Coordination (Steering Committee)
Ensure that the Process Team and Working Groups are properly established, resourced, and supported; have clear objectives and are making clear progress toward them; are communicating among one another as appropriate; and are able to adapt to and overcome obstacles in their work. Identify and remedy gaps in representation across the global community. Create opportunities for Process Team members to offer their skills to the community. One or two Steering Committee members will be members of each Process Team Working Group to help coordinate its activities.
Processes
Explore, practise and pilot dialogic approaches by which the Process Team and Working Groups will conduct our overall work. Monitor and ensure that a dialogic process is employed in all groups and subgroups. Initial Tasks: Design and prioritize best practices for deep listening and dialogue, community engagement, and dialogic processes for supporting distributed decision making; and design the total arc of the Process Team’s work by shaping information gathering and synthesis, through methods such as Appreciative Inquiry, Theory U, and Participatory Action Research. Work with the Governance group on the Process Team Charter, for approval by the Process Team.
Point person: David Marshall
Communications & Technology
Facilitate communications between the Steering Committee, Process Team, Interim Board, and the Shambhala community, in pursuit of the Process Team’s and Working Groups’ goals.
Point person: LaDawn Haglund
Implement and support the efforts of the Communications Team through digital technologies and other means. Manage the technology needs of the Process Team.
Point person: Fred Meyer
Topic Area: Healing and Learning
Point person: Lisa Piemont
Healing and Protection Working Group
Suggested First Steps: Develop means of inviting open community discussion around healing, learning, and reforms to improve protection from future harm at all levels. Work includes review of the proposed Code of Ethics from An Olive Branch. Consider if the framework and methods of a Peace and Reconciliation process for the entire sangha would be helpful.
Community Voices Working Group
Suggested First Steps: Develop means of inviting open discussion about how community members connect with Shambhala: “what Shambhala means to you,” what is working and not working personally and locally, and what aspirations you hold for the future of Shambhala and your future in it.
Topic Area: Culture Change
Point person: Deborah Marshall
Interrogating Damaging Cultural Practices Working Group
Suggested First Steps: Engage the community in a process of examining privilege, as well as identifying blind spots in our practices and social relations that reproduce domination, inequity, and exclusion based on gender, race, class, sexuality, ableism, and other forms of marginalization
Building New Forms of Interrelationships Working Group
Suggested First Steps: Identify actionable steps that Shambhala can take – as individual practitioners, in community, and structurally – to be more diverse, welcoming, and inclusive to all.
Topic Area: Governance
Point person: David Marshall
Leadership, Decision Making, and Management Working Group
Suggested First Steps: Begin to identify needed changes to leadership models and processes, organizational structure, and leadership culture within Shambhala at all levels, and to model and pilot these changes where possible. Work with the Processes group on the Process Team Charter, for approval by the entire Process Team.
Finance Working Group
Suggested First Steps: Begin to identify needed changes to financial practices, management, and culture within Shambhala at all levels, and to model and pilot these changes where possible. Establish connections and dialog with the Interim Board concerning immediate needs and how the group could help.
Topic Area: Community Building
Point person: Fred Meyer
Centre and Group Support Working Group
Establish processes to help increase the dissemination of best practices between Shambhala centers, groups, land centers, and other local communities. Assist in helping members and leaders of these communities share their experiences and challenges, problem-solve, exchange ideas and suggestions, and in general be supported in getting through the immediate period.
Offerings Working Group
Suggested First Steps: Establish the needed conditions and container for a conversation about the Shambhala/Buddhist curriculum and other offerings at centres that explore how to best align practice & education with shared community values and vision. This may eventually include considering issues such as the practice empowerment structure and recommendations concerning what wisdom streams and teachers are invited into Shambhala/Buddhist settings.