17 August 2003: Our President’s Annual Report 2002 to 2003

The Buddhist Hour Radio Broadcast Archives

Buddhist Hour Broadcast 290
For Sunday 17 August 2003

This script is entitled:
"Our President’s Annual Report 2002 to 2003"

Today we would like to read to you from our President's Annual Report 2002 to 2003. The report was produced by Julian Bamford, B.A. App. Rec., President of our Temple, the Chan Academy Australia.

We intend our Buddha Dhamma Centre the Chan Academy Australia to last for five hundred years or more.

This is the 25th year since our Centre’s inception by our Founder, Chan Master Dr. John D. Hughes Dip App. Chem T.T.T.C GDAIE.

In March of 2003 our Teacher became seriously ill and was hospitalised. After 12 weeks with the loving care of his wife Anita M. Hughes and the blessings and help of many beings he returned home. Anita continues to provide full-time care at home for John D. Hughes. He is recovering steadily, aided by the daily visits of various health professionals, including a physiotherapist and a speech therapist.

A special Dharma Ceremony is to be run on 31 August 2003 at Master' Ru Sun’s Yun Yang Temple in Narre Warren, Victoria, for John's good health. Our Members will help with preparation the day before and participate in the ceremony and chanting.

We wish John and Anita good health and life increasing.

We are planning for John D. Hughes' Birthday 9 September 2003, and requests for accolades have been sent to many persons in Australia and around the world to be included in a special publication 'John D. Hughes Celebration of a Life'.

Members are committed to chanting three times each day for the long life and good health increasing of our Teacher.

Members are increasing the making of regular offerings to the various Devas and Devatas who help our Teacher John D Hughes, Anita Hughes and our organisation. We dedicate this President’s Annual Report 2002 – 2003 to John and Anita with a series of requests that they continue their advice and help in the future.
May the merit of this Presidents Annual Report be dedicated to the long life and increasing health of both John D Hughes and Anita M. Hughes.

May they be well and happy.

This report assumes the reader is familiar with the objects for which our Centre is established. They are: (a) To introduce a philosophy of life based on the teachings of Buddha Dharma. (b) To encourage the study, practice and realisation of Buddha Dharma. (c) To promote activities associated with Buddhism and Buddhist Culture in Australia and overseas. (d) To investigate unexplained laws of Nature and the powers latent in man. (e) To promote and maintain direct or auxiliary activities for educational, social, charitable, philanthropic, benevolent and humanitarian work. (f) To build, construct, maintain and alter any buildings or works in accordance with the requirements of the Centre.
We welcome our new Executive Members and our new staff.

We welcome our Temple’s new Abbott Lisa Nelson and the four Assistant Abbotts.

This year we completed the 1st year of nine years of Abhidhamma teaching.

Our Abhidhamma teaching program is guided by our new Director of Abhidhamma Teachings Evelin Halls Dip. F.L.C. Assistants of Abhidhamma Teachings are Pennie White and Leanne Eames, who help create the weekly class notes. We now have 59 weeks of Abhidhamma Class notes online.

We are resource rich and intend to stay that way.

We are a devamanussaman Temple. In our supply chain at present are millions of devas and devatas. Every change we make brings new resources. That is why we change.

We are moving to S5 Management, and six of our Members are participating in a 7-week Performance Management Training Program.

Our Members continue to develop a broad view of what our core business is. Our core business is in the loka field. Meditation is not our core business. Every Member should help to raise funds for our core business. Temples are essential for persons to learn and practice Buddha Dhamma. Buddha Dhamma is taught at Temples and it is the task of Teachers and Students to organise plans to look after the core business and carry them out, to maintain the standards required and be fully aware of those, and to raise funds. We will keep having a good Return On Investment (ROI). New buildings and upgrades will continue to be well planned and debt-free. The Temple's core business is every Member's business.

As a legally constituted company our Centre holds a duty of care to our Members and those who we welcome to our Temple to make safety a priority. We promote through our Occupational and Safety Bulletins, the Brooking Street Bugle, project plans, special notices, records of injury, Annual Essential Services Reports and paying attention to safety-related matters. This Occupational Health and Safety awareness applies to both onsite and offsite activities and projects such as the Flower Stalls and weekly Camberwell Market. How do we preserve Occupational Health and Safety? We sell it in many ways. For example we shall be publishing a regular Occupational Health and Safety Bulletin commencing in August 2003.

We keep up to date with changes in the Occupational Health and Safety legislation affecting our organisation.
Commencing with the August 2003 General Meeting, the General Meeting Agenda shall include an Occupational Health and Safety Report.

Does Occupational Health and Safety change? How fast does this occur?

If through negligence an organisation was to cause food poisoning to some of its members, what would they do?

The goal is to develop an update of current practice at our Centre including Occupational Health and Safety.

Some of our greatest achievements this year include:

1.Caring for our Teacher during his illness and his ongoing rehabilitation and providing support to his wife and carer Anita
2.We commenced the Feed a Buddhist program
3.Our five websites recorded over 19,000 visits since we started counting
4.Our Teacher reached the milestone of 240 consecutive weeks writing and producing the Buddhist Hour Broadcast
5.Completed the first of nine years Abhidhamma classes
6.Paid for and built a private on-suite bathroom paid for our Resident Practitioners
7.Excavated site and built the substructure for the new kitchen and dining hall
8.Online publishing achievement of 300 documents and 3000 colour photographs, scans of rare artworks on our 5 websites
9.We raised $11,000 from the weekly Camberwell Market
10.Six Members attended the World Fellowship of Buddhists 22nd Biannual Conference held in Selangor Malaysia
11.Exhibition and Auction of Paintings by John D. Hughes, presented by John D. Hughes and Associates Pty. Ltd. and the Chan Academy Australia.
12.Chan Academy Australia Sumi-e Program: The Ten Chan Masters in 2002 and Seven Factors of Enlightenment in 2003 taught by visiting Master Andre Sollier
13.We have published 89 Issues of the Brooking Street Bugle in print and online at www.bsbonline.com.au

During 2002 – 2003 we successfully managed over 318 Mini Projects onsite and offsite.

One of our goals for this year is to complete the new private dining room.

We will continue to publish Buddha Dhamma online on our five websites for our global audience.

We will increase our Fundraising initiatives including the preparing and bottling of blessed water for commercial sale as a major fundraising project

Our Abhidhamma Students will increase offerings through Abhidhamma printing and download key photographs from our websites at their own expense and distribute them to others as Dana.

This will provide a sound basis for future access to such photographs for the next nine years. This is one factor Students need to work towards continuity of attendance at Abhidhamma classes.

We will work for more International Members to join our Centre.

Our Members will actively prospect to attract new person to support and join our Temple.

An Annual Member Orientation Program will continue during 2003-2004.

The program will orientate Members on changes that effect the running of our Temple. It shall include but not be limited to:

Occupational Health & Safety
Food Generation, Food Service Plans and Hygiene
ASIC and Corporate Governance
Trade Practices Legislation
Privacy
Security
Fire Risk Management
Public Relations
Fund Raising Regulations
Relationships with other Organisations
Training Programs
Utilities and Local Government Regulations

The orientation program will be for all Members. It will be introduced with a regular Bulletin, with the first to be published during the September 2003 Five Day Course.

The Company operates under the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s Company Code in accordance with our Articles of Association and Memorandum of Association. The new positions in our company structure are:

Resident Practitioners

John D. Hughes Dip. App. Chem. T.T.T.C. GDAIE
Anita Hughes R.N.Div1

Abbot

Lisa Nelson Cert.3. Bus. Admin.

Assistant Abbot

John D. Hughes Dip. App. Chem. T.T.T.C. GDAIE
Julie O'Donnell
Evelin Halls Dip. F.L.C.
Peter Boswell C.P.A.

Director of Abhidhamma Teachings
Evelin Halls Dip. F.L.C.

Assistant of Abhidhamma Teachings
Leanne Eames B.A. M.A.
Pennie White B.A.Dip.Ed.

Directors of the Centre
Lisa Nelson Cert.3 Business Administration
Evelin Halls Dip. Foreign Language Correspondence
Peter Boswell CPA

Office Bearers
President Julian Bamford B.A. App. Rec.
Secretary Pennie White B.A.Dip.Ed.
Treasurer Peter Boswell CPA

Assistant Treasurer
Frank Carter B.Ec.
David Igracki
Pam Adkins

Vice Presidents
International Dhamma Activities
Pennie White B.A.Dip.Ed.

Corporate Governance & Reporting
Evelin Halls Dip.F.L.C.

Local Area Planning & Asset Management
Frank Carter B.Ec.

The Directors, Office Bearers and Vice Presidents are responsible to a General Committee comprising all financial Members of the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd.

Our other positions and position holders are as follows.

Chief Information Officer
Leanne Eames B.A. M.A.

Financial Controller
Peter Boswell C.P.A.

Manager Occupational Health & Safety
Anita Hughes R.N.Div1
Frank Carter B.Ec.

Manager Enterprise Technology
Evelin Halls Dip.F.L.C.

IT Technical Support
Kamfatt Lin B.Sc (Eng), MCP, CNA, MCSE, MCDBA

IT Development Engineer
John Watson

Editor Buddha Dhyana Dana Review
John D. Hughes Dip. App. Chem. T.T.T.C. GDAIE

Assistant Editor Buddha Dhyana Dana Review
Pennie White B.A. Dip. Ed.
Julian Bamford B.A. App. Rec
Evelin Halls Dip. F.L.C.

Executive Producer Buddhist Hour Broadcast
Pennie White B.A. Dip. Ed.

Producer Buddhist Hour Broadcast
Pennie White B.A. Dip. Ed.

Assistant Producer Buddhist Hour Broadcast
Leanne Eames B.A. M.A.
Lainie Smallwood
Peter Boswell C.P.A.
Julian Bamford B.A. App. Rec.
Evelin Halls Dip. F.L.C.

Editor Brooking Street Bugle
John D. Hughes Dip. App. Chem. T.T.T.C. GDAIE

Assistant Editor Brooking Street Bugle
Leanne Eeams B.A. M.A.
David Ley

Editors Longhair Australia News
John D. Hughes Dip. App. Chem. T.T.T.C. GDAIE

Julian Bamford B.A. App. Rec.
Leanne Eames B.A. M.A.
Evelin Halls Dip.F.L.C.
Pennie White B.A. Dip. Ed.

Joint Librarians
John D. Hughes Dip. App. Chem. T.T.T.C. GDAIE
Anita Hughes R.N.Div1

Assistant Librarian
Julie O'Donnell

May our Temple the Chan Academy Australia last for 500 years or more.

May our Teacher John D. Hughes and his wife and carer Anita Hughes be well and happy.

May you be well and happy.

May all beings be well and happy.

This script was written and edited by Julian Bamford, Evelin Halls and Leanne Eames.

Disclaimer:

As we, the Chan Academy Australia, Chan Academy being a registered business name of 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 Chan Academy Australia (Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd.)

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".

© Copyright. The Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd.

For more information, contact the Centre or better still, come and visit us.