Theos-Talk Archives (November 1996 Message tl00005)

liesel f. deutsch wrote:
>
> It's my considered opinion that the first thing we need is less secrecy. The
> ES is secret.

	Only their passwords; nothing else about the ES is secret.

> Our Board meetings are secret, and what we get to know comes
> late and partially, as it did with the last by-laws revisions. That is
> entirely unacceptable. The membership has to know what's going on, and has
> to have a say-so.

	Are they? Have you asked your representative, "What happened at the
last Board meeting?" and have them not tell you? The New York
Theosophical Society's newsletter carries a regular column on actions of
our Board of Directors.

> We certainly don't want to be told what to do, in our units, nor how to run
> them. We need to be told in great detail what materials are available in
> Wheaton  for Study Centers; but we need to be able to adjust our programs to
> what we like locally. On the other hand, I remember a time, when I was new
> as President, when I asked for some help in finding topics for study, and
> got very little help, except for a very old, dated 7 yellowed study guide of
> some sort from the NE Federation President.

	That's not the case anymore. As Program Director of the NYTS, I
received a lot of help from Ed Abdill, John Algeo, Nathan Greer,
Elizabeth Trumpler, Michael Gomes, Anna Lemkow, Janet Macrae, Dora Kunz,
and many others. All I needed to do was ask.

> After several years of struggle,
> I happen to have landed in Wheaton & found that there was all sorts of
> material available which I didn't know anything about.

	I was aware of the material before I ever attended a meeting of the
Theosophical Society; my wife used to borrow material by mail, and they
had a nice catalogue. If that was available for non-members, I find it
hard to believe that there was nothing available for members.

	Nathan Greer has been especially good at putting people together. He
has enlisted my help at getting a number of Lodges on the Internet. If
you let him know that you are available as a resource, he will recommend
you to other Lodges who need your services.

> ,yes" from the book agent, and then nothing. & etc ad nauseatum. Down in
> Miami and here in New York City they find enough people to run a variety of
> events.

	Ask Sy about what happened in Miami. The turnaround at the Miami Lodge
was extremely impressive.

> So, maybe that's something we could profitably discuss. Since it seems to be
> that people become more interested in Branch meetings if they take an active
> part in a phase of it, how do you get them to do it, in view of the known
> fact that usually an organization is run by a few people who break their
> butts, while the others just attend meetings.

	One thing that increased attendance at the members' meetings of the New
York Lodge was using Michael Gomes' book, HPB TEACHES, as a basis for
members' lectures. If you take a look at the table of contents, just
about every chapter there is an excellent topic for a lecture or
discussion. The member would use the article as a starting point, and do
whatever additional research they wanted. We got a lot of great meetings
that way.

	Bart Lidofsky