CANADIAN 
BUDDHIST 
UPDATE 

Letter 
from 
A.W. Barber 

Canadian Buddhist Update, June, 2002

From the Desk of the President:

We have just finished our AGM, which was held in the beautiful city of Vancouver. It was a very full meeting with a number of important issues. We had to officially say goodbye to Ikuta Socho as he is retiring. We also warmly welcomed Fujikawa Socho. Further, Itoko Akune from Steveston and Jim Hisanaga from Winnipeg were elected to the board, and I was re-elected as president for the coming term. A special thanks goes to Stan Osaka for his many years of service as the treasurer and Sylvia Oishi for chairing the Youth Tour and updating the By-laws and Policies. The Women's Federation elected a new president, Donna Dubbelboer, at their meeting. The Women's Federation is an extremely important organ and I would like to welcome and thank those who have volunteered to help.

The Dharma School Committee is planning a workshop for later this year as reported by Roy Inouye. We look forward to our Dharma school teachers receiving enhancement to their training and being able to bring this back to our schools. The Dharma schools are a very important aspect of our temples. Planning for the BCC Centennial including both local visits to selected centers and an Alaskan cruise is now well under way. The committee headed by Roy Akune has been doing a lot of work in planning for the 2005 celebration. Caroline Shepherd discussed the benefits that our senseis receive, which are not much, and ways for them as individuals and the BCC to best utilize the options available. She greatly stressed the need for the senseis to do more on their own behalf. As you all know we had a drive to raise money for a special retirement fund begun by Ikuta Socho. So far we have done well raising funds but most of the funds have come from Japan and much more needs to be accomplished by our members here in Canada. Sylvia reported on the Youth Tour. Last year's tour was smashing and all the kids had a great time and learned a lot. We look forward to this year's tour. The BCC website is technically outdated and needs an overhaul. So keep your eyes peeled for our new look coming soon.

The BCC Sustaining Fund was originally supposed to collect $500,000.00 from our Canadian membership. Our Mother temple wanted to help and thus sent to us a considerable sum over a few years to this project. However, that sum was supposed to be an addition to the sum raised in Canada. Instead, the Hongwanji's money was included as a portion of the original sum. This has put us in the bad graces of the Mother temple. This problem and solutions for it received a full airing. A special assessment was voted on.

Sylvia presented a sweeping review of our By-laws, a good thing that she is a lawyer. A number of changes were made to help clarify particular points, to make the language up-to-date, and to remove useless items. We also discussed some important changes in the legal structure of the BCC and its relationship with the temples and the ministers. Our structure is very old and leaves us considerable legal liability. So although changes are being made it will not affect things on the day to day operations of each member temple. Toronto made a very professional presentation on their plans for a Living Dharma Center. The BCC has voted to morally support their efforts in a number of ways. Good job, Toronto! Finally, there were a number of smaller points of business that were discussed.

I hope details of many of these items will come out in future reports to you from the board members. Although it was a lot of work, everything went smoothly and we were able to get everything accomplished without having to work too late into the evening.

A.W. Barber

Letter 
from 
Itoko Akune 
Past-President 
BCC Women's Federation 

BCC Women's Federation Annual General Meeting was held at the Vancouver Buddhist Temple, April 27, 2002. Thirteen voting delegates plus a large number of observers were present at the one-day meeting. Some of the highlights of this meeting were: