July Director’s Report – Building News

This has been an exciting two months for the building. We had the Snow Lion Room painted, from wall to ceiling, including the hot water heaters and the trim! For those of you who may not have noticed, the walls were so dirty from years of lhasang smoke, that despite having been cleaned, we could still see the lines where thangkas and other things were on the walls. The room is now sparkling with fresh paint. 

Thanks to Laura Evans, our Building Caretaker, we also solved a mystery that has been challenging the Shambhala community for as long as we’ve been on Tower Road: why is the water pressure so weak and what can we do about it? Thank you to Jim Torbert for sharing with us the name of a great contractor; we were able to get to the bottom of it. Brian Kelly, from G&R Kelly Enterprises Ltd. took a look at our system and said we should bring in John Pace of Pace Plumbing and Heating Ltd. Mr. Pace was able to diagnose that we had rocks in a valve where the water from the street comes into the building. $500 later, we had a new valve and the pressure is on! We look forward to the Kurukulla Abhisheka and potentially 300 people in the building to find out just how much more pressure we have.

This is not all, the fountain liner in front of the building is being replaced, with help from Petra Mudie, and we have also done work on the air flow in the building. We are making steps to solve the problem of the smell in the basement men’s bathroom, and investing time and energy into organizing and clearing out our basement storage.

Finally, I’m very excited to say that we’ve ordered four new windows for the Main Shrine Room to be installed possibly before the Kurukulla abhisheka at the end of June. Thank you to all of the donors who helped make these projects possible!

Staff News
We will be sad to say goodbye to Tara Nauss on July 5th.  Tara worked with us for 7 months with government funding, which unfortunately we could not extend. Tara was a huge help at the centre and will be missed tremendously. Tara will continue in her role at Co-Director of Societal Health and Wellbeing, and we’re sure to see her at the Centre regularly.

Other News
Several leaders from the Halifax community were able to attend the Leadership Gathering at Karmê Chöling in May with Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. The Sakyong shared stories about his recent public events in Chicago, San Francisco, and Louisville. He also gave us instructions on how to help the Shambhala Centres become the basis for cultural transformation through food, conversation, and meditation. He encouraged us to find more balance between work and play, space and schedule.  We are looking forward to finding ways to bring the Shambhala Principle and social transformation even more to the forefront of the Halifax Shambhala Centre. Some ways we hope to do this include providing more regular Shambhala Arts offerings, more cultural events, and more opportunity for gatherings of food and conversation. Stay tuned for updates on these initiatives!

Finally, watch for our new website launch in the next few weeks!