Counting the pennies

Counting the Pennies, by photographer Sylvie Goy

A big thank you this week to Lama Nor'dzin and Lama 'ö-Dzin for kindly donating a sack full of pennies that have been gradually totting up in a jar in the family home over. . . well years now really.  Over a thousand of the little devils have now been contributed towards the appeal. 

Pennies from the household of such fine folk are indeed pennies from heaven. . .

(I know - not really related - just a great excuse to reference my favourite sitcom of all time)

Anyway, in all seriousness, every little really does help.

Thank you!

Camera for sale (Thank you Dad!)

Just a quick post to tell you that there is a nearly new Fuji digital camera up for sale on e-bay at the moment - kindly donated by my father, Cliff Watkins, member of the Beckenham Photographic Society.

If you want to bid, act now - after some costs are covered, all profits will go to the Drala Jong appeal.

These things for £140+ but the auction is starting at under £100, so if you want a bargain, and to help the appeal - bid away!

If you want to donate an item for auction for the appeal, do get in touch.  Of course you can just send a credit or debit card donation to us via Paypal by going to the Paypal website and donating to sncd.treasurer@gmail.com.

Anyway, happy bidding.  As they say in all good elections (sort of), bid early and bid often!

Best regards

Namgyal

Green Man Challenge

On Saturday June 30th - fifteen apprentices and friends of the Aro Tradition will be undertaking the Green Man Challenge as a sponsored walk to raise funds for the Drala Jong Appeal.

The Green Man Challenge follows the 45 mile course of the Community Forest Path around the city of Bristol.

We will be undertaking the challenge as a relay team with people undertaking legs of between 4 and 22 miles each depending on their age and ability. Two hardy souls - Naljorma Thrin-lé and Drowang Pawo have both committed to completing half the walk each - 22 miles, and our younger participants Tomas (age 5) and Raechel (age 9) have committed to walk 4 miles each.

If you would like to sponsor our team effort you can do so via Paypal or for other methods please get in touch. 

Just 5 pence per mile for Thrin-lé & Drowang's efforts would make all the difference.  Send your £2.20 donation to sncd.treasurer@gmail.com via www.paypal.co.uk and if you are a UK income tax payer include your name, house number and post code marking it 'Gift Aid' and we'll claim 55p tax relief on your donation.

 Now we're just hoping it won't rain. . .

Fundraising 101 - part 2 - Little and Often

Now okay, 101 part 2 is probably 103 (think about it) but I hope you'll forgive my mathematical meshuggenations after our little discussion about 101.

Let us proceed. 

Raising money is much like eating an elephant - a subject with which Tantrikas should be intimately familiar.  Having first established that you don't have to work as hard as you originally thought (based on the - don't do more than you have to principle) despite the joys of the tax break, you're still confronted with a mighty target.  When approaching the Drala Jong project I had not the slightest experience of raising funds (unless you count bob-a-job week - the first time round in the early 1980s).  At first I thought we had to raise the whole £500,000 in one hit. 

And I was wrong wrong wrong.  The most important thing about being wrong, is recognising that you're wrong.  In most circumstances everyone will see it pretty quickly, so you can always ask the opinion of others. . .

. . . anyway, I digress.  The best way to raise a large sum of money, is to start.  Why?  Well, because if you wait for a big donor to come along you'll be waiting a long time.  Like many things in life, it's better to pitch for little, and often.  As a Management Consultant colleague once advised me (stay awake, this bit will be over quickly) 'Waiting is not an activity. . .'

If you're not used to fund raising, you should start small - simply because if you set achievable goals you set yourself up in a pattern of succeeding.  Once you've got some success under your belt you can go for something grander.  And remember, nothing sucks seeds like a parrot. . .

So, here are some simple suggestions you might like to consider

1) Sell your old junk

- two donors have been selling unwanted CDs and DVDs on Amazon and e-bay, and raised £170 in 6 months
- in a variant on this, another volunteer has gather together other people's unwanted stuff, and sold it on e-bay on their behalf, raising £240

2) Sell your skills

- table top, garage and street-front sales of home grown plants and home made cakes have raised £500 in the last few months
- you could even donate the prize money from your successes in a local horticultural show, if you fancy it

3) Go without something that you won't really miss

- one supporter is putting 1/3rd of their restaurant tips towards the appeal
- one supporter is going without their daily Starbucks hit, and putting the money aside in a jar for the project

don't go too far unless you're pretty confident of the outcome

4) And there are always sponsored events (although again set yourself an achievable target)

I'd welcome hearing of other fundraising ideas that people have put to good effect, and we can flag them here for others to learn from - not just for this project, but for any charitable cause that folk wish to support.

If you've enjoyed this post, why not donateto the appeal, by sending a Paypal donation to

sncd.treasurer@gmail.com

Tibetan Buddhst Calligraphy Gallery & Charity Sale - Scorpion Seals aplenty

Well, you lucky people, here is an opportunity for you to indulge your own artistic interests, your desire to acquire, AND your charitable spirit. 

Some of the calligraphies created by Ngak'chang Rinpoche for the talk in Bristol have found their way into our tender care, and we display them here for your delight and delectation, and most importantly your purchase!

Below are images of the last remaining calligraphies created for the Drala Jong appeal. . . get 'em while they're hot!  Each of the calligraphies pictured here is for sale (bar the last one - see below) and each is a unique and original artwork.

Price: £150 plus postage and packaging (£4.99 UK, £9.99 airmail Rest of World)

Orders can be placed and payments made via the e-mail address at the top of this page.

Size: 30" x 20" (75cm x 50cm)

(Apologies by the way for my imperfect photographic efforts - I was unable to get a completely square-on shot of the artworks, despite standing on various pieces of furniture and trying various tacks.  I did think of trying to suspend myself from the chandelier to get a better angle, but realised that might have hurt my back - not least because we don't actually have a chandelier).

Just as an aside - before proceeding - but did you know that the blog piece on the Scorpion Seal is the most read item on this site?

Anyway, on to the calligraphies. 

É Ma Ho:

wonderment

(exclamation of delighted-surprise, wonder, or amazement)

Hung:

Seed syllable

(2 available)

Ga’chen

empyrean ebullience

(enrapturement, great joy, overjoyed, boundless beatific delight)

**SOLD**

rLung

spatial wind

(the subtle motility  which animates being, breath, breathing, air, vital current [vayu / prana] the subtle energy which moves within the spatial channels)

Nu-thu

magical radiance

(dynamic appearances generated through conjuring with energy of phenomena)

Gyü’trül

miraculous vision

(sGyu ’phrul ’drwa ba chen po’i ting ’dzin – meditative absorbtion within the interconnectivity-web of reality)

Seals central 

Ma-kyé

immensity of empty-potentiality

(that which allows all phenomena to arise, uncreated, unborn, unoriginated, non-produced, unmanufactured, unobstructed, devoid of artifice)

Long

 vast expansiveness of reality

(space basis space, immensity, limitless scope, unboundedness)

Dzü’drül

spatial enchantment and miraculous orchestration of phenomena

(creation of apparitions, magical power and display, telekinesis / psychokinesis, et cetera)

Gyü’trül

miraculous vision

(sGyu ’phrul ’drwa ba chen po’i ting ’dzin – meditative absorbtion within the interconnectivity-web of reality)

Seals to the left

Chö

(chos)

as it is - reality

(Dharma [and dharmas as in ‘phenomena’], teaching of Buddhas, religion [teachings / doctrine / scripture / text / tenet /precept] quality, attribute, characteristic, ability)

**SOLD**

This is the only calligraphy which is not currently for sale.  You may notice both the fine profusion of ink spots, and accompanying Scorpion Seal - associated with Wrathfulness - and also the fact that this is the only calligraphy where the script lies outside of the circle.  When asked, Ngak'chang Rinpoche confirmed that this is the first time he has written script outside of the circle on any of his works.  Thus it is that this work is particularly distinctive - and particularly desirable.  Several offers have been made for this work, but none yet accepted, and the current thought is that it will be raffled auctioned at a charity dinner later this year.  If you wish to submit a speculative electronic bid for this work, you could chance your arm via the e-mail address above.  This *may* be the only calligraphy Rinpoche ever creates in this way in his lifetime. . .

[Update - this last calligraphy was sold by auction mid-2012, with a final bid several times higher than the normal sale price of the other calligraphies - thank you to those who bid]

BTW - Blues Masters up next.

Diggin' it

Well, we're back from the latest Apprentice Retreat here in good old Blighty, and although the event itself was nothing to do with fund raising for the project, various folk have been diggin' the Drala Jong fundraising effort one way or the other.  Nearly £2,000 has poured into the appeal as a result.  It's particularly good to see this sort of casual fund raising happening, with lots of little projects providing people with things that they want and need, for small contributions here and there - including vajrayana instruments, gZi stones and shawls all donated to the project and sold to grateful practitioners.

As well as vajrayana artifacts 13 Sky Signature calligraphies were sold in Finland by Bar-ché and Me-sel, and several more found new owners during the retreat.

My lovely wife Shé-zér has also added a few pennies to the coffers in her one woman Dig-For-Dharma campaign - by selling 50 strawberry plants for the appeal. 

On it's own it won't keep Jerry from the door (but it will give Margo something to peer at over the hedge row).

Most significant though was the arrival in Britain of several of the Blues Masters images courtesy of Ngak'chang Rinpoche.  Their creation was sparked through his work on his autobiographical work An Odd Boy

Shortly we'll be posting images of the first set of Blues Masters works on the Blogsite - and they will be available for sale here, as well as being hung for viewing and sale at Aro Ling some time in the summer, when volume two of An Odd Boy is launched.  These images are a collection of works, that have been extensively recoloured and restored by Rinpoche using a host of tools available through the wonder that is Photoshop.  Up until this point they were only visible via Facebook, but thanks to the work of Lama Shardrol's sangha in the USA, they are now available on canvas.

Some of the source images were black and white, or of very low resolution, and have been touched up, sharpened and refined.  The Jimi Hendrix image was in fact sourced from a photograph of an original painting by Rinpoche himself - and again has been retouched for the Blues Masters collection.  Each image has had something like 60 to 100 hours of work put into it, before being printed to canvas in medium and large scale, for hanging.

 

Images include a host of Blues artists from both the USA, and also from the British Blues boom.  Where images were cut or cropped, instruments have been restored from scratch by adding them from other photographic sources from the period.  Friends and relatives of many of the Blues artists pictured have been good enough to get in touch with Rinpoche and express their appreciation of the work that has gone into bringing these performers to life.  Now they will be made available for public sale - with 100% of the proceeds going to charity.

The most ambitious part of the Blues Master project will appeal to fans of An Odd Boy.  Amongst the images there are several restored pictures of the band Savage Cabbage - in which Rinpoche himself played. As no extant image of the band on stage could be found, these works have required sourcing faces, bodies and instrument images from a host of different sources - including Rinpoche's son - a bass player himself - providing a body double for the performers in their stage poses.

The next two posts will catalogue the currently-available Blues Masters and Calligraphy images that are available to buy - and will detail how supporters of the appeal can get these unique works to hang upon their walls at home.

Fundraising 101 - part 1 - make every penny count

Now, before I start I have got to confess that I have no idea of the background to why people append the figure '101' to a subject line - but it is clearly a popular passtime.  The main aim of calling something 101 seems to be to create the impression that the writer is about to list the finest selection of fascinating fundamentals regarding a particular plan, course of action, random assemblage of pseudo-factoids, crummy one-liners or almost-interesting statements about their subject of choice.  I'm pretty sure that with only the briefest of idle googling sessions I could probably conclusively prove beyond reasonable doubt (or reasonable boredom threshold) that there is no one in the world who can really list 101 interesting things about *anything* that they claim to have knowledge of on a website without inducing a coma in the readership.  But hell, pitching a 101 is clearly popular - and if there is one thing it's important to play for in the fundraising game it is popularity.

I'm not saying 101 sites are all rubbish, by the way.  Far from it.  It's just the ones that I managed to tolerate reading in researching this Blog never actually listed a hundred and one ideas - not even on how to survive a zombie apocalypse.

So, without further rambling, I think I should start to describe ways in which anyone - yes anyone - even you - can raise money for a worthy cause, without having to rob a bank or sell your major internal organs on the interweb.

Rule 1 - make every penny count

Would you like the government to spend your tax money on nuclear bombs, or on the charity of your choice.

Think about it.

Think a bit more.

Yes, I know that there was that place you went on holiday that year that would probably benefit from a bit of fission-based rennovation - but really, bombs or charity. . . ?

Right, assuming that you've gone for the charity option (yes, I too had to think about this a bit, but whilst bombs are lovely it's hell trying to get the shoes to match, isn't it?) then make sure every penny that you collect  from others, or donate directly, is a tax efficient penny.  Many countries run schemes that endeavour to support charitable giving, and they all in essence direct your government to spend your tax dollar, pound or euro on what *you* want them to spend on, rather than what they fancy spending it on (mostly banks these days, rather than bombs, but there you go).

Some examples follow:

The United Kingdom - Gift Aid

Gift Aid is a scheme supported by the British Government - HM Revenue & Customs to be precise - which is intended to encourage people to donate to charity.  You can read the ins and outs of it here, but all you really need to know is that if you are a UK income tax payer, you can tell the charity to whom you are making a donation that you are Gift Aiding the donation.  They will do the rest - and in effect they will get an extra 25% from the government on every donation made.  So, for those donors pledged to contributing £2,500 to the Drala Jong appeal - you need only contribute £2,000 and the government will cover the rest.  If you are a higher rate tax payer, things get even better, with the difference between the 20% and 40%/50% tax rates being tax deductible. (so I'm told - I'll worry about that the day I become one).  Sang-ngak-chö-dzong is the registered charity of the Aro gTér Tradition in the UK, and accepts donations online.

In Britain the Gift Aid scheme extends to include donations of objects which are then sold on at the donor's request.  That is to say - if you donate your Renoir collection to the charity for sale for their benefit, the proceeds of the sale (up to the limit allowed by the law) would be elligable for Gift Aid.

The USA - Tax Deductable Giving to a 501(c)(3) Tax Exempt Organisation

The US tax laws also enable tax efficient giving, with the IRS giving advice on what you need to be aware of in making donations in this manner.  Aro Gar Inc. is the charity of the Aro gTér Tradition in the USA, and is a 501(c)(3) organisation, which accepts donations online.  Unlike in Britain, donations are simply tax exempt - with the tax benefit returning entirely to the donor rather than to the charity directly - but nonetheless they have the same basic effect - making your money go further.

No matter where you are located, if you are in any doubt at all, contact your local charity for advice on how to register your donations (and any you collect from other people) and they'll give you the low down (possibly even using 101 pieces of advice on how to do it successfully).

Next up - fundraising 101 will touch on Little and Often (rather than Infrequently)