Trading Report
Those professing to follow Buddha Dhamma
continue to
grow according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics
official census figures.
There has been a 290% increase
since the last census.
Further growth is expected.
We
have fulfilled our statutory obligations as a company.
We
believe that we can continue to remain solvent over the next twelve
months.
Our Return on Investment (ROI) for the year 2001- 2002
was 22%
We calculated our Return on Investment (ROI) by adding
profit (increase of assets after depreciation) and cash, goods and
labour inputs (provided by Frank Carter, B.Ec.) and divided by last
year’s total net assets.
$3966 + $67,301 + $26,570
divided by $436,404 = 22%
This year’s assets are valued at
$440,501.
As Australian bank interest is around 4.2% and over
the last three months shares have dropped (All Ordinaries Index –9%,
Dow Jones –22%, NASDAQ –27%) we can determine against this
background that our performance was very good.
3.0 New
Life Members Appointed
Anita Hughes R.N.Div.1. was
presented with Life Membership for her superior example as Resident
Practitioner. Anita is on the Standing Committee on Women of the
World Fellowship of Buddhists
Dr. Ananda W.P. Guruge B.A. PhD.
B.Litt, was presented with a Life Membership for his decades of
helping the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd. adjust to
International affairs.
Dr. Ananda W.P. Guruge is a renowned
Buddhist Scholar, author of 44 books, past Diplomat, Dean of the
Faculty of Buddhist studies at Hsi Lai University, USA and
Vice-President of the World Fellowship of Buddhists and its former
UNESCO Ambassador.
4.0 New Cultural Changes Achieved
A
major cultural change has been to our Sangha advisors. Two Theravadin
Monks from Thailand are now our advisors, the Most Venerable Phra
Ajarn Plien Panyapatipo and the Most Venerable Phra Sithichoke
Sithiyakara.
Another two major cultural changes occurred in
the past year.
the gaining of a second Resident Practitioner,
and;
how much more we use Information Technology to globalise
our activities.
5.0 Our Web Site Publications
Development
Our web sites are part of our
“library-without-walls” project.
Our teachers and
web masters have developed much savoir-faire regarding our web sites
publications this year.
Our major web masters are Evelin
Halls, Pennie White and Julian Bamford. We have another three
webmasters in full training of our style of operations: Leanne Eames,
Helen Appleyard and Kamfatt Lin.
In the case of our flagship
publication the Buddha Dhyana Dana Review, we have found how to
increase the depth of knowledge fields online we present to our
readers in our publications.
New translations of Suttas from
Pali to English by Sister M. Uppalawanna have been added to our
Internet sites. The Suttas Majjhima Nikaaja 1 – 101, Majjhima
III, Anguttara Nikaaya I – Ruupaadii Ekaka Vagga I are on our
websites:
http://www.bddronline.net.au/bddr12no3
http://www.companyontheweb.com/buddhatext
In
the case of the Brooking Street Bugle, we have found how to increase
the very human approach online of our publication.
Now we
understand we can illustrate an article with 200 colour photographs
or more on our web site, whereas if we were to print it we would have
to limit the range of illustrations because of physical space and
economic considerations.
During the year we published 18 print
issues of the Brooking Street Bugle, averaging 30 to 40 A4 pages, and
publishing online at www.bsbonline.com.au with over 580 colour
photographs to give a pictorial account of the many meritorious
activities our Centre’s Members have generated.
We have
around 2800 colour photographs online on our seven websites.
When
selection is made from arrays of photographs, the potential depths of
knowledge fields are diminished.
Our webmasters put their time,
effort and expertise into running our seven web sites and the extent
of our success can be seen by:
Total visits for all sites
since counters have been put on are: 10,147.
Average number
of visitors per day for all sites: 20
Aggregate visitor
traffic predicted in the next month for all sites: 478
6.0
Our Five Year e-Resource Target
We want to distribute and
store more branded information in various modern media.
To
help us become more widely known we have instituted a new policy for
branding digital data as the Chan Academy Australia.
We aim
to be the fifth most popular Buddha Dhamma e-resource in the world by
2008. By that year, a new fast Internet service ought to be operating
.......? in this country.
It helps that we are a Regional
Centre of the World Fellowship of Buddhists, and an Associated
Institute of the World Buddhist University, both head quartered in
Bangkok Thailand.
To keep in touch, this year we sent out New
Year and Versak blessing cards to other Regional Centres and
friends.
We receive many international publications and
messages electronically from around the world. More and more we use
email to deliver our key papers in Australia and globally, as well as
communications with our Members. Our total external emails, sent and
received, for 2001 – 2002 was 3460.
We have an internal
e-mail on LAN2 for select Members.
We are learning to
systematise the handling and preservation of captured data in digital
form. We have hundreds of colour photographs from three digital
cameras that we have backed up to CD’s for storage and use by
our webmasters.
7.0 Property Rating Report
It
is with great pleasure that I can report that during the past year we
have achieved planning normalisation of our Centre’s position as
a small Hall of Assembly with the local Council.
More and more
of our Buddha Dhamma work is being processed offsite (refer to
Section 11.0).
8.0 International Dhamma Activities (IDA)
Report
For a full report of this year's International
Dhamma Activities (IDA) refer to the International Dhamma Activities
(IDA) Task Unit Report for the Period 1 July 2001 to 30 June 2002.
Written, researched and edited by: Evelin Halls, Dip.For.Lang.Corres.
and Pennie White B.A. Dip.Ed.
We had good attendance at four
International Meetings this year.
Our Resident Practitioners
travelled to Taiwan for an International Conference on Religious
Co-operation, and to Bangkok, Thailand for the World Buddhist
University Council Meeting and Conference.
Members supported
the Australasian Buddhist Convention Week International Conference
held in Camberwell Melbourne Australia.
In June 2002, a
meeting of four International Buddha Dhamma leaders took place at our
Temple.
The four leaders, Dr. Ananda W.P. Guruge,
Vice-President World Fellowship of Buddhists from the USA,
Ms.Piyaporn Erbprasartsook, World Fellowship of Buddhists from
Thailand, John D. Hughes, Vice-President World Fellowship of
Buddhists from Australia, and Anita Hughes, Advisor to the Standing
Committee on Women, World Fellowship of Buddhists, met to discuss
further building of relationships between Thailand and
Australia.
The next World Fellowship of Buddhists General
Conference will be held in Selangor, Malaysia this year.
9.0
Corporate Governance and Reporting (CGR) New Software
We have
upgraded to a standard financial computing software Quicken Version
6.5.
The development of the new Buddhist Discussion Centre
(Upwey) Ltd. database has enabled the consolidation of three contact
databases onto one PC. The basic database was designed by our Members
Evelin Halls and Lainie Smallwood, and is being developed by Mr.
Arthur Lipscombe, our IT Software Developer.
10.0
Depreciated Value of Our Centre’s Assets
Our Centre’s
Assets increased from $436,505 at 1 July 2001 to $440,501 at 30 June
2002.
The value of depreciation was $8805 and write-offs were
$522.
This is a net increase after depreciation of $2623 for
the year. (0.6%) This compares with 5% increase in net assets for the
previous twelve-month period.
Last financial year 2000 –
2001, depreciation of assets was 2.6% of our assets.
There has
been an increase in assets of 1% this year. There has been a
depreciation of assets this year of 2.1%
The net decrease is
1.4%.
Based on this data, if no actions were taken, it would
take 71 years to deplete our assets.
11.0 Cost of
Computing Onsite and Offsite
The depreciated value of
computer assets used onsite at our Centre this year was $37,000. The
cost of consumables and peripherals was $11,000.
The offsite
value of Member’s computer hardware is $38,000 and the cost of
consumables and peripherals is $18,000.
This year the value of
offsite computing capital used exceeded the value of onsite computing
capital used.
The total depreciated value of our computing
hardware, software consumables and peripherals at the end of this
financial year 2001- 2002 was $48,000.
The ratio of offsite
computer assets in use to onsite computer assets in use is 1.3. We
find this a satisfactory outcome of our planning.
This year we
plan to increase this ratio to 3.0.
12.0 Our Next
Developmental Step
We estimate we need to spend $30,000
onsite this financial year on computers to upgrade our systems
(estimated retail value). It is unlikely the cost of our consumables
and peripherals will diminish.
Over 2002 – 2003, we plan to
increase our CD production by 700%. We intend to sell CD’s.
In
the last twelve months we have added Local Area Network 2 (LAN2) and
Internal Email System 2.
We are planning to introduce the
PhotoLAN in the next 12 months.
Our lead-time to convert
digital photographs to edited CD’s is now 10 hours. We intend to
reduce this to 5 hours.
We store our digital photographs for
our websites and CD’s.
We will make multiple copies of
these backup materials.
13.0 Valuing Our Writing Time
We encourage scholarship.
Our Members are diligent
in delivering prompt written output suitable for our purposes.
We
incline to the view that Buddha Dhamma Teaching, English language
coaching and writing time not be costed on the grounds that it is
Dhamma Dana or related to Dhamma Dana.
Our year’s total
of writing time onsite and offsite for 2001 – 2002 was 4821
hours.
Estimates of onsite keyboarding time in hours 2001 –
2002 were:
Correspondence: 540 hours
Emails internal: 520
hours
Email external: 163 hours
Abhidhamma teaching papers: 30
hours
Buddhist Hour broadcast scripts: 1820 hours
Data entry:
127 hours
Reports: 463 hours
Year’s total of
hours-worked onsite: 3663 hours
Estimates of offsite
keyboarding time in hours 2001 – 2002 was 1158 hours (including
web site loading).
In addition, we delivered an average of 61
hours each week in coaching use of English language (annualised hours
equal 3172 hours coaching).
14.0 Local Area Planning and
Maintenance (LAPAM) Report
Last year, Frank Carter was
responsible for LAPAM operations.
Cash Generation for Local
Area Planning and Asset Maintenance projects totalled $9198 for this
financial year.
Members helped raise funds toward key
projects including the upgrade to three-phase power.
A
comparison of funds produced by our Members cash generating efforts
from the wider community through events such as the rose bush sales,
Red Hill Show and Mother’s Day Flower Stall, show that for the
2000 - 2001 financial year the total was $2690 whereas for the 2001 -
2002 financial year the total was $5403.
This is an increase
of 101%.
LAPAM intend to increase its cash generation
performance this year to meet our increased costs of running the
Centre and our program of maintenance of building works.
Over
the 12 months, Members work on LAPAM projects averaged 5.2 hours work
per day (37 hours per week).
This compares with the previous
year’s figures for LAPAM averaging 7.7 hours work per day (54
hours per week).
LAPAM Projects included:
Construction
of a fire wall next to Suite 1
Construction of a protective brick
fire wall in Suite 10
Development of the Buddhist Discussion
Centre (Upwey) Ltd. Fire Prevention Manual
Seven Fire Fighting
drills were held this year
Service contract with the Country
Fire Authority (CFA) to do fire extinguisher inspection and testing
every six months
Our insurance repayment method changed from
lump sum to installment. Ten monthly payments of $542
each.
Implementation of the Essential Services Inspection
System Standardised Quarterly Landlord Reporting
14.1
Essential Services Inspection System Software
An improvement
has been gained through the use of the software Essential Services
Inspection System (ESIS), computerisation of our Essential Services
Reports and annualised scheduling of our maintenance.
Stephen
Moon, Managing Director of Confirm Systems Pty Ltd. in Doncaster,
donated the ESIS training manuals and software to our Centre. The
system has been provided with lifetime licences for 10
buildings.
Under our Essential Services Inspection System we
have scheduled a replacement program to upgrade our fleet of fire
extinguishers a small number of units at a time. This will spread the
financial impact over three years.
There are three levels of
testing required under the Australian Standards which is done by the
Upwey CFA acting as agents for the Country Fire Authority.
The
CFA fitted Fire Extinguisher location signs to the walls above each
extinguisher to identify the extinguisher type and make the
extinguishers easier to locate in an emergency.
The Buddha
Rupa Glass Surround ($2700), the installation of new wiring for Suite
10, 10A and 11 ($1460) and the construction of the firewall ($1,500)
were the major components of this year’s activities.
14.2
Estimate of the Dollar Value of Material and Labour Resources.
This
year Members and friends of the Centre contributed new resources to
the Centre for our Resident Practitioners John D. Hughes and Anita
Hughes and Members’ use.
These LAPAM generated resources
each have two components being the dollar value of labour and the
dollar value of materials purchased or donated.
Total
material costs $6530 (20%)
Total labour $26570 (80%)
Total
materials & labour $33100
This is $636 per week or $91 per
day.
Total of materials cost and labour costs donated to the
Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd. $25,155
14.3 Supply
Chain Management
For many years Members have been trained to
use our resources wisely and this includes how we obtain our supply
chain.
Use second hand materials. There are many options to
obtain donated goods if we use second hand materials rather than new.
Second hand timber must be stress graded before use in
approved projects
Ask persons for donations of goods we can
use.
Ask businesses to donate the goods we want. Businesses
often have samples, seconds, items incorrectly ordered, or last
year’s range that they will give away if approached in a
suitable way.
As a charitable organisation we have a suitable
profile for them to make donations.
If we do have to buy new
goods we can often get a better deal by:
Buying in bulk. An
example of this is our purchase of A4 photocopy paper at a discount
rate.
Asking for discounts. An example of this is the local
hardware at Belgrave South will give us a 10% discount if we
ask.
Asking for seconds, or samples, etc.
15.0
Occupational Health & Safety Report
For the period 1
July 2001 to 30 June 2002 there were 21 reported Occupational Health
and Safety incidents. This compares with 19 reported incidents for
the same period last year.
16.0 John D. Hughes Collection
We aim to be a third rate library by the end of this
year.
Due to staff absence the rate of cataloguing books
slowed. During the year 316 books were added to our catalogue.
We
have appointed a new Chief Information Officer so we expect better
performance this year.
Our library catalogue appears on our
web site at www.bdcu.org.au
Our “library-without-walls”
(the information on our various web sites) has increased by over 570%
this year.
17.0 Overview
Our premises and
surrounds continue to be well maintained.
Our Executive
Members and new staff understand our organisation’s goal to
become the fifth most popular global e-resource for Buddha
Dhamma.
Making skilful use of information technology to lever
our hidden assets and an array of under-utilised resources is our
current concern.
We will continue our weekly Sunday Buddhist
Hour Broadcasts and continue to place the broadcast text on our web
site at www.bdcublessings.net.au.
We have been broadcasting
for four years. Our future plan is to have a web site for Internet
radio for this service.
We commenced Abhidhamma Teaching on
Tuesday evenings on 25 June this year and will continue for nine
years.
May you develop kusala kamma: somanassa-sahagatam
nana-sampayuttam sasankharikam ekam, meaning one consciousness,
prompted, accompanied by joy, associated with knowledge.
May
you be well and happy.
May all beings be well and
happy.
Today’s script was written and edited by John
D. Hughes, Julian Bamford, Evelin Halls and Rilla
Pargeter.
References
The Australian Newspaper.
“Cyclical storm front blows in”, Monday 22 July 2002, page
31.
Buddhist Hour Broadcast. Hillside Radio 88.0 FM. Bayswater
Village, Bayswater 3153, Melbourne Victoria Australia.
Our Web
Sites:
www.bdcu.org.au
www.bdcublessings.net.au
www.companyontheweb.com/buddhatext
www.companyontheweb.com/buddhamap
www.bddronline.net.au
www.bsbonline.com.au
www.buyresolved.com.au
Document
Statistics
Counts:
Words: 3,149
Sentences:
183
Paragraphs: 190
Syllables: 4335
Averages:
Words
per sentence: 27.2
Sentences per paragraph: 1.0
Percentages:
Passive Sentences: 21
Readability
Statistics
Flesch Grade Level: 10.8
Coleman-Liau Grade Level:
16.6
Bormuth Grade Level: 11.1
Flesch Reading Ease Score: 57.4
Flesch Kincaid Score: 8.9
Readability
Statistics
Displays statistics about the document's
readability, such as the Flesch Grade Level and Flesch Reading Ease
Score. These statistics help you determine if you are writing at a
level your audience can understand.
Flesch Grade Level: Flesch
Grade Level indicates the Flesch Reading Ease score as a grade level.
See the Flesch Scoring Table.
Coleman-Liau Grade level :
Indicates the grade level of the document based on the average number
of letters per word and number of sentence per 100 words.
Bormuth
Grade Level: Indicates the grade level of document based on the
average number of letters per word and per sentence. These scores
indicate grade levels ranging from 6.3 to 11.6.
Flesch Reading
Ease Score: Indicates how easy the document is to read based on the
number of syllables per word and number of words per sentence. These
scores indicate a number between 0 and 100. The higher the score, the
easier the document is to read. See the Flesch Scoring
Table.
Flesch-Kincaid Score : Indicates the grade level of the
document based on the number of syllables per word and number of
words per sentence. This score predicts the difficulty of reading
technical documents, and is based on Navy training manuals that score
in difficulty from 5.5 to 16.3. It meets military readability
specifications MIL-M-38784 and DOD-STD-1685.
Flesch Scoring
Table
Flesch Reading Ease Score Flesch Grade Level Reading
Difficulty
90-100 5th Grade Very easy
80-89 6th Grade
Easy
70-79 7th Grade Fairly easy
60-69 8th-9th Grade Standard
50-59 High School Fairly difficult
30-49 College Difficult
0-29 College Graduate Very difficult
(Reference: Lotus
Word Pro Help Files)
Disclaimer:
As we, the Buddhist
Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd., do not control the actions of our
service providers from time to time, make no warranty as to the
continuous operation of our website(s). Also, we make no assertion as
to the veracity of any of the information included in any of the
links with our websites, or another source accessed through our
website(s).
Accordingly, we accept no liability to any user
or subsequent third party, either expressed or implied, whether or
not caused by error or omission on either our part, or a member,
employee or other person associated with the Buddhist Discussion
Centre (Upwey) Ltd.
Copyright:
This Radio Script is
for Free Distribution. It contains Buddha Dhamma material and is
provided for the purpose of research and study.
Permission is
given to make printouts of this publication for FREE DISTRIBUTION
ONLY. Please keep it in a clean place.
"The gift of
Dhamma excels all other gifts".
For more information,
contact the Centre or better still, come
and visit us.
© 2002. Copyright. The Buddhist Discussion Centre
(Upwey) Ltd.