2008 BLIA AGM at Fo Guang Shan South Island

On the 1st of November, the 2008 9th Buddha's Light International Association South Island Annual General Meeting was held at Fo Guang Shan South Island Temple. Venerable Abbess Manshin chaired the meeting, with around 50 people in attendance, including BLIA South Island president Almeric Cheng, vice president Mei-Hua Chen and advisors John Lai and Sandy Liao.

The meeting began with the presentations of reports from the West and North subdivision, BLIA Young Adult Division 1 and 2 and the Red Cross Lunch Box Delivery Team.

In succession was the election for the new BLIA committee, with the newly elected committee members being Almeric Cheng, Jack Liu, You-Jin You, Mei-Hwa Chen, Ming-Yuan Guo, Shi-Yun Wang, Shuang-Qi Li, Wan-Ru Lai, Yuan-Ying Chen, Hui-Ying Li, Mei-Lin Lee and WeiChia Cheng.

The newly elected BLIA advisors were John Lai, Sandy Liao and Li-Fai Ng. From the thirteen committee members, Almeric Cheng was elected again as the president while Mei-Hua Chen and Jack Liu were elected as his vice presidents.

The meeting agenda consisted 9 topics, which included the “running of the activities in relation to this year’s IBLIA theme ‘Bodhisattva and Volunteers’”, “attending the “Offering Service to Universal Buddha’s and Celestial Beings at FGS North Island Temple in January 2009”, “Fo Guang Shan New Zealand Sakura Photo Shoot competition” and “participation in the Chinese Lantern Festival organised by Asia NZ in January 2009” to name a few.

In addition, the newly elected presidents for West and North subdivisions’, Ms. Chen and Ms. Lisa, were presented with certificates

Abbess Manshin stated “the development of Buddhism in New Zealand has rooted after a decade of hard efforts by members to run the BLIA and the temple. She hopes that the effort to nurture talents should be continued, as doing so will lead to an excellent and dynamic team.

Account by Fan-Ping Chiang, Wei-Chia Cheng and Sheng-Han Lim