NEWS

Board Newsletter – March 2024

Dear Friends,

The SIM Board would like to express our deep gratitude to all our sangha members. Each of you contribute to making our sangha special either through your financial and/or volunteer support or by participating in our programs. The success of SIM is based on a strong community rooted in the Dhamma.

In an effort to keep the sangha informed of the SIM Board’s activities, we are initiating a practice of writing regular communications. We feel that it is important for you to know what the Board is doing to support the SIM mission of providing vipassana/insight meditation support to the Sacramento community. Our hope is that increased communication from the SIM Board will clarify issues facing SIM, generate excitement in its potential, and inspire involvement in our precious sangha.

Looking back on 2023, we would like to share with you our accomplishments for the past year. The Legacy Teacher Project was initiated, and teachers Diana Clark, Walt Opie, and Vance Pryor are teaching regularly at SIM. Our Legacy teachers have also signed up to lead the 2025 SIM residential retreat! We launched our new website which involved over a year of planning, resulting in an appealing and user-friendly interface. In November, SIM held a successful residential retreat with Greg Scharf at the Mercy Center, during which sangha members recharged their practice. To provide much needed administrative support to the Board and Faculty, we developed and filled the Operations Manager position, and we are pleased to have David Guerrieri in this role. And we had our most successful year-end fundraising ever, with $24,000 raised!

This year we have already had a good deal happen, especially with changes to the Board. I officially took over as president in January from Jon Siiteri who served as president for the last two years. Jon remains on the board as a Member-at-Large until next spring. Alice Carney, who has been on the board for five years and served as Secretary, stepped off the Board in early February. We so appreciate Alice’s work on the Board, particularly her efforts to manage the website project, which was a huge undertaking! Karen Tercho, who has been on the board for two years, will now be the Board’s Secretary.

In February we welcomed Carmen Pereira and Margaret Buss to the Board.

Carmen Pereira
Margaret Buss

Carmen comes to the Board with bookkeeping skills and an enthusiastic attitude. She will be taking on the Treasurer position when Greg Gollihur steps down in April.

After serving as Volunteer Coordinator for seven years, Margaret Buss joined the Board. She comes with a wealth of knowledge about SIM and the SDC, and her wisdom will help guide us. Much gratitude to Jon, Alice, Karen, Greg, Carmen, and Margaret for their service to the SIM community.

In mid-January, the board and faculty held a daylong retreat to take extended time to practice and work together. From this meeting came several ideas for practice events, including a Volunteer Appreciation event in March and commuter mini-retreat in August. And plans to update our weekly newsletter, now called SIM News, are in the works.

One of the decisions that came out of the meeting is an increase in daylong and course fees. We will now have a base rate of $25 per daylong, and $50 per course with additional levels that sustain SIM. Although we would love to be able to provide the Dhamma freely, we face the economic reality of our need for more professional services and a potential operating deficit for 2024. However, we remain committed to inviting everyone to access the teachings and will not turn anyone away for lack of funds.

As we look forward into 2024, I ask for your continued support and participation. We have opportunities for sangha involvement in one of the SIM Board committees or working groups: Finance, Community Outreach, and Residential Retreat Planning. Participation in a committee is an excellent chance to acquire a greater understanding of the day-to-day operation of SIM and provides an opportunity to get to know fellow sangha members on a deeper level. If a committee is not your thing, the set-up team for Thursday evenings and Saturday daylongs needs volunteers. I encourage you all to consider participating!

I look forward to practicing with each of you on this Dhamma Path. And, if you see a Board member on Thursday night, please say hello. We would love to get to know you better and would appreciate hearing about your experience at SIM.

May you be happy and healthy, and live in ease.

With metta,

Amy Kovak 

SIM Board President

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SDC February Newsletter

Family Sangha Program

Have you seen the latest Newsletter from the Sacramento Dharma Center? If not, click here to access the newsletter and optionally sign up to receive future issues. The February newsletter includes the topics:

  • “The Value of Witnessing”: An Inter-Sangha Pilgrimage to the South
  • Racial and Social Justice as Dharma Practice
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Special 2023-Tax Note

SIM is grateful for all our donors and we’ve already emailed tax letters to those who’ve donated $250 or more in 2023. If you have not received the tax letter (dated Jan 21 or Jan 22, 2024) and you think you should have, please check your email Inbox, as well as your Spam or Junk folders. If you still don’t find it, please contact GregG@sactoinsight.org.

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Become a SIM Monthly Donor

Dear Friends,

Deep gratitude to all those who donated to our yearend fundraising effort. We raised $24,020! This is a fantastic start to covering our budget shortfall. But we still anticipate having a budget/revenue shortfall in 2024 due in large part to our new – and absolutely essential –  Operations Manager position which adds $22,000 to our annual expenses.

As we start this new year, we are beginning a campaign for the month of January to get 10 new monthly donors and 10 current donors to increase their monthly contributions. Can you be one? Can you encourage someone you know to be one?

Recurring donations provide reliability and consistency to the organization. This allows us to plan responsibly and make future commitments.   

Our current monthly contributions range from $10 to $200 per month. However, this is not enough to cover our anticipated 2024 expenditures.  

What does your donation support?

  • SIM’s core assets: Thursday night sit and dharma talks, Saturday Daylong Retreats, Courses, and the annual retreat;
  • Our Legacy Teachers and ultimately continues supporting the Dharma in Sacramento;
  • The new Operations Manager position, which expands our communications & online capacities, facilitates our administrative and registration processes, and provides important operations assistance to the Board and Faculty.
  • AV/hybrid events- this allows people who cannot come in person to attend to hear the Dhamma and maintain their connection to the sangha.

If you are not currently donating monthly, please consider signing up. If you are currently donating monthly, please consider increasing your donation.

It’s easy to sign up online by going to the Donation page. Put in the amount and choose “Make this donation every month”.

If you want to increase your online donation, email website@sactoinsight.org with the changes you want to make and Sabitre will update your contribution.

And just to have some fun and give a little incentive for folks to sign up, if you become a monthly donor, or change your donation rate, during the month of January, we will be holding a drawing for two lucky winners to go out for a meal with Senior Teacher Rich Howard and another with SIM Founding Teacher Dennis Warren.

With gratitude,

Amy Kovak, on behalf of the SIM Board of Directors and Faculty 

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Face Masks Recommended

,

With the recent rise in the community level of COVID infection, the SIM Board of Directors highly recommends that persons attending in person events at the Sacramento Dharama Center wear effective masks, such as N95, KN95, and KF94, especially those who are at higher risk of serious complications after contracting COVID.

A limited number of masks will be available at the entrance to the Dharma Hall for this purpose.

Additionally, for your wellbeing and that of others, all attendees are encouraged to be fully vaccinated with the most recent recommended vaccines.

Thank you,

Jon Siiteri, on behalf of the Board of Directors

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With Deep Gratitude – Your Gift Matters!

“The householder who is a faithful seeker and in whom dwells truth, Dharma, steadiness, and generosity, does not sorrow when he or she passes away”.

~Samyutta Nikaya I.215


Dear Friends,

Thank you to those who already have donated to the year-end appeal. We deeply appreciate your generosity! May you rejoice in sustaining the Dhamma in Sacramento. If you have not yet donated, there still is time. Please consider SIM when making your year-end charitable donations – your gift matters. Wishing you peace and tranquility during this holiday season.


With deep gratitude, SIM Board of Directors & Faculty

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Dharma Center Mortgage Update

Family Sangha Program

The Sacramento Dharma Center stepped up to support the Mortgage Pay-down Campaign and with a 1-to-1 matching fund that’s still active, there’s time to help reach the initial Mortgage Pay-down goal. For details, visit Mortgage Pay-down Campaign Update.

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An Invitation from Valley Streams Zen Sangha

Valley Streams Zen is hosting a “Quietly Entering the New Year” event and inviting everyone; a special invitation to everyone and anyone who practices at the Sacramento Dharma Center with Sacramento Insight Meditation or the Sacramento Buddhist Meditation Group. Starts at 7 pm, Sunday, Dec 31.
For details, visit https://valleystreamszen.org/event/welcoming-the-new-year-in-person/

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Asking for Your Help!

“The warmth of the community, the commitment to practicing the Buddha’s teachings, and the generosity of SIM is felt each time I engage with the sangha as a teacher. I feel incredibly fortunate to be a part of all the wholesome offerings SIM continues to put forward into the world.”
~ Vance Pryor, SIM Legacy Project Teacher

Dear Friends,

For over 20 years, SIM has provided a safe and welcoming environment in which to explore the profound teachings of the historical Buddha in the Theravada/Insight Meditation tradition and to cultivate spiritual friendship and community. It has been a rich and precious experience as these teachings can change the way we understand living, relationships, and dying.

SIM has consistently provided a core set of offerings including weekly sit and Dharma talks, monthly daylong retreats, an annual residential retreat, the Beginning Meditation Course, and other courses designed to deepen our practice.

To continue to offer learning and practice opportunities and to ensure SIM’s future and long-term presence in Sacramento, we are launching two vital initiatives:

  • Legacy Teacher Project (LTP): This program will expand and deepen SIM’s core faculty to ensure the continuity of teaching and will result in new courses and practice opportunities by providing stipends to three new faculty.
  • Operations Manager (OM): The person in this part-time position will provide the long-needed role of central oversight, management, and coordination of SIM’s day-to-day operations.

Funding these initiatives will require an additional $55,000 to our annual budget each year going forward ($33,000 for the LTP; and $22,000 for the OM). And we need your help!

SIM is wholly sustained by the generosity of the community through financial contributions and volunteering. Thank you! To support these new initiatives now, you can help in the following important ways:

Thank you for your contribution and support! We appreciate this deeply and look forward to strengthening our sangha and practicing together in the coming year.

With gratitude,

Amy Kovak, on behalf of the SIM Board of Directors & Faculty

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