by Jeff Stone, Chairman of Subud California at Santa Cruz
Currently we have 15 active men and 4 inactive. There are 15 active women and 8 inactive. Our regular Latihans are Sunday morning and Wednesday evening.
Our Chairman/Councilor is Jeff Stone, our Vice Chairman is Lucian Schaasfsma, our Treasurer is Oswald Lake. We have no Secretary at this time. We have two Rental Coordinators, Ralph Davila and Rachmat Martin.
Our men Helpers are Ralph Davila, Gregory Tarsy, and Robin Hammar. Our women Helpers are Luzita Davila and Mara Alverson.
The men had one opening since my last report in November, Moon Savage, who is already a very active member. Sadly, we also suffered a death in November, Dennise Brown.
Our monthly pledge to the Region is $400, an amount we have been sending in reliably. We have also been making loan payments every month since July. We have not been able to make back payments yet to try to catch up with the months we missed. January and February have been slow rental months, and the loss of our Tulip insurance cost us some rental income, but we are seeing an increase in rentals again for the coming months.
In the category used by Stephen Kelly, never-a-dull-moment-etc., a water pump on our property hemorrhaged a couple of nights ago, spilling lots of water. The pump had to be replaced. We haven’t got the bill yet but we are expecting it to be about $1000. Oswald thinks we will be able to handle this unexpected expense, just.
After having gone a couple of years without many meetings outside of Latihan except for emergencies of one kind or another, we are moving towards a change. We have instituted monthly Dewan meetings, proceeded by Latihan. This in turn is leading to Helper meetings and the planning of membership meetings both for kedjiwan and social gathering, all in the service of strengthening and ultimately building our community. This is partly a response to the social outreach instituted by the Regional Council, and partly a response of our Dewan to the state of our group, which could use some prodding. Also along these lines, Luzita Davila has been talking to Elna about setting up a visit by the Regional Helpers. It is not an urgent request; we just think that the Regional Helpers could help us to kick-start a regular program of Kejiwaan activity.
I am writing this report the day after our latest Dewan meeting. I am heartened by that meeting. Some serious ideas are being discussed on how to increase involvement of our membership. As long as we continue to carry the momentum of this discussion forward into experimentation and practice I believe that we will see our Santa Cruz group growing stronger.