Dear Friends of Common Ground, It is an exciting time to be in community together at Common Ground! On behalf of the Board of Directors, I want to share some highlights from the past year. Of course, there are many wonderful accomplishments to share; these are but a select few. The Administration, along with the Board of Directors, has been giving careful attention to creating a welcoming, inclusive community for each and every person who comes to Common Ground to practice. This has necessitated a close and caring look at the norms and structures in place that support our intentions to be a welcoming community, a community that embraces difference. The Board has named identifying and addressing barriers to inclusion as one of our top priorities this year, and have taken steps, some highlighted here, that deserve to be celebrated, and are important to be known to our practice community. The Board has taken an active and essential role in the training aimed at gaining understanding of our racial conditioning and its impact on our relationships with one another. We have been engaged in dialogue to wake up to the privilege and oppression that is experienced right here in our beloved community, and the harm that can be caused when we take refuge in comfort. Larry Yang’s book, Awakening Together—The Spiritual Practice of Inclusion and Community, has been a guiding text for us this year. And the recent, Mindful of Race training with Ruth King helped leaders highlight concerns, challenges and opportunities at Common Ground. The Advisory Committee has had a critical role in Common Ground’s efforts to engage our commitment to waking up to our experiences of privilege and oppression. Each committee member brings unique experience and skill, which fortify the knowledge of the Board in order to more effectively guide the organization in this work. Recently established as a Board Committee, the Advisory Committee is engaged in exploration of how to best support the Administration in creating a welcoming refuge for the most diverse community in Common Ground’s 25 year history. Common Ground is offering an inaugural Dharma Leadership Training to seven experienced practitioners from non-white and queer communities. We have also made a commitment to ensuring access to people of color and to our gender non-comforming and transgender community members for programs and retreats. These commitments reflect Common Ground’s acknowledgment of the historic underrepresentation of these communities in leadership, and developing a group of future leaders that reflect our wider community. These are only some of the actions we are taking to engage our commitment to unraveling oppression. This work is not linear or easy, but is a journey that will support our understanding of what it means to be a wise and compassionate sangha as together we step into the messiness of being fully human. I am confident that the deep integrity and unwavering commitment of the leadership at Common Ground will guide us so that together we all begin to make peace with the complexity of being in community, and learn how to be compassionately responsive to our collective needs. It is essential that the leadership join with the community on this journey so that the voices informing our work represent the entirety of our sangha. I invite your participation and input as we continue to identify changes that will support our engaged commitment to becoming a welcoming, accessible, and safe practice home for all. With Gratitude,

Stacy McClendon, Board Chair