John David Smith is new Communications Director - Shambhala ...

Dec 23

Sunday

Pacific Northwest

John David Smith is new Communications Director

Post a Comment December 23, 2012 ? 5:08 pm | Permalink |

I see the communications role as being a really important to get the word out about what Shambhala has to offer. ?But to enable that we also have to attend to communications at an administrative level and actually work to make our community more visible to itself ? to celebrate our community.

The skills and the perspective I bring to this job have to do with my work with communities of practice during the past 15 years. ?I?ve helped organizations and community leaders develop and support communities ? both face-to-face and online, often in an international context. To take this job?at the Portland Shambhala Center,?I?ve had to curtail another volunteer position that I?ve held for the last 10 years. ?I?ve been the community steward for?CPsquare?(partly as a volunteer and partly paid for my work). ?CPsquare is ?an international community of people who are involved in communities of practice as leaders, researchers, or consultants. ?But for the next phase, I am making an effort to focus and commit to supporting the Portland Shambhala Meditation Center.

I?ve been involved in Shambhala since 1975, mostly in my time in Boulder, Colorado. ?In the 1980?s I was chair of the Dekyong Council?which involved getting community leaders together to talk about the community and how it was faring in a particularly difficult time. ?Here in Portland?I was the ?Warrior of the Center? with my wife Nancy for 3 years, which led to being on the Governing Council for all this time. ?I?ve been a meditation instructor and an authorized teacher as well.

So I?m really excited to be taking on these new responsibilities and working with people in a new way. ?I have to say that one of the first steps after figuring out how things work to announce classes, do registration, and the get weekly calendar out, will be to recruit some people to help by posting to this blog about what?s happening in our community ? as individuals and collectively. ?Only if we?re connected with each other can we become a resource to the rest of Portland.

From: Portland News Magazine

Source: http://shambhalatimes.org/2012/12/23/john-david-smith-is-new-communications-director/

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