Sounding Board

As we head towards the turning of the year, the board took note of our accomplishments and reflected on some of the big issues still to be explored. We appreciate the sangha’s generosity in response to our fundraising efforts this year on behalf of the Building Fund: Between our June letter appeal and the fundraising party, we’ve raised over $28,000 – well over our goal for the year (thank you, development committee). AND, we’ve not only raised the money, but at this writing, the work on the 1929A apartment kitchen is almost complete (thank you, project managers!). Look for pictures and details future newsletters. We are also close to finalizing plans to switch solar power for our electricity (thank you, Mark Copithorne).

There was a good response to the changes we instituted in our board election process, launched on October 1. For the first time we had an electronic ballot (thank you, Troy DuFrene). About half of eligible voters have responded, similar to the old paper ballot response rate. This was also our beta test of only offering as many candidates as there are open positions (see past Sounding Boards and newsletter articles for details). The Board will be continuing to evaluate this new election procedure (thank you, Recruitment and Election Committee). This year we also launched a new state-of-the-art website (thanks again, Troy).

This past year some thorny issues have surfaced or continued to nag. The board plans to take these up at its annual retreat in February 2016. These include: resident rents; continuing to raise funds to take care of our property and provide a cushion for leadership transitions; and how best to express appreciation for major gifts of money and labor.