BLIA South Island NZ New Directors with New Goals

Buddha's Light International Association (BLIA) South Island New Zealand (NZ) 2014 Annual General Meeting and 11th Director Election was held on 6th September at the Cloud Water House with more than 60 members attended the meeting. Key attendees of BLIA South Island NZ President See Shen Lee, Vice-president Louisa Kuo, Advisor John Lai and Dharma Lecturer Rona Ku respectively attended this important meeting. Fo Guang Shan (FGS) NZ Venerable Abbess Manshin and Temple-supervisor Venerable Juexi also attended as guidance venerables for the event.

The meeting started with President Lee reporting the main events held in 2014, which includes the Buddhist seminar, Interfaith discussions, Visits of distinguish guests, Community events, Buddha's birthday and Sangha offerings. The co-operation, determination and perseverance among the members had made these activities successful. Vice-president Louisa then reported, Humanistic Buddhism study group has organised more than 170 sessions since September 2013, with the best record of 1128 attendees. She hopes more members could attend the study group regularly in the future to gain wisdom from Buddhism literatures. In addition, West-one Subchapter Vice-president Mary Wong and North-one Subchapter President Elsa Hayes cum care group representative reported on additional activities organised throughout the year. A short film about Venerable Master Hsing Yun's Dharma propagation in 2014 and short films about the 2014 activities organised by BLIA South Island NZ were then played. The BLIA South Island NZ Youth Adult Division (YAD) later performed Hand Gesture dance titled "Buddhist Youth with Love".

The 11th BLIA South Island election have elected Jack Liu, Cao Qian and 17 other members as the new director members, many of which are young and fresh. This highlighted the outstanding enthusiasm of new generation towards cultivating and spreading Buddha's teachings to the community. Among the new director members, the president, vice-president, secretary and other positions were selected accordingly. See Shen Lee was re-elected as the president whereas Louisa Kuo, Elsa Hayes and James Low were elected as the vice-presidents. The old and new director members aim to work together in creating new history in the Buddhist society as well as to strive towards a new era of Buddhism. During the meeting, Abbess Manshin also shared her experienced in Humanistic Buddhism emphasised regularly by Venerable Master Hsing Yun, where Humanistic Buddhism does not only provide platforms to everyone, but also allows everyone to cultivate Buddha's teaching. After many years of hard work, BLIA South Island NZ members has became Elite Members of NZ, allowing them to step into International Platform. Last but not least, Abbess Manshin wished the repair of the temple can be done as soon as possible and encouraged everyone to participate more in Buddhist related events.