2007 International conference

Wheaton, Illinois, USA 27 – 30 July

The International TOS Conference was held at the TS in America’s headquarters, ‘Olcott’, in Wheaton, Illinois. Its theme, Exploring our potential for service, followed on perfectly from the TS in America’s 121st Summer National Gathering’s focus on Col. Olcott’s contribution to the Theosophical Society and his life of service to the world. International TOS delegates were invited to give short talks on some aspect of service during the Summer Gathering.
The TOS International Secretary, Diana Dunningham Chapotin opened the TOS International Conference, bringing greetings from Radha Burnier, the International TOS President:

I send loving greetings to the workers and friends of the TOS gathered at ‘Olcott’ for the second TOS Conference. With the approaching centenary in February 2008, now is a particularly good time to be giving thought to the organisation’s future. I look forward to a report on the ideas and suggestions that emerge from your discussions.
I deeply appreciate the long term service carried out in the field by many of you and even if I don’t have the time to write to you all individually, my affectionate good wishes are with you always. Like you, I look forward to the day when TOS activity is as widespread as the TS work is.
With love, Radha

Betty Bland and Tim Boyd added their welcomes on behalf of the TS and the TOS in America respectively. TOS delegates came from North and South America, Europe and the Indo-Pacific region. After an opportunity for delegates to begin the process of getting to know each other, the opening concluded with a musical performance by two TOS members: singer, Julia Ballesteros de Martinez (Colombia) and pianist, Eneida Carbonell (USA).

A recurring theme in the daily meditations led by Maria Parisen (Krotona, USA), as well as in the talks and discussions, was the ideal that our TOS work was characterised by two intertwined aspects: self-transformation and selfless service. Vicente Hao Chin (Philippines), focused our thinking with an excellent keynote talk that challenged us to look beneath the surface symptoms at which our service activities are often directed. He suggested that we enquire deeply into the issue, peeling back layers of seeming causes until we get to the root cause … and that is where our energy should be focused in the long term. Diana Dunningham Chapotin is currently looking at ways this talk can be made available to TOS groups as an audio-visual presentation.

Delegates from each represented country gave talks on a successful service project in their country. This highlighted common issues and activities around the world and illustrated the importance of matching the service approach to the particular social context. Although they were not able to attend, Aman and Fareeda Amir sent a PowerPoint presentation of the TOS work in Pakistan. Chaganti V.K. Maithreya (Chennai, India) used a DVD as part of his presentation on the Chennai tsunami rehabilitation work. This DVD and the PowerPoints on the TOS work in the Philippines and Pakistan have been provided to each Australian TOS Group.

Delegates at the International TOS Conference

Delegates also had opportunities to hone their skills through participating in workshops on harnessing the universal power of compassion for healing action (led by Maria Parisen, USA), building a high performance TOS team (led by our own Dorothy Bell) and choosing and developing a service project (led by Betty & David Bland, USA). A summary of this last workshop is included as an insert to this newsletter.
During the conference we visited the inspiring Humanitarian Service Project run by Karole and Floyd Kettering (USA), which provides food packages to poverty stricken elderly people and birthday and Christmas gifts to children living in poverty.
True to our selfless service ideals, delegates helped with kitchen chores, scrubbed down the kitchen, made mandalas for the relief fund and wrapped gifts for children.

Kitchen helpers

The main work of the conference was to discuss and develop a shared understanding of the potential role of the TOS in the coming years and collectively plan ways of strengthening its service work and profile, both locally and internationally. We began this work by discussing our vision for the TOS into the future, its mission and goals. We then identified priorities and planned actions for achieving these.

TOS workers in each country have now been consulted about the ideas generated at the conference. Their suggestions on a vision statement for the TOS and comments on the international organisational needs that conference participants identified are currently being compiled.

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