Issue 14 Feb 2011            to TOS website

Contents

(L. to R.)
Carolyn Harrod is the National Coordinator of the TOS in Australia,
Geoffrey Harrod is the International TOS Webmaster and
Diana Dunningham Chapotin is the International Secretary of the TOS.

Dear fellow-members of the TS and TOS around the world,

We hope that you are enjoying keeping in touch with what is happening in our international TOS community. Our electronic newsletter aims to bring you information to inspire your service work within and outside the TOS and to help you get to know TOS members outside your country. This issue, the first for 2011, brings a new look that we hope you’ll find easy to use. Please let us know what you think of it. Remember that the newsletter is designed to be read while you are connected to the internet.

We are sad to inform you of the passing to higher service on January 28 of Mrs Jean Gullo, President of Honour of the TOS in America.  We send sympathy and love to her husband Joe and their family.  In our next newsletter, we will bring an account of Jean's many decades of dynamic work for the TOS.

Please consider sending photographs of your TOS activities and news items that might be of interest to fellow TOS members. We would welcome your contributions, either through your National TOS Director/President/Coordinator/Correspondent or directly to the editors at: carolyn.tosinternational@gmail.com

Would you like to receive this on-line newsletter automatically?

  1. To sign up, you only have to send a message telling us which country you live in to tos.intouch@theoservice.org with ‘Subscribe TOS e-newsletter’ in the subject line.
  2. If you do not want to receive future newsletters you can easily unsubscribe. All that is needed is a blank message to tos.intouch@theoservice.org with ‘Unsubscribe TOS e-newsletter’ in the subject line.

With best wishes,
Carolyn, Diana and Geoffrey
 

Our chief work ought to lie in helping, so far as we can, everything that makes for Brotherhood.

- Annie Besant
Golden Link College

Take advantage of the Kern Foundation's offer and support the Golden Link College in the Philippines

Building on the success of the last three years' fundraising project, the Kern Foundation has offered up to US$20,000 to match donations to the Golden Link College in the Philippines in 2011. The superb response from within the USA and from TOS members around the world enabled John Kern’s and the Kern Foundation’s generosity to be used to the full over the past three years.

The Golden Link College now offers education at primary (elementary), secondary and college levels. The college program offers two courses: Bachelor of Secondary Education and Bachelor of Elementary Education.

The College is committed to a philosophy and approach that integrates academic competence with theosophical insights on living.  
Read more….

Announcing the Spanish version of Helping the Dying by Nelda Samarel

Thanks to the translation work of Maria Rosa Martinez, helped by Maria Ester Larraza and Idarmis Rodriguez, the TOS is happy to make available this 40-page booklet designed to enable us to help loved ones through the phases of the dying process. Printed copies may soon be ordered from the TOS.

Anuncio de la versión en español de Ayuda a los Moribundos de Nelda Samarel.

Gracias a la traducción de María Rosa Martinez con la ayuda de María Ester Larraza e Idarmis Rodriguez, la OTS se congratula de facilitar este pequeño libro de 40 páginas destinado a capacitarnos para ayudar a quienes amamos a lo largo de las fases del proceso de la muerte. Pronto se podrán solicitar ejemplares impresos a la OTS.

Details...
 

TOS news from around the world

Find out about the new vocational training centre organised by the TOS Delhi Region; a helping hand in Kerala; environmental awareness education in Mahabharat, India; how the New Zealand TOS is using Joy Mills’s latest book to raise funds; the award of the Subba Row medal to Joy Mills; the Adelaide, Australia, TOS project to collect books for the Golden Link College in the Philippines; the experience of a volunteer to the Golden Link College; Krotona residents’ adopt-a-family project; and young people becoming involved in TOS activities in Tanzania.
Read more ….

 

Making the most of our website – the members' section

Have you checked out the members' section that has recently been added to our International website? You’ll find a start-up kit to guide people wanting to set up a new TOS group.

This collection of material could also be useful to established groups. The document, About the TOS, provides useful background information for new members; the three articles could provide springboards to group discussion about the nature of service within the TOS; the document, What shall we do?, contains a collection of bright ideas for service activities, and you could use the invocations at meetings.

Take a look at this material at http://international.theoservice.org/members/startupkit.html

 

What’s new on the International TOS website?

In the Latest News, the Kern Foundation announces its continuing support of the Golden Link College in the Philippines by providing a matching grant of up to US$20,000 in 2011. In Australia, the Sunshine Coast TOS group conducted a one-day event on the theme, The Alchemy of music and dance to promote the aims of the Theosophical Society and the TOS to the general public as well as to raise funds for TOS service projects. They share details in our new Featured Project. The new Featured Article, True Theosophical Service, proposes that theosophical service is made up of inner and outer action. In it, Dorothy Bell asks us to look deeply at our inner action and to consider the inner harmonising and adjustment that is needed to remove impediments that prevent the fullest expression of our true godlike nature in altruism. There are also additions to the TOS photo gallery and the Inspiration section.   Go to http://international.theoservice.org

  Joy Mills & her book


The Possible and the Necessary

In her article Joy Mills challenges us to take positive action on the issues that confront society. She writes:

We must happen to the world in such a way that we, becoming inwardly transformed, transform the world.

It is possible to do lip-service to the ideal of brotherhood; it is possible to repeat the worn-out certainties of book learning; it is possible to continue the same routines, the same types of programmes, the same methods of study, the same kinds of presentations, year in and year out. It is possible to be satisfied that we are doing the best we can, to be satisfied that we are too small, too weak, too lacking in talent or capacity, to do more, to be satisfied that occasionally some really good things do happen to us. But the unrest around us, the desperation of human need, the urgency of human hunger (not simply for bread, but for the bread of wisdom), demand we move beyond the possible to the necessary.

It is necessary that we be willing to live out, in daily encounters, the very essence of brotherhood. It is necessary that we probe the old truths for new meanings that can only emerge in the revelation of our lives. It is necessary now that we speak clearly, so convincingly; so meaningfully, in terms that will alert the mind and awaken the heart to a new mode of being which is compassion incarnate.  
Read more ….

 

UN themes for community activities

When you are planning your group activities for 2011, you might be inspired by the United Nations themes for the year.

2011 is the International Year of Forests and the International Year of Youth (12 August 2010 to 11 August 2011). Both these topics are related to focuses of service within the TOS.

The websites for these International Years have lots of suggestions for ways they can be celebrated in our communities. We could have featured speakers, tree planting, education projects about the importance of our forests and invite young TS members to a forum to discuss and plan ways of applying theosophical principles to current issues.

Plan to celebrate Earth Hour 2011

Earth Hour is all about the small changes that everyone is capable of making in their lives and building the Earth Hour ethos into each day’s living. Turning the lights off, represents turning the lights on in your mind, and consciously reducing greenhouse emissions. Imagine the result if everyone around the globe switched off their lights for one hour?

Show the world you care with one simple action. Plan to join in individually, as a family or with friends on Saturday 26 March 2011 at 8:30 pm.

For information and ideas for activities,   Read more ….
 

An inspiring story of compassion and human-animal communication

Enjoy this personal account by a diver of a remarkable encounter with a giant manta ray.   
Read the story ….