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WLABT's Newsletter, "The WLABT Bulletin"

Submissions for the Sept 2008 Issue due on Aug 1, 2008

Download the July/August 2008 Bulletin here.
Download the June 2008 Bulletin here.
Download the May 2008 Bulletin here.
Download the April 2008 Bulletin here.
Download the March 2008 Bulletin here.

Download recent editions of the WLABT Bulletin here.

 

Save a tree! The Bulletin will be delivered by e-mail to those members who have e-mail addresses. There are many benefits of doing this, both for the recipient and the Temple. The major benefits to recipients are;

• You view the Bulletin in color.
• You receive the Bulletin earlier. Paper Bulletins take up to three weeks to be delivered.
• Reduces temple use of paper and ink.
• Reduces labor of printing, folding, labeling (addresses).
• Reduces cost of postage.

1960 Publication Staff

The 1960 WLABT Publication Staff

2008 West LA Bulletin Staff

Reverend Fumiaki Usuki Religious (English) and Advisor
Reverend Ensei Nekoda Religious (Japanese)
Haru Matsumune Proofing, Temple Office Support
Mas Sasaki Printing
Sei Shohara Managing Editor
Richard Stambul Assistant Editor
Yasuko Shohara Computer Processing
Ted & Betty Takahashi Business & Mailing
Toshiko Uyekubo Calendar and Japanese editor

The West LA Buddhist Temple's "Bulletin" is the official newsletter of the temple.

First, as you immediately noticed, we have changed the paper size of the Bulletin. There were several reasons for doing this that need not take up space here, except to say that they make life simpler for those who get the Bulletin out each month. We hope you like this change.

Another change was made that needs some explanation. If you examine the donation lists in this issue, you will notice that donations for regularly scheduled services now show only the donor’s name; the amounts donated are not shown. This was done as a result of a decision by the Temple Board at its December 2006 meeting. This will remain in effect for a trial period of one year, and then re-evaluated again. Please let a Board member know if you wish to express opinions one way or the other. An exception to this procedure is donations received for special reasons, such as funerals, memorials, weddings, facility use, etc. These will still show the amounts donated.

A new feature is the New Member column that starts off this page. If you have other suggestions for new features, let us know. Along this line, someone recently suggested we should have Letters to the Editor. We have always had one, but no one sends us letters. Well, actually, maybe three or four did over the 35 years or so we have been editing this publication, and we published them.

With the reduction in paper size, the monthly calendar size got smaller, and the space for each day got really small, too small for Sunday when there is much to cram into the space. So we split the calendar into English and Japanese versions. Not only that, we have shortened the usual “Sunday Service/Dharma School” to just “Service.” For the rare days when one of the services is not held, it will be so noted.

Together with these changes, it would have been nice if we could have also redesigned the masthead at the same time to be something more attractive and modern. We Buddhists say everything is impermanent, but our masthead seems to defy that law. Is there someone out there that can design us one? Perhaps you can also help us change composition, layout, fonts, etc. to make our Bulletin look more attractive to read.

Because of the extra time needed to make these changes, we have not been able to recompose Rev. Nekoda’s Japanese religious pages to fit the smaller paper size. We hope to solve this problem by the next “thick” (March) issue.

Finally, we wish to thank all those who have contributed to getting this Bulletin out regularly. This includes our correspondents from various organizations who have generally met our need to have articles in by the first of the month preceding the month of publication. That is, inputs for the February issue are needed on the first of January. We need the first week of January to compose, print, and mail, and the remaining three weeks for the Post Office to deliver it to you before February.

If you do not receive your Bulletin in time, You must complain to the Post Office for your Zip Code. Once we put the Bulletin in the mail, it is the responsibility of the delivering Post Office to get it to you on time.

To provide a means for the Temple to communicate more frequently with its members with the minister’s religious messages, Temple activity schedules, and news, the Bulletin is experimenting with returning to a monthly publication schedule.

Together with increased publication frequency, there will be other changes, some having to do with improving the content and some having to do with changing the way we do things to keep the workload down to acceptable levels.

We hope that you will like these changes, and we ask for your cooperation to make this experiment succeed. Your suggestions are welcome.

Fixing Late Delivery

We are getting more complaints from members about the Bulletin arriving late. We are moving up our Bulletin production schedule so that it gets delivered into the postal delivery system much earlier than before – three weeks before the month it covers. For example, This January issue will go to the post office on or before December 12.

Just a handful of Zip codes seem to suffer late deliveries. From our inquiries at the Post Office, it appears that the delivering post office is at fault. The only way to fix this seems to be for the addressee to complain to the postal delivery man or to management of the post office he or she works out of. Please help fix this problem by complaining if the Bulletin does not arrive by the first of the month.

If you do not get your Bulletin within the first few days of the month, drop by the Temple Office and pick up a copy. If you cannot get to the Temple, call the Office and they will send a copy out to you by first class mail.

Delivery By E-Mail?
A suggestion was made that we should explore how many Bulletin subscribers would be willing to receive the Bulletin by e-mail. E-mail delivery would help reduce the late delivery problem and helps reduce labor.

If you are willing, please send an e-mail message to sei@ieee.org with “Yes” in the subject line.

Photos Welcome
You must have noticed in recent issues that we are including more photos. This reflects Rev. Usuki’s philosophy of liberally sprinkling photos in Bulletin articles, and he himself has contributed a great many photos for possible use in articles.

You too are welcome to submit photos with the understanding that they may not be used and will not be returned. We prefer that you submit photos in digital form delivered as files attached to e-mail addressed to sei@ieee.org. We suggest you put enough information about the photo in the body of the e-mail so that it can be used in an accompanying article to perk up the reader’s interest

Deadline
With a monthly publication, deadlines must be adhered to religiously. The deadline for articles is the first day of the month preceding the date of the issue. For example, the deadline for a January issue will be the first day of December

Reporters
The WLA Board decided each organization (Asoka, BWA, etc.) should appoint a reporter who will have two responsibilities:

Determine what news about their organization needs to be in each issue.
Compose the article and submit it by the deadline to sei@ieee.org.

The Bulletin Staff has no responsibility for composing articles for organizations or for chasing after articles. In other words, if an organization doesn’t have an article in by the deadline, none will get published.

The BWA has always had a reporter, as well as Dharma School. The Bulletin appreciates the example they have set.

You do not have to be a reporter to submit articles. If you have something the members might be interested in, by all means write it up and submit it. Although we prefer that you submit the article as a digital file via e-mail attachment, typed or hand written copy will be accepted.

© 2008 West Los Angeles Buddhist Temple Online