International Dzogchen Community
International Gakyil members at the 2015 AGM at Dzamling Gar in Tenerife
Over the last 6 months, Dzamling Gar has increasingly fulfilled its role of being a place where students of Chögyal Namkhai Norbu from all over the world gather together in a relaxed way to receive teaching, to sing and dance and swim and simply be together. A fundamental symbol of what it means, International Dzogchen Community!
Membership registration
Another very important symbol of a global Dzogchen Community is to have a single list of members, which confirms membership of a Ling, a Gar, and of the International Dzogchen Community.
Now we have a functioning database (the MMS, membership management system) which can do exactly that – as long as we all go online, register and upload our personal details. Each person’s membership records should already have been uploaded by Membership Coordinators for each Gar, and your own membership history will be visible to you as soon as you register.
Many people are already registered and can access closed webcasts and webcast replays using their dzogchen.net username and password. By the end of this year, everyone will need to have registered – old webcast usernames and passwords will no longer work from Jan 1st 2016.
If you know someone who is not internet savvy, please let them know that their local membership coordinator can complete their registration on their behalf.
Rinpoche is asking us to make the International Dzogchen Community into something more concrete – in a relaxed way, but as soon as possible, let’s all go online to dzogchen.net to register and make it so!
Dzogchen Community Portal
dzogchen.net was recently launched, to become the main portal not only for the membership database, but also for all the information, activities and services of the International Dzogchen Community, its affiliated Gars and Lings and all its affiliated organisations – something like a facebook for everything we do.
As a public interface, it will make us more visible in google searches, and so make it easier for people who have that connection to find their way to the teachings and to all the variety of activities of the Dzogchen Community.
For members, it has https/ secure log in for membership registration and services. Local Membership Coordinators can see detailed data only of their own managed members, but basic data of all members can be accessed by authorised operators and Gakyils to check membership status for courses, retreats etc.
The main features of the secure site are as follows:
- Registration/Sign in
- Enter and update personal data
- Make payments for membership (including scheduled monthly payments) and for courses by paypal or debit/credit card.
- Offline payments can be recorded online by Gars membership coordinators
- Access simple written tutorials
- Admin and report functions for membership coordinators and Gakyils
- Ability to update Gakyil members and membership coordinator names and contact details
It is intended that the whole site will have built in multi language content management system.
Gar/Ling location coordinates can be entered into Gar/Ling infos and the location will be recorded on the Community Map. The associated info page can be used by the Gars and Lings for events, announcements and local information.
The site design is by Paolo Fassoli and it is built using cutting edge open source technology:
- AngularJS from Google
- C# from Microsoft
- Material design and Bootstrap
- Mobile apps (search for Dzogchen in Google Play).
- Online code collaboration
The site will have a global event registration and management system. A built in global and local news and blog management system and provision of online shops are also under consideration.
In the meantime, the main point for now is that we all register on the MMS!
The International Gakyil
[email protected]
