4.  High points of the TOS year

Rome Congress

The International Congress of the TS held in Rome in July offered an excellent opportunity
for TOS workers to meet.

A very successful fund-raising sale was organised at the Congress, where hundreds of handicraft items made by the Italian members were displayed. The international TOS sent a letter of thanks to the Italian Section for its outstanding work.

This year, Luigi Marsi retired as director of the TOS in Italy after many years of loyal service. We wish you a happy "retirement", Gigi!	Rosella Milani Fanzio, principal volunteer at the TS Congress fundraising sale, has just become the new director of the TOS in Italy. Welcome, Rosella!
	Speaking of changes of responsibility, we welcome Blanka Blaj Borštnar to the post of Correspondent for the TOS in Slovenia. Blanka replaces Breda Žagar.

Radha Burnier's new book

The launching in late 2009 of Radha Burnier's latest book, The World Around Us, was hailed by the TOS, containing as it does numerous sections of particular interest to its members: brotherhood, ethics, morality, rights and responsibilities, women, inhumanity and violence, and Nature. Radha's bracing On the Watch-Tower commentaries on social problems are often reproduced in TOS publications and their collection in The World Around Us is warmly welcomed.

TOS Website

The TOS's regularly updated website and its two-monthly electronic newsletter, TOS in-touch.online continue to prove invaluable tools in reaching Theosophists around the world. They are seen by far more members than was the printed publication, The Service Link, and cost very little to produce. Their aim is to provide information and inspiration for all seeking to serve.

The TOS's website and electronic newsletter are edited by Carolyn and Geoff Harrod and the international secretary.

In the newsletter, photographic reports are regularly shared on the work of hitherto little known yet dedicated Indian TOS groups. For example - that country's indefatigable, peripatetic National Director, Mr B. L. Bhattacharyya, regularly sends encouraging news of new groups and projects: the dental care programme of the Delhi region; the 'save a thalasemic child' programme of the Mahabharat TOS group of Orissa; the relief work of the Mathurapur TOS group for the victims of May 2009's cyclone Aila; the construction of two (soon three) new schools in the Aila-affected Sunderbon area; the animal welfare work of the Assam region… Mr Bhattacharyya makes mention of the especially fine work this year of the Mayfare, Chennai, Rajasthan and Karnataka TOS groups. More on some of these activities in our next newsletter…Actually, a whole year of newsletters wouldn't suffice to recount the work of the scores of TOS groups within India!

East Africa

Communication with TOS groups in East Africa continues to improve: members in Zambia, Kenya and Tanzania are now sharing news regularly of their service work. An excellent theosophically-oriented public speaking competition for eight high schools in Mufulira, Zambia has been run for 17 years without members outside East Africa knowing anything about it until now! Its principal organiser, Ebrony Peteli, has been approved as a TOS Correspondent by the General Secretary of the TS in East Africa, Mr Navin Shah.

It will be remembered that the Kenya Post Office issued a stamp commemorating the Centenary of the TOS in 2008. The TOS in Nairobi, in addition to its regular humanitarian work in the areas of animal welfare and the education of the needy, decided this year to support the Corporate Social Responsibility programme of the Postal Corporation of Kenya. The TOS donated to its Water Project which helps bring water to communities in harsh environments like the arid and semi-arid parts of Kenya. The TOS in Nairobi tries to ensure that its work embraces all the kingdoms of nature so this new work in the area of the environment is particularly welcomed by its members.

Lumen School

Another high point of the year was the opening in June of a theosophically-oriented school in a poor farming district of Bago City in Central Philippines. Lumen School is being assisted by Golden Link College in the training of teachers and design of the curriculum. The transmission of theosophical values is a high priority.

Vicente Hao Chin Jnr addresses the parents and children of Lumen School.	Ruth Minerva Cruz, Administrator of Lumen School

Joy Mills' Birthday

A final high point of the year was the 90th birthday on October 9 of our most senior and longstanding TOS member, Joy Mills.
Joy was 'crowned' for the day.

Participating in the Ojai service team must keep one young! Notice Joy second from left in front here.
	At her party, Joy received a wonderful "book" filled with birthday greetings from hundreds of her friends around the world.
Joy with close friend, Krotona's librarian, Lakshmi Narayan	Maria Rosa and Ernesto Martinez Garcia from Argentina were at Joy's party.
	Joy with long time Ojai friend, Marjorie Emerson