Hello,
Before we get to the news for March and April, here’s a quick review of some of what’s happened in January and so far in February;
On the 29th January we had a funeral ceremony at Cross Farm for Ian and Judy’s companion of 16 years, Cora.
Over the last six weeks, there’s been as many people coming for introductions as have come in any six month period and almost as many as have been in any twelve month period since I’ve been here. Allow me to speculate that it’s the time of year plus some other factors. Anyway, it’s pleasant to have this interest of course and I think that the temple enjoys it. Never mind the why, or whether, etc., at the very least it probably helped alleviate my winter blues a bit, (yes, blues are okay too).
My very belated thanks for all the Buddha’s Enlightenment/Christmas/New Year cards and good wishes. Also for the treats, a couple of nice lunches, walks and other goodies. Also thanks for the birthday gifts which included a copy of, The Zen Monastery Cookbook. I have decided that it will become the sole recipe book for the temple and our retreats. No deviation into online recipes! No deviation at all from now on!⌣ (creative interpretation will be permitted). Gratitude also for the assistance with the accounts from a couple of people towards the end of last year.
What’s Coming
The website has been changed. People can no longer register or login to access the booking calendar, there is no booking calendar! It’s been replaced with a plain old calendar. Please have a look and let me know how you get on. If you’ve already booked for Feb events, you don’t need to do anything, you are expected.
The big change is that you can just turn up for most events. The exceptions are;
new people – will need to contact me first
meditation days – as there’s lunch provided, I need to know if you are coming
residential retreats* – obviously still need to book
everything else – no booking
The new calendar plugin is a free version but I think it offers quite good functionality. I will also be able to make it clear when the temple is closed. I’ve tried to design and categorize temple events in a way that is easy to follow, at least to me. Please let me know any thoughts, suggestions, problems, I genuinely would like to hear from the user end experience, though I may not always appear pleased at first ⌣. There’s still probably things that can be improved/changed and glitches to work out. The new calendar works best on laptops and desktops, it doesn’t look brilliant on mobiles but I think it is acceptable. I don’t have a tablet, so I don’t know how it looks on those.
I think that our thanks should go out to Manuel Greenwood who designed and created some of the functions of the booking system (‘book a seat’) and installed other necessary parts like the user registration. The whole booking feature was invaluable during the lockdowns and the periods around them, especially from my end when I was new here and trying to manage things, and more importantly, it meant that the temple could be kept open when possible too. Manuel’s help also meant that the temple didn’t have to spend money on a subscription to a booking calendar plugin that would have been well over engineered for our use. Booking no longer seems relevant to our needs, and there have been dysfunctional issues developing around the whole of it of late. It turns out that websites are like bodies with organs that can quickly stop working harmoniously with other organs (if they’re not continuously kept up to date). Anyway, it seems timely to change and unreasonable to keep relying on Manuel to act as a doctor for us, he has given us a lot of his time and energy.
One upcoming date of note; Saturday 16th March, there will be a memorial for David Fry and a day to come together in his memory. More details on the calendar.
*The May/June and the December retreat are open for booking, just sayin’
Best wishes
Willard