{"id":3652,"date":"2021-06-26T18:00:27","date_gmt":"2021-06-26T08:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bmimc.org.au\/?p=3652"},"modified":"2021-12-11T12:43:58","modified_gmt":"2021-12-11T01:43:58","slug":"general-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bmimc.org.au\/wp\/general-update\/","title":{"rendered":"A Place for Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Just when it felt like we were about to return to something that looked like a normal rhythm at BMIMC we find ourselves back in lockdown.<br><br>The past 15 months since the pandemic started have&nbsp;felt like one long lesson&nbsp;in adaptation and dealing with uncertainty. It has pushed us into uncomfortable places, and forced us to try new ways of serving the community. It has also helped&nbsp;us to appreciate&nbsp;what is&nbsp;special about&nbsp;the Centre.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We have&nbsp;been surprised by how&nbsp;well technology has&nbsp;brought&nbsp;people together around the dharma and meditation as we&nbsp;have experimented with different forms of online and hybrid retreats. Our experience over the past few months, along with the feedback we have received from teachers, yogis and volunteers has told us that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Hybrid retreats, that is, retreats with some yogis at BMIMC and others connecting from home, are successful from the yogis&#8217; perspective but are very challenging to manage for both teachers and staff. <\/li><li>Interest in online retreats has waned as people are becoming tired of zoom and so much interaction by screen. <\/li><li>There is a yearning in the community to be back at BMIMC, either sitting retreat or volunteering.<\/li><li>BMIMC is&nbsp;ultimately a place for practice.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>With this in mind we have decided not to offer hybrid retreats for the foreseeable future. Retreats will either be residential only or online only.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the most part we will only offer online retreats as a fall-back option in cases where residential retreats have to be cancelled due to covid restrictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For retreats with oversees teachers who are not able to get into the country, teaching will, where possible, be provided by big screen in the meditation hall, and individual interviews facilitated by laptop.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The retreat schedule for the remainder of 2021 has been&nbsp;finalised&nbsp;and can be accessed <a href=\"http:\/\/bmimc.org.au\/rgb-retreats\/\">here<\/a>. We will be releasing our 2022 schedule in August.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With the recent outbreak it is possible we will need to revert to online for the upcoming residential courses. If you have booked in for any of these retreats we will get in touch as soon as possible should there be any change to plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Please note, if you have&nbsp;enquires,&nbsp;the&nbsp;office will be closed for winter recess throughout&nbsp;July&nbsp;and we will&nbsp;not be responding to emails or calls. The office will reopen again in August.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Staff Changes&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since February, Margie\u00a0Sampson\u00a0has been filling in as Centre manager while we arranged for new staff to take over\u00a0to give Margie a\u00a0well deserved rest.\u00a0We have decided to create\u00a0a number of\u00a0new roles to share the responsibility to take over from\u00a0Margie.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Deborah&nbsp;Lisyak&nbsp;and&nbsp;partner&nbsp;Mark&nbsp;Hudson&nbsp;will be moving&nbsp;up from their current home in Victoria&nbsp;to&nbsp;join the Centre as our&nbsp;Retreats&nbsp;Coordinators&nbsp;in residence.&nbsp;Deb has&nbsp;a long history with the&nbsp;Centre&nbsp;as a yogi and volunteer.&nbsp;Both Deb and&nbsp;Mark&nbsp;are&nbsp;experienced meditators and&nbsp;have a love of service&nbsp;and a deep commitment to insight practice.&nbsp;We look forward to helping them settle in to their new roles in late July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"240\" height=\"229\" src=\"http:\/\/bmimc.org.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/deb-mark.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3663\"\/><figcaption>Deb &amp; Mark<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>We also welcome Katrina&nbsp;Ledwidge who has recently joined as our office assistant&nbsp;to manage enquiries and admin. Katrina lives locally&nbsp;and will be in the office on part time basis.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/bmimc.org.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/katrina-office-1020x1360.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3662\" width=\"206\" height=\"274\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bmimc.org.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/katrina-office-1020x1360.jpg 1020w, https:\/\/bmimc.org.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/katrina-office-632x843.jpg 632w, https:\/\/bmimc.org.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/katrina-office-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/bmimc.org.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/katrina-office-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https:\/\/bmimc.org.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/katrina-office-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/bmimc.org.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/katrina-office-250x333.jpg 250w, https:\/\/bmimc.org.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/katrina-office-scaled.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 206px) 100vw, 206px\" \/><figcaption>Katrina in the BMIMC Office<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>We expect you\u2019ll see or hear more from Deb, Mark and Katrina over the next few months.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our deepest gratitude to Margie for giving up so much of her time to keep the Centre running over the past few months while we filled these positions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-summary\">\nJust when it felt like we were about to return to something&hellip;\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bmimc.org.au\/wp\/general-update\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;A Place for Practice&rdquo;<\/span>&hellip;<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3667,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/bmimc.org.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/cypress-hall.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bmimc.org.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3652"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bmimc.org.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bmimc.org.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bmimc.org.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bmimc.org.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3652"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/bmimc.org.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3696,"href":"https:\/\/bmimc.org.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3652\/revisions\/3696"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bmimc.org.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bmimc.org.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bmimc.org.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bmimc.org.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}