Toronto BLIA YAD Spring Retreat

This year, Toronto BLIA YAD hosted annual Spring Retreat alongside three other YAD subdivisions – Montreal, Ottawa and Detroit YAD. The purpose of this year’s spring retreat was quite different than previous years. Apart from allowing youths to come together once a year after during spring break, this year’s main focus was to begin preparation for 2019 North American Regional Conference set to be held in Montreal.

Three attending subdivisions came from smaller temples with less opportunities for event planning and leadership. Thus, this retreat was an opportunity for less experienced youths to learn. More importantly, the goal was to build a cohesive team between all four subdivisions. Ven. Yung Ku, Abbess of Fo Guang Shan Toronto, held the main session on event planning and leadership.

In this class, Ven. Yung Ku worked closely with youths to discuss and plan 5 different types of events commonly hosted in Fo Guang Shan - lecture, meeting, banquet, opening/closing ceremony, forum – all critical components of a conference.

Youths had the opportunity to brainstorm and learn the amount of detail and work it takes to set up an event. The types of resources that an event may entail and most importantly, the resources you can gather with a limiting budget. Ven. Yung Ku noted the importance of focusing on the 5W’s of an event – Who, What, Where, When, How – and determining the purpose and point of an event is crucial.

Furthermore, youths had the opportunity to converse with Toronto BLIA President Glenn Chan about what it means to be a Buddhist youth. President Glenn shared with youths his personal struggles as a young person and how his life has changed since joining the Fo Guang community. Youths also had the opportunity to brainstorm ideas for 2019 North American Regional Conference and what they hope to learn in 2019. At the end of a short two day retreat, youths reflected on their own personal growth and affinity with YAD. All subdivisions agreed to host more events together to build a stronger bond in preparation for 2019.