2011 NW Buddhist Convention Committee Report
By June Akita

The 64th NW Buddhist Convention is history - and what a mark we put on the pages!! Out of the 423 delegates, 96 registered from Tacoma and seven more came just for the banquet. Countless members supported this convention through your donations of food, or gas, or paper, or money, or TIME. From making cookies for the bento lunches to running to Office Depot for the bookstore to countless emails to make sure all the bases were covered, everyone helped!

A major element in the success of this convention was our fearless and confident Dharma School students.

Declan and Jeremy Morita opened each service with kansho thundering on the taiko drums under the direction of Sensei.

JoAnna and Kaila Yoshitomi MC'd Saturday's morning service, Akemi Ikeda MC'd Sunday's closing service, and Sean Tanino MC'd the banquet with Emma and Kate Inge doing the Shokuzen and Shokugo.

Geoff Sasaki, Ryan Ling, David Ling, and Richard Ling played piano and violin for background music during oshoko and prior to the banquet.

Many of our Dharma School students and adults participated Saturday in the Nembutsu Song conducted by Reverend Fujimoto, Idaho-Oregon Buddhist Temple. All of our Dharma School students signed and sang "Okagesama de, arigato" in front of over 440 people Sunday with confidence and pride under the direction of Donna Sasaki, Michiko Yukawa, Rose Kishi, and Lois Saito.

Akemi Ikeda is the newly elected NWYBL President, Declan Morita is Vice president, and JoAnna Yoshitomi is secretary. Our Dharma School students are natural leaders. Our Dharma School students are self-assured performers. Our Dharma School students are the best! We are all so proud of you and thank you.

This convention would not have so successful had it not been for our northwest ministers, Rimban Bob Oshita from the Buddhist Church of Sacramento, Socho Koshin Ogui, BCA Headquarters, and Tom Ikeda, banquet speaker from Densho. Their messages were clear and easy to relate to. Rimban Bob and Socho even did a special “Open Talk” with the college kids Saturday evening at ‘their’ request. Speaking of the college age group, 29 young adults came back to this convention (3 from California!)! There were 19 Jr. YBA and 31 YBA students in attendance. Hopefully, they will return to Spokane next year!

Mike and I thank you for having the confidence in us to carry-on this convention. As always, this was sometimes fun, sometimes not so much fun, but always encouraging. However, it is on the books now, and hopefully, one that will be well remembered.