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Wednesday, 4 January 2023
Wednesday, 1 February 2012
£5,515.51 given and/or pledged for Sudarshanaloka
I've been trying to work out how much my fundraising efforts have raised to date for Sudarshanaloka. I am pleased to discover we have hit the £5,5000 mark which seems significant . Hooray ! Having said that I am aware this is not a huge amount but please bear in mind I have only put in a few weeks work on this since I launched the fundraising back in mid-ish August last year.
£3,681.77 has been given so far, with another £1,833.74 pledged which gives a grand total at 31/1/12 of £5,515.51 including anticipated money coming in through Gift Aid and after admin fees have been subtracted.
This sum reflects the generosity of some 52 members of the Order and 1 mitra. A big thank you to all of you. The largest single donation has been £1000 and the smallest £5. So as one can see, any size donation is most welcome. Indeed I feel appreciative of all donations. At the same time I think it is clear that I need to find a number of individuals able and willing to make significantly larger donations of say £5000 upward if I am to achieve the target figure of £60,000. Really I need to think in terms of £66,000 to offset the admin charges and still reach the £60,000 target. [see end of post for info re admin charges should you want to know]
I have not yet approached anyone about giving £5,000 yet and I have a very short list so far of people to approach. So if anyone out there reads this and has some suggestions please get in touch with me. Or, better still, how about asking the person yourself ? If it is someone you know they may well respond to a request from yourself more readily than one from me, especially if I don't know them at all. You can direct them to this blog to find out more information about why I am raising this money and also they can check out Sudarshanaloka through the page links. Ofcourse I will need them to make contact directly with me before they make a donation because if it is a larger donation we need to make sure it is not given via Just Giving...thus avoiding admin charges and maximising on the gift given.
Please do think about whether you can help me in this way.
So far the largest figure I have approached some people about giving is £1000, plus one person for £2000.
I have noticed that most Order members I have approached do not want to think in terms of pledging to raise money to give. So it comes down to what they can afford to give now, or what they feel able to put aside to give later in the year. I think there is only one person I am aware who has raised money as opposed to giving it from their own resources. This particular dharmacharini was I thought very enterprising; she was already raising money for her local centre so she just applied the same method to raise the money for the £50 pledge I asked her to consider doing and which she agreed to do. She raised her pledge over the course of about 48 hours on a womens' National Order w/e in the UK.
Admin charges; 5% plus approx 1.6 % in transfer charges are made by Just Giving on all donations via the Just Giving page I have set up [which handles most of the donations]. A further 5% admin charge is then made by the UK based Triratna Charity which holds/manages all the funds as they are passed on weekly from Just Giving. It is worth pointing out that no admin charge is made by said charity on any donations of £300 upwards providing I arrange for them to be paid directly to them rather than via Just Giving. Also, the Gift Aid claimed back on any donation where the giver pays sufficient tax in the UK for this to happen goes some way to offset the admin charges levied.
Lets keep the money coming in.
bye for now
love Sanghadevi
£3,681.77 has been given so far, with another £1,833.74 pledged which gives a grand total at 31/1/12 of £5,515.51 including anticipated money coming in through Gift Aid and after admin fees have been subtracted.
This sum reflects the generosity of some 52 members of the Order and 1 mitra. A big thank you to all of you. The largest single donation has been £1000 and the smallest £5. So as one can see, any size donation is most welcome. Indeed I feel appreciative of all donations. At the same time I think it is clear that I need to find a number of individuals able and willing to make significantly larger donations of say £5000 upward if I am to achieve the target figure of £60,000. Really I need to think in terms of £66,000 to offset the admin charges and still reach the £60,000 target. [see end of post for info re admin charges should you want to know]
I have not yet approached anyone about giving £5,000 yet and I have a very short list so far of people to approach. So if anyone out there reads this and has some suggestions please get in touch with me. Or, better still, how about asking the person yourself ? If it is someone you know they may well respond to a request from yourself more readily than one from me, especially if I don't know them at all. You can direct them to this blog to find out more information about why I am raising this money and also they can check out Sudarshanaloka through the page links. Ofcourse I will need them to make contact directly with me before they make a donation because if it is a larger donation we need to make sure it is not given via Just Giving...thus avoiding admin charges and maximising on the gift given.
Please do think about whether you can help me in this way.
So far the largest figure I have approached some people about giving is £1000, plus one person for £2000.
I have noticed that most Order members I have approached do not want to think in terms of pledging to raise money to give. So it comes down to what they can afford to give now, or what they feel able to put aside to give later in the year. I think there is only one person I am aware who has raised money as opposed to giving it from their own resources. This particular dharmacharini was I thought very enterprising; she was already raising money for her local centre so she just applied the same method to raise the money for the £50 pledge I asked her to consider doing and which she agreed to do. She raised her pledge over the course of about 48 hours on a womens' National Order w/e in the UK.
Admin charges; 5% plus approx 1.6 % in transfer charges are made by Just Giving on all donations via the Just Giving page I have set up [which handles most of the donations]. A further 5% admin charge is then made by the UK based Triratna Charity which holds/manages all the funds as they are passed on weekly from Just Giving. It is worth pointing out that no admin charge is made by said charity on any donations of £300 upwards providing I arrange for them to be paid directly to them rather than via Just Giving. Also, the Gift Aid claimed back on any donation where the giver pays sufficient tax in the UK for this to happen goes some way to offset the admin charges levied.
Lets keep the money coming in.
bye for now
love Sanghadevi
Tuesday, 20 September 2011
Sanghadevi away in Spain for a few weeks
Hi everyone. I just wanted to let you know I am away in Spain at Akasavanan until October 25th facilitating a one month retreat for women Order members in the Triratna community. Taravandana is going to help me a bit with fundraising efforts whilst I am away; mailing some Order members in UK and seeing if we can enlist their help by way of pledging money towards the £60,000 target. I am sorry to say my efforts in this respect since I returned to Cambridge on Sept 2nd from Norfolk have only attracted one £50 pledge to date...but all is not lost...I have felt quite inspired as I wrote letters to people...I intend to continue writing letters and making follow up phone calls when I pick up the fr work again once I am back from Spain.
Friday, 9 September 2011
Fundraising for Sudarshanaloka Launched in August
A few weeks back I headed off to Wymondham College, Norfolk UK where over the course of ten days hundreds of members of the Triratna Buddhist Order came from across the world in order to meditate and share time together in various ways. There was a daily programme of shared activities as well as many many optional workshops offered by various people in otherwise 'free' afternoon slots after lunch. I took the opportunity to give a talk and slide-show a couple of times over the ten days; speaking of my connection with Sudarshanaloka, the people who live there, what the place is like and so on, building up to explaining why I wanted to raise money for the project and requesting people to consider pledging to raise/give a certain amount by Nov 2012. I also set up a stall in the so called 'shopping mall' which was our biggest yet with about 30 stall holders all selling things and/or fundraising for various projects worldwide. I reckon £1000's was spent or pledged in that mall over the course of those ten days. It is a great way for people to share what they care about and also display their talents as many of the stalls displayed items made by the stall holder; pottery; jewellery; eco-urns; paintings; hand-made cards and so on. My stall was focused on giving people a glimpse of Sudarshanaloka so I had a back drop of images and captions about the place and people as well as blurb about my fundraising brief. On the table in front I had an ongoing slideshow running on my laptop as well as handouts, some cards for sale, four scale models of the stupa [thanks to Dharmamudra] and a pledge sheet for folk to sign. I had intended to ask a friend to take a photo of the stall so i could show you here but I am afraid I completely forgot so my words will have to suffice. Sorry about that.
I got a pretty poor turn out for the talks I gave [only 17 people in total and two of them were my 'supporters']. Most of those 17 folk had already been to Sudarshanaloka and live in either NZ or Australia. I appreciated their interest in what I was doing and encouraged them to contribute to the fundraising the Trust itself is doing [see link on Sudarshanaloka website]. I am targeting folk outside of Australia and NZ for my fundraising target of £60,000 [see my Just Giving link on this blog].
Despite the poor turn out I did get some sign up for pledges on the stall; I am pleased to report that to date £2,250 has been pledged. I also covered the costs of the cards I'd made and have made a small profit on them so far. I hope to sell the stock I have in hand at some future Order weekend here in UK.
I got a pretty poor turn out for the talks I gave [only 17 people in total and two of them were my 'supporters']. Most of those 17 folk had already been to Sudarshanaloka and live in either NZ or Australia. I appreciated their interest in what I was doing and encouraged them to contribute to the fundraising the Trust itself is doing [see link on Sudarshanaloka website]. I am targeting folk outside of Australia and NZ for my fundraising target of £60,000 [see my Just Giving link on this blog].
Despite the poor turn out I did get some sign up for pledges on the stall; I am pleased to report that to date £2,250 has been pledged. I also covered the costs of the cards I'd made and have made a small profit on them so far. I hope to sell the stock I have in hand at some future Order weekend here in UK.
Wednesday, 29 April 2009
Naganaga; land of the water dragon
Hello there from the land of the water dragon; Naganaga. The property occupies the tail end of a ridge called the water dragon by aboriginals. Last week Megha showed me the full length of the dragon and yes I was able to see why the indigenous people of the area saw a water dragon in the shape of the long curving bush clad ridge. Actually until yesterday I was under the misapprehension that Megha had said the line of the ridge was called the rainbow serpent. But no, I had misunderstood her. I had begun to tune into the idea of being at the serpents tail end but of course I am equally happy to find I am standing, sitting, sleeping and walking on the tail end of the water dragon !
When I last visited Australia seven years ago I was on retreat at Vijayaloka near Sydney and had the good fortune to see a water dragon on several occasions as one lived near the large rocks at the edge of the river where we would take regular dips. His/her body was about 10 inches long and then the tail was another 6 or so inches. He/she had a slightly crenelated ridge running down the back from the neck and was brown/green in colour. As their name suggests water dragons are good swimmers.
Naganaga is about 20 Km inland from Kempsey which is about a 6 hour drive north of Sydney. Megha and Satyagandhi have been living up here for the past seven years almost. They had recently purchased the property from an aboriginal woman when I was last in Australia in Jan 2002. At that time they had just suffered a bush fire. I never saw the land at that time. Seven years on the traces of the fire are there if you look for them; dead gum trees and charred stumps. However the overall impression is one of a plentiful expanse of bush which at this time of year [autumn] is very green, as is the grass and shrubs, with flowering plants and a bountiful supply of citrus fruit on the trees they planted since moving here.
I have been here just over three weeks now. I am sitting in the community kitchen typing this blog entry whilst Megha showers next door. Once she has finished I'm going to put some plaits in her hair, that is if there is time before the pre-supper meditation. It is raining steadily outside so I think we will be meditating next door in the lounge rather than head off down the hill to the yurt which is the main shrine room. Not very adventurous I guess but it takes a bit of effort to open up the rain flaps over the yurt [it has been closed up all day] and it depends whether either of us are in the mood to get wet. Plus it is dark to add to the adventure !
When I last visited Australia seven years ago I was on retreat at Vijayaloka near Sydney and had the good fortune to see a water dragon on several occasions as one lived near the large rocks at the edge of the river where we would take regular dips. His/her body was about 10 inches long and then the tail was another 6 or so inches. He/she had a slightly crenelated ridge running down the back from the neck and was brown/green in colour. As their name suggests water dragons are good swimmers.
Naganaga is about 20 Km inland from Kempsey which is about a 6 hour drive north of Sydney. Megha and Satyagandhi have been living up here for the past seven years almost. They had recently purchased the property from an aboriginal woman when I was last in Australia in Jan 2002. At that time they had just suffered a bush fire. I never saw the land at that time. Seven years on the traces of the fire are there if you look for them; dead gum trees and charred stumps. However the overall impression is one of a plentiful expanse of bush which at this time of year [autumn] is very green, as is the grass and shrubs, with flowering plants and a bountiful supply of citrus fruit on the trees they planted since moving here.
I have been here just over three weeks now. I am sitting in the community kitchen typing this blog entry whilst Megha showers next door. Once she has finished I'm going to put some plaits in her hair, that is if there is time before the pre-supper meditation. It is raining steadily outside so I think we will be meditating next door in the lounge rather than head off down the hill to the yurt which is the main shrine room. Not very adventurous I guess but it takes a bit of effort to open up the rain flaps over the yurt [it has been closed up all day] and it depends whether either of us are in the mood to get wet. Plus it is dark to add to the adventure !
Wednesday, 9 July 2008
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