The BLIA Vic held the 2018 Annual General Meeting on the afternoon of the 28th October 2018 at the Fo Guang Shan Chanting Hall in Melbourne.
The meeting was attended by the BLIAV Guiding Venerable Jue Min, Venerable Man Qing, Venerable Jue Hao, BLIA World Headquarters Director & Chief Elder Advisor BLIA Victoria Ms Dominique Cheung, BLIAV’s President David Yu, BLIAV’s Vice President Darren Chow, Lindy Chea and 130 other members from the remaining sub-chapter.
BLIAV’s President David Yu expressed gratitude to other Sub-Chapter presidents, and members for their efforts over the past year, especially in promoting the exchange and understanding of multiculturalism and religion leading to winning the Victoria’s Multicultural Awards for Excellence Award.
The future conference of the association will be based on the “Faith and Lineage”, enhancing “Three Acts of Goodness Family”, establishing a scouts group, cultivating good seeds, declaring joint office of the Plan A food guide and continue the development of the humanistic Buddhism in Australia.
Besides reviewing and discussing the proposals from different representatives, each Sub-Chapter and the YADs also reported the progress of activities from the last year. The association specially awarded the elderly members above 75 years old with more than 10 years’ membership with awards and presents to develop affinity.
In addition to the above, in line with the aim of using music to promote Buddhism, each sub-chapter chose their theme song from the “Sounds of the Human World” and performed during the meeting. The North-West Sub-Chapter performed the “Four Seas have Fo Guang Member” South-East Sub-Chapter performed the “Lighting”, the East 1 Sub-Chapter performed the “Spirited Bodhi”, the East2 Sub-Chapter performed the “My family is at Fo Guang Shan”, the City One Sub-Chapter performed the “Harmonise” and the YADS performed “Vow to Be”. The songs performed by each Sub-Chapter not only reflected and promoted the beauty of Humanistic Buddhism, the cooperation of the association, the lively dynamic and also forming the peak of the atmosphere for the meeting.
The BLIAV Guiding Venerable Jue Min began with advising that the development of wisdom assisted the development of human beings. This includes creating the perfect arts and music work. The development in technology wouldn’t be able to replace the importance of the development of wisdom. We must be grateful having Buddhism as faith, further developing our faith, cultivating further talents with Buddhism and positively passing on the cultivation so that Buddhism continue to shine and the Dharma continue to flow.
After the meeting concluded, everyone interacted and exchanged contact details during the tea session.