At the jointed meeting, the coordination team decided to hold the third preparatory meeting in Hualien on Sep. 2nd. 

Written by: Shen Ying Fang
Photographed by: Chang Ciou Yan
Translated by: Tony Hsieh, Nansen Wang and Jeff Lu
Proofread by: Lucy Lee and Mindy Chen

This is the 50th anniversary for Tzu Chi Foundation, 30th for Tzu Chi Hospital and 20th for TIMA. Various functional teams were gradually formed by the Tzu Chi Volunteers from the northern region at the end of June and the 1st preparatory teleconference meeting with Hualien was made on July 22nd at the Songshan Tzu Chi Branch Office.The 2nd preparatory meeting was made on August 20th with guidance from Master De Ni and Master De Chen. At the coordinators’ meeting on August 30th, over 100 volunteers were chosen to formulate the various functional groups, and the 3rd preparatory meeting was made the at the Jing Si Abode in Hualien with ground drills at the Jing Si Hall later on.

◎Learning By Doing - Greeting the Guests

The meeting was undertaken and hosted by the head of the TIMA coordinator group Yu Li-Qing, and the emcee was undertaken by Cai Qing-Hua. The convention will soon begin after this meeting, and everyone faces the convention with joy and with sincere hearts to welcome back TIMA members and volunteers from all over the world. The coordination group plays a significant role and acts as the communication window and bridge between the various functional groups.

Coordination group members are responsible for the care of various functional groups. The curriculum team is handled by Jim Long-Zhen, logistic team by Cai Qing-Hua, culinary, life and dormitory group by Gao Xiu-Min, registry and documentary group by Wei Xing-Juan, and the decoration and team leader group by Yu Li-Qing.

Preliminary planning and understanding consensus were made at the 1st meeting to know the manpower needs of the various functional groups and the teleconference meeting was made from Songshan Tzu Chi Branch Office. Functional groups need to make a report at the 2nd meeting, the plans and progresses were reported at the meeting and Master De Ni and Master De Chen from the Jing Si Abode in Hualien came to provide guidance. The 3rd preparation meeting was made at the Humanitarian Lecture Hall in Hualien on September 2nd. Specific reports were made by the various functional groups to submit the needs and to reach consensus.

As there are a great deal of information from the various groups, the information need to be collected and analyzed at all times, the information must be analyzed to clearly grasp the situation on time, related volunteers and activities. Each functional group has information collecting and analyzing members. Confirmed directions will then be executed by the volunteers.

◎Learning By Doing With A Joyful Heart

The decoration and team leader group is undertaken by Yu Li-Qing from Yonghe District in the New Taipei City, from the new Taipei Yonghe District. She had many experiences undertaking large camps, but this is her first time to undertake the function of the TIMA Coordination Group. She indicated that participating TIMA members are from many different countries, with different professions, doctors, nurses and volunteers. The Mid-Autumn Humanitarian ceremony during the camp is very diversified, with performances from the Sutra Adaptation Performance Group, Professional Performers’ Group, and doctors and nurses from the 6 Tzu Chi Hospitals.
Frequent disasters had been happened in recent years, and at the annual TIMA documentary program, Tzu Chi volunteers had the opportunities to document the relief activities in Nepal, and the health for the Syrian refugees was specifically added for the Syrian refugee events.
All lectures are taken in the Jing Si Hall and the Xi-Li Building this year. The walking space, activity site and subject lectures need to be carefully planned. Yu Li-Qing, who is responsible for the decorations, needs to get involved with many people, affairs and matters, such as special culinary equipment and various ingredients have been prepare by Taipei volunteers and transported to Hualien by the recycling truck from Sanchong, and the flowers for the decorations have been prepared by the Taipei and Hualien volunteers jointly.

While preparing for the convention, Yu Li-Qing learned that there are many volunteers also making preparations and providing care. All functions have been divided individually but at the same time they are also interlinked, there may not seem to have a lot of manpower involved, but in fact there were a lot of backup support. The nature of the TIMA convention is different from general international camps, lots of information need to be read in order to understand the camp as a whole and with a learning mindset Yu Li-qing is prepared to take up her role and welcome the TIMA members with a joyful heart.

After listening to the Culinary Team’s report, Master De Yu adjusted the schedule of dinner time to meet the requirement.

◎ All things will go smoothly, if we have a heart of piety; be prudent and pious.

This is Wei Xing-Juan’s first time to be in charge of the TIMA coordination work. She is very experienced with numerous large camps, and believes that with every camp, all volunteers are very mindful and the preparations had taken a long time for formulating through endless meetings and coordination with the aim to hold an eventful camp.

Each year, TIMA members come back during the Mid-Autumn Festival that always meet the long weekends. This makes booking of train tickets difficult. Registry and ticketing group takes great effort in reserving tickets for over 1000 people. The culinary volunteers prepared many delicious foods to welcome the TIMA members. TIMA members are from various professional fields, most attendee doctors and nurses have not gone through the training courses, so the curriculum will not be arranged too tightly, and living habits are required less from the set Tzu Chi regulations. Discussions were made during the preparation meetings, and foods were mindfully prepared to suit members from different countries. Volunteers from the various functional groups showed their strength and commitments with a mindful heart.

Wei Xing-Juan’s is the coordinator responsible for both of the reception and documentary team and is ready to provide assistance whenever needed. TIMA curriculum is designed and prepared to match different requirements of TIMA members in the camp. Tzu Chi is a big family, new volunteers and experienced volunteers from each function jointly work together hand in hand to make this camp complete. With each participation, she will always reset herself to learn new things, for her, each participation is like the first time, learning are done through caring for other functional teams with a humble heart and hope that the camp will all go smoothly.

Actually, she hesitated to take charge of TIMA coordination work this year due to the workload in the company. Finally, she accepted the challenge as a coordinator with fear. But she felt pleased and said, “Fortunately, I only have to take three days off from my work during TIMA convention. ” She is always grateful for other volunteers’ assistance; during TIMA conference, she will devote her whole strength to accomplish the task.

◎Learning from experiences

Volunteer Cai Qing-Hua used to undertake the administrative services under the special task force team. Taking up the coordinating job for the first time this year, he was worried at first. He has been grateful for the advice from the experienced senior volunteers. He has had a feeling of being anchored. Undertaking is also a kind of growth to him, as experiences will be accumulated from what we have got our hands on. Really, we have been learning from experiences.

Large-scale activities had been carried out smoothly by working closely together. In addition, the staffs from the Department of Religion have been around physically to join closely with the community volunteers and thus a database of the volunteers with various capabilities has been built. The appropriate volunteers could be reached while needed.

Born in Zhang Hua, volunteer Cai Qing Hua went to Taipei to make living while young. The terribly 921-earthquake in 1999, taking away the life of more than 2,000 people, made him deeply conceive the impermanence of life. If the 921-earthquake had not erupted in his hometown, he would not have felt so deeply. “ The mercy of the common people is differentiated”, said Cai Qing Hua.

After going along with Tzu Chi volunteers, the first activity he joined was helping collect donation for 921-earthquake on the streets. During that time, he was deeply moved as one handicapped chewing-gum peddler came forward to make donation. He lost both arms and thus needed us to help unzip the sack. We saw a deck of thousand-dollar bill inside. When asked “how much would you like to donate?” he replied, “Take it all and just leave some small changes to me, as I am still able to make money!” At that moment, volunteer Cai Qing Hua was shocked into all tears.

His inner mercy was inspired by the handicapped peddler and he clearly understood that the way pointed by the benevolent Venerable Dharma Master Cheng Yen is his direction. He took in the teaching of Venerable Dharma Master Cheng Yen: “Having reasonable amount of money for proper living is good enough.” So, he closed the garment business in the Wan Hua district of Taipei City to work as a full-time Tzu Chi volunteer without regret. Undertaking the assignments in various camps with prudent piety, he has learned diligently to accumulate more experiences to get polished along the Bodhisattva path.

Learning from the media that the pious devotions of the TIMA teams around the world turn around the plight of the suffered, Cai Qing Hua has been deeply moved. As a coordinator, Cai eagerly looks forward to doing something for the upcoming TIMA convention.