Issue 31 – June 2014 >Go to TOS Website
Issue 31 – June 2014 >Go to TOS Website |
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Contents
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Dear fellow-members of the TS and TOS around the world, It is with great pleasure that we welcome our new TOS President, Tim Boyd, and look forward to his visionary leadership as we implement and further develop our Plan of Action for the next five years. This issue is packed with news from groups around the world, sharing ideas about dynamic service projects in their communities. You’ll meet members from TOS groups in France, India, Italy, Kenya, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Africa, Tanzania and the USA. In our last newsletter we introduced our newest TOS group – in the Ukraine. All of us outside Ukraine are following what is reported on the news. It is hard to understand the complexities of the situation but we care very much about what our sisters and brothers are going through and are praying with all our hearts for their safety and for a cessation of hostilities. Please keep them in your hearts and healing thoughts. Thank you for being part of our ‘in-touch’ community. Together we can make a real difference to every person, animal and plant whose lives we touch with joy and compassion. Remember that the newsletter is designed to be read while you are connected to the internet. Please also consider sending photographs of your TOS activities and news items that might be of interest to fellow TOS members. We would welcome your contributions by email to the editors at carolyn.tosinternational@gmail.com. With best wishes in putting theosophical principles into action, Carolyn, Diana and Geoffrey
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The editorial team (L. to R.) Diana Dunningham Chapotin is the International Secretary of the TOS Geoffrey Harrod is the International TOS Webmaster Carolyn Harrod is the past National Coordinator of the TOS in Australia
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"As time goes by, I become more and more convinced that the power of our service work will not be found in any of the projects or specific activities we undertake, but in the people and the quality of the mind that serves. In Buddhism there is the idea that any work that we do can be ‘spiritual’ whether it is working in a soup kitchen serving meals, or working at home changing diapers and balancing the family budget. The determining factor is the mind. When we do something with the sense that the task and its outcome are not ours, but originate from and return to the Divine within us all, the work is transformed. It becomes something extraordinary." Tim Boyd, From the President's Desk in the Fall/Winter 2008-2009 issue of For the Love of Life, the magazine of the TOS in the USA
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Our new TOS PresidentWe are pleased to welcome Tim Boyd as the new International President of the TOS, a post that comes ex officio with his election to the presidency of the Theosophical Society. No stranger to the work of the TOS, Tim served as president of the TOS in America from 2007 to 2011. Under his leadership, the TOS in the US was restructured so that projects were highlighted rather than departments. This helped release energy for the activities of the organisation, giving members the freedom to focus on what they were passionate about instead of trying to find people to fill different departments. Tim also helped set in place the Kern Foundation matching challenge grant which has been significantly benefiting the Golden Link College in the Philippines for seven years now. For 25 years Tim worked with a group helping troubled youth in the Chicago area. More recently, Tim’s involvement with the TOS and the Chushul orphanage in Tibet led to an audience with the Dalai Lama which resulted in the TS in America sponsoring his visit to Chicago in July of 2011 for a two-day event attended by ten thousand people. The event raised more than $400,000, all of which was donated to educational projects aiding Tibetan communities worldwide. See photos of our new president, Tim Boyd here….
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Update on relief work in the PhilippinesWhen a typhoon hit the Philippines in November 2013, there was an outpouring of concern for the thousands of people killed and millions left homeless. Donations sent from Theosophists around the world to the TOS in Manila were unprecedented since those received by our international TS HQ in India following the tsunami of December 2004. Vic Hao Chin has sent us a fourth update on emergency relief operations. It can be found with earlier updates on our international TOS website here. We thank Vic for his regular reports and send our heartfelt thanks to the entire team in the Philippines for their tireless work.
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Extensive service starts off the year in Mahabharat, IndiaMahabharat,
India, TOS Group leader, Deepa Padhi, would like to thank all who are
supporting her work to combat violence against women. In the first four
months of this year, she and her team have carried out so much work
benefitting the abused and downtrodden that we can do no more than list their
activities. They’ve installed more billboards to promote awareness of the
destructiveness of violence against women, conducted workshops for young
people on gender equality, organised blood donations and supported senior
citizens, the ill and destitute.
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The TOS and the TS working together in New ZealandIt
is very pleasant to see how harmoniously the Theosophical Society and the
Theosophical Order of Service in New Zealand collaborate, allowing room for
and supporting each other’s creative activities.
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Welcome news from the Olcott Education SocietyDr Chittaranjan Satapathy, the Secretary of the Olcott Education Society and International Secretary of the TS, sent us this brief but heart-warming message in mid-March: Let me share the good news with you all that the Government's approval for the upgrading of the Olcott Memorial High School to a Higher Secondary school was finally received this morning. We can now officially call it the Olcott Memorial Higher Secondary School. The school will soon complete 120 years of existence. Warm regards, Chitta
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Joyful service continues in KenyaHow many readers of
this newsletter remember the lively, upbeat (and sometimes mischievous)
service project reports of Usha Shah, the Convenor of the TOS in Kenya?
Since 2010 we have read of tree planting, famine relief, livelihood training
for disadvantaged women and exciting parties for slum children and children
in hospital. Here Usha sends us no fewer than three reports. If you would
like to learn how to put on a party for 48 children in your TS branch, or
supply abandoned women with solar lighting or get a thousand fruit trees
planted.
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TOS news from around the worldIn
this issue you’ll find news from the TOS in Tanzania, about the
exploits of one of their young members, Malaika Kapur, and ten fellow students from
the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, who recently completed
a trek in Nepal to raise money for the Tanzania Heart Babies project. There’s
also news about scholarships recently awarded by the TOS in America to
two Native American nursing students and an update on the involvement of TOS
groups in Europe in the Teddies for Tragedies project, championed
by the TOS in England.
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Sandra Sartori and
Stefania Schiavo, coordinators of the Italian TOS project, hand over boxes of
relief material |
What’s new on the International TOS website?In our Latest News we welcome our new International President, Tim Boyd and share some of the highlights of his leadership as President of the TOS in America. The new Featured Article is the Keynote address given at the International TOS Conference in July 2013 by Mr Mahendra P. Singhal, Vice-President of the TS. At the opening of the conference, held at the National Centre of the TS in America, he shared his key thoughts about the TOS. “The TOS is developing around the theosophical world as a friendly and healing organisation,” he said. “Congratulations to the international team for the guidance and support it offers to groups around the world.” Our Featured Project describes an initiative of the TOS in Italy to support relief work in the Syrian refugee camp of Bab al Salam in collaboration with the international association Time4Life which leads the relief project. There are four million displaced people in Syria because of the civil war. They are victims of hunger and poor sanitation in camps where food, medicine, clothing and health care are lacking. Those most at risk, as always, are the children. You’ll also find additions to the TOS photo gallery and the expanded Inspiration section. Go to http://international.theoservice.org
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‘Meatless’ meat: Is it the future?Many of us avoid
the use of animal products and by-products for spiritual, ethical,
environmental or health reasons. We enjoy opportunities to introduce friends
to food that may interest them in ahimsa dietary choices. On the Today
Show in the United States, NBC’s Craig Melvin recently reported on a new
product called ‘Beyond Meat’, and challenged his colleagues to identify it in
a taste test. Vegetarians will love this informative and fun four-and-a-half-minute
video clip. It reminds us of the revolution taking place in the area of
vegetable-derived proteins and the fresh possibilities opening up for
promoting a lifestyle respectful of animals.
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Using the media to promote animal welfare in South AfricaMeet Roz Griffin, a singer and composer with a studio in Pretoria, South Africa (www.rozgriffin.co.za). She writes across all genres – ballads, rock, jazz, country and pop, also rap, which she penned for inclusion in a feature film score. Roz is a regular meditator and avid believer in self-empowerment. She is a member of the TS and lectures at her local lodge on subjects like the subtle power of music, the importance of kindness to others, creating our own reality and how gratitude brings miracles into our lives (including one that will be related here). Pillars
of the TS in South Africa, Ann and Tom Davis, have alerted us to Roz’s other
passion – animal welfare – and how she recently put her writing talents to
work to help launch a nationwide campaign that has achieved undreamt of
success.
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How wolves change riversThis
remarkable video documents the importance of all endemic species to the
continuing health of their ecosystem. You’ll not only see wolves from a
different perspective but also gain an understanding of the important role
they play in their environment.
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