From The Chairman 

I hope you have had a restful and mindful holiday and are all charged up and ready to meet the many challenges of your public and private avocations. Whatever you may be doing, wherever you may be and whoever you may be with, I wish you well and I wish you a prosperous, successful and meaningful year ahead. I wish that you would be close to your loved ones, that you would have many reasons to be happy and be thankful, and that you can always find time to enjoy the simple and good things in life. 

It has been a while since I talked to you on this site. Venerable Jingyin has suggested that this website could be used more creatively and certainly more frequently and in time can become a platform for exchanging views between members on various issues. Over time, it would indeed become a website of choice for those who know. I had hoped to invite some alumni and friends to write on this site, but I did not get very far; and I would not go into the details. When Venerable Dhammapala asked me to update my message, I thought I might start a new experiment and see how it develops. 

First of all, I would invite you to look at the new line-up of the Executive Committee. We have increased the number of Directors and we now have about a dozen members on the Executive Committee. In accordance with the Company Ordinance, we would need to hold an Annual General Meeting once every year. The Committee has fixed the next one on 4 February 2010 and we would announce the venue very shortly. Please mark off the evening for another reunion with friends and fellow alumni. 

Talking of reunion, we have just had one about a fortnight ago, on 11 December 2009 in the format of a Graduation Dinner. It was held at a vegetarian restaurant at World Trade Centre in Causeway Bay. It was a rather successful evening, complete with gratitude speeches and performances, award presentation, fine food and finer fellowship, and lots of fun and laughter. We took up the entire restaurant and I believe every class of MBS graduates was represented. The highlight of the evening was the presentation of certificates to those who successfully completed the first 4-year certificate course of Chinese Buddhism Texts. Professor C F Lee and Venerable Jingyin were there, as were most of our teachers and staff at CBS. Afterwards, many photos were circulated on websites, not least through Facebook. 

Your restructured Committee is conscious that members would like to see varieties in the programme and has accordingly lined up quite a few activities so that there would be something for everyone. Venerable Dhammapala has joined the Committee as the Programme Convener and will provide you the latest update from time to time. 

I said in the beginning that we would like to see more use of this website. Indeed we would like it to become your home page. We understand that before we can achieve this, we need to work a lot harder and do a lot more. The good news is that we are not short of talents: Venerable Jingyin has reassured me that the admission process has been such that anyone selected for the MBS Course would have a natural tendency to do good in the world and be of service to his or her fellow human beings. I hasten to add that those are my personal interpretation, rather than his words. As such, we have available so much brain power that would last us for a very long time. On the other hand, the bad news is that it is not easy to manage talents and talented people. I know that there are no easy solutions, and I also know that we would move no where if we stay where we are. 

I therefore invite all of you out there to contribute your ideas and thoughts, in a manner that would best benefit the community in general and your fellow alumni in particular. Please send your contributions to me or to anyone on the Executive Committee; and we would take it from there. 

I would sign off here; and I hope to talk to you latter, but not much latter. 

John Wan

Chairman