Hi everyone,
Just a reminder that we are having an online meeting tonight at 7.30pm for about a couple of hours. Already 77 people have registered for this.
I am very happy that my good friend Danapriya has kindly agreed to lead it.
He set up the East Kent Buddhist Group in Deal around the same time as Rob and Helen set up the Hertford Buddhist Group (about 11 years ago). Right from the start the Deal group was a massive success and has lots of homegrown order members etc.
I first met him about 10 years at Padmaloka and I realised he could help us, so I put him in touch with Rob and he emailed a lot of great ideas to us. Later on at retreats at Adhisthana he gave a talk on how to make your Buddhist group thrive, and I got a lot more good ideas from him which have helped us make the Hertford group what it is today.
Also he is a close friend of Khemananda’s who many of you know well, and it was actually Khemananda who told Danapriya what we were doing with our zoom meetings.
I have been inviting Danapriya for years to come to Hertford, but the drive from Deal was a bit too far. Fortunately zoom makes it very easy.
He has also written a book which will be published in the summer: “It’s Not Out There: How to see differently and live an extraordinary, ordinary life “. More info is on his website http://www.danapriya.org/ .
The evening will be useful for him too, as he wants to get more confidence using zoom to conduct meetings, so I said he could use us as guinea pigs!
It will be a great evening. Not to be missed!
If you have not registered for it then just go to https://zoom.us/meeting/register/u5Iuc–pqjIpPaCyNk0DFt7eq5fZh94cHA . You just need to click the words “Click here to join” in the page that follows before 7.30 tonight.
If you have registered for the last one, that will count for all future sessions (well at least for the next few months), and you do not need to register again. You just click the same “Click here to join” link. But if you have lost that email, just register again at the link above using the same email address.
It works on smartphone, tablet, laptop, or desktop (if it has microphone and webcam). But it is much better if you use a laptop or desktop as you can do text chat more easily etc.
This week the meeting is on Monday. From next week onwards we are moving to Tuesdays.
I am really looking forward to having you join this online community. Although many of us are based in Hertford at the moment, I want to reach out and include anyone in the world who would like to be part of this. Also, you do not have to “be a Buddhist”. Newcomers are always welcome.
You are also very welcome to join our thriving and friendly Facebook group if you like: https://www.facebook.com/groups/205398687230606/ . Please comment on there about your life, your situation, and also about these meetings.
Or if you don’t like Facebook, then you can look at our blog https://hertfordbuddhistgroup.co.uk/blog/
I am also starting a youtube channel that will show previous talks. It already has Mangala’s on there. Please subscribe https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-ipkuj4lRtRHdT0CLbQ2Cg . Once we get to 100 subscribers I am able to change the name to something a bit more user friendly.
Some meetings will be more focussed on meditation, others on Buddhism. Some will have a lot of talking by the leader, whereas others will have more interaction and discussion.
I like to mix things up a bit to get a bit of variety.
One advantage of all this is that it makes it very easy for people to join us. I will try and find some more great leaders in the weeks to come.
Hopefully you and your loved ones are staying safe and well in this time.
See you online!
Keith