September 2023 Newsletter
The following articles are
reproduced from the September 2023 Newsletter to members. Non-members
may or may not be able to relate to the contents.
The Grand Opening
The Singapore Lodge celebrated its much-anticipated grand opening by the International President on August 20, 2023. Among the guests of honour were the International President, Tim Boyd, and his wife Lily Boyd, Dr Roselmo Zapata Doval Santos, past President of the Theosophical Society in the Philippines, and his wife, Tess Doval Santos, Ng Ay Na, President of the Selangor Lodge and Siva Subramaniam, past President of the Selangor Lodge, Malaysia.
The Singapore Lodge was located at its previous property in Sims Avenue Centre for the past 26 years before moving to this newly purchased property at INSPACE. The new premises have greater capacity, 3,057 sq ft versus the former 1,302 sq ft, and would better serve the current and future membership.
The grand opening, officiated by the International President, was an overwhelming success. Members turn out was remarkable. We saw members we had not seen for decades. The premises were filled to capacity.
The ceremony started with ribbon-cutting by the International President, thereby officially opening the facility for members. This was followed by a welcome speech by Chong Sanne, who also took the audience on a short history of the Singapore Lodge since its formation on January 24, 1889. The International President was then invited to address the members. It was an enthralling talk that greatly inspired the audience. Members have always appreciated the talks of Tim Boyd who was no doubt the star attraction for this event.
We also took this occasion to relaunch Light of the Sanctuary, the occult diary of Geoffrey Hodson. This is an important “must-own” book giving earnest members an insight into the occult world of the Adepts. We are very grateful to Bro Rosel, who flew in from the Philippines to tell us how the book came to be. Rosel, whose family was instrumental in the first publication of the Diary, says, “I hope to contribute to the task of authenticating the Diary as Geoffrey’s work. There are only four people alive today who were directly involved in bringing the Diary to print from handwritten notebooks of Sandra and Geoffrey Hodson.” The audience greatly enjoyed his talk peppered with humour and the anecdotes he told.
Before we broke for lunch, we had the excitement of the lucky draw. Our International President did the honour of drawing eight lucky winners. This happy interlude was followed by a vegetarian buffet lunch.
The premises of the Singapore Lodge also house the office of the Presidential Agency of the Theosophical Society in Asia, East and South East, taking care of the countries in East Asia and South East Asia where no Section currently exists. This region stretches from Japan to Singapore. The interest in China is remarkable. We have made significant inroads. We now have 245 associate members in China, thanks to the work of the Chinese Project Team, which is a Singapore-based initiative. We have good exposure with members coming from 85 cities, across 20 provinces and 4 autonomous regions. The Chinese Project Team members are geographically dispersed. We took advantage of this auspicious occasion to invite some of the key members to come together. Indeed, they saw each other for the first time at our Grand Opening. Sister Du Weiwei, the Chinese Project Coordinator, took us through the journey of the past two years, the systems that we built, the challenges we overcame and the current programs that we are having. Her talk was followed by a panel discussion of the Chinese Project Team with the International President. Challenges were discussed including censorship and the danger of being seen as any form of threat by the authorities.
The closing ceremony saw the presentation of tokens of appreciation to the international visitors. All in all, a most gratifying event.
