By Michael Stoner, President, Valley Insight Board of Directors

Each year when I write this report, I am grateful for the opportunity to recall the many opportunities our Sangha has had to study, practice, and share the Dharma. It also gives me an opportunity to reflect on the many people who contribute to the vitality of Valley Insight.

It’s not just a yearly practice: at each board meeting, we practice gratitude; we dedicate time to acknowledge the contributions of the many people who help to create our Sangha:

• The teachers who share their insights and practice week after week in the sits and offer other opportunities for practice and learning;
• The board members who provide quiet leadership for Valley Insight and help to ensure our Sangha operates smoothly;
• Individuals who volunteer to organize events and help retreats run smoothly;
• Those who contribute dana to ensure that teachers are compensated for the time they offer to all of us and who support the expenses of our sangha;
• The many who share the example and inspiration of their practices.

Thank you one and all for your generosity: we’re very grateful for all the ways in which each and every person contributes to Valley Insight’s flourishing.

Practicing, Studying, and Teaching the Dharma

For many people, our three weekly sitting groups form the core of our offerings:

• Karen Summer leads our Monday sit, which meets in our Online Dharma Hall every week.
• The Tuesday Group is run cooperatively by Valley Insight teachers Lee Steppacher and Peg Meyer and peer leaders Charlene Gates, Adam Knowlton-Young, and Penelope Prendergast.
• The Thursday sit meets in person and online every week. Doreen Schweizer, Joel Lazar, Judy McClain, and Geri DeLuca have been sharing responsibility for guiding this gathering.

We continue to offer regular opportunities for practice, reflection, friendship, and community:

• Doreen guides a group on weekday mornings in a metta-infused sit followed by a recitation of the refuges and precepts.
• With Doreen facilitating, the Mindfully Aging Together group meets weekly for conversation on the topics of aging, illness, and death.
• Joel Lazar coordinates a monthly practice and discussion of people engaged in peace and social justice work.
• Our Racial Affinity Gathering discussions focus on challenges and issues in racial awareness.
• Lee Steppacher led a series of nature walks structured as daylong retreats.
• Subha Srinivasan offered a number of opportunities to study and practice Insight Dialogue.
• Sangha volunteers continue to meet once a month with our Prison Sangha, men at the Northern New Hampshire State Correctional Facility in Berlin.
• The Valley Insight Board meets monthly in its practice of wise reflection, discernment, and wise action. Its working efforts relate to create, nourish, and maintain what is called sasana, the forms and structure that allow the teachings and the sangha to flourish.
• Ajahn Jayanto joined us again this year in September for a daylong retreat.
• We held our annual Vesak Day community celebration in May.

And this year, Ellen Hollyday and Gina Sonne organized two wonderful opportunities for Sangha members to gather for a meal and informal conversation.

Board of Directors 

The Sangha’s board of directors works quietly behind the scenes to help keep Valley Insight running smoothly and to ensure that our resources are managed to the benefit of all of us. The role of any board is to ensure that an organization operates smoothly and that its resources are managed effectively. Serving on any board requires dedication and high ethical standards. I believe I can speak for the other Valley Insight board members when I say that we take our responsibilities even more seriously given the precepts that we follow.

It’s a real joy to meet every month! In that spirit, I’d like to extend my sincere thanks to our board members:

• Michele Burlew, our secretary;
• Michael Dannehy; Ellen Hollyday; Adam Knowlton-Young, and Joel Lazar;
• Our Sangha’s guiding teacher, Karen Summer, attends our board meetings and offers her wise insight during our deliberations.
• Joanne Bernard, who joined us in September to take on the role of treasurer.

This year, Sue McGilvray, who served as treasurer for six years and helped us establish a number of important systems and procedures, left the board. We’re very grateful to Sue for her service to Valley Insight.

Over the last few years, we’ve created a solid foundation for Valley Insight by adopting systems and processes that are appropriate to the scale of our Sangha and consistent with our Buddhist principles––and that also ensure that we are fulfilling our legal obligations. (Valley Insight is chartered in New Hampshire, and the state takes its role in monitoring the functioning of nonprofits like us seriously.) 

Over the last few years, we’ve taken some important steps:

• Explored and revised our bylaws;
• Examined how we operate as a board and changed some procedures to ensure that we follow important best practices, while not getting bogged down in process;
• Engaged an excellent bookkeeper and instituted processes that allow us to ensure we’re managing our resources appropriately.

These and other actions have been important in themselves. And this year, we understood that they can offer a foundation for us to evolve.

Our dear sangha friend Debby Garretson died in early 2025. She was a beloved member of Valley Insight for years. A faculty member at Dartmouth, she was deeply serious about the Dharma and was an avid student of Pali, the language of the early Buddhist scriptures. In her will, Debby left her condo to Valley Insight and we expect that the ownership of the property will pass to us early this year. After that happens, we’ll sell it and invest the proceeds.

It’s not lost on me that Valley Insight was incorporated as a 501(c)3 nonprofit in New Hampshire in 2006––so 2026 marks twenty years since that important event. And we began meeting and practicing as a Sangha about ten years before that, thirty years ago. We’re well established in our commitment to practicing and teaching the Buddha Dharma together. We are known and respected in the Upper Valley, where we have a history of service to each other and to the greater community. Now, thanks to Debby’s incredible generosity, we can ask how we serve one another, our sangha, and our community in better and/or new ways.

We’ll spend some time this year exploring how we can begin to answer some of those questions. We are thinking about them as a board and will engage with our Sangha soon. If you have ideas please share them with the teachers, the board, and one another.

In the meantime, though, we took one important step toward helping us realize some of our aspirations. We developed a job description for a part-time administrator for Valley Insight, advertised the position, and hired a candidate who will start work in April. There are many ways in which someone in this role can take on tasks that others––such as the board president and the guiding teacher––now manage. For example, our administrator can enable us to communicate more effectively within our Sangha and across our community.

The board meets the second Thursday of every month and Sangha members are welcome to attend meetings. If you’re interested in attending or in reading the summaries of board meeting discussions, please email Michael Stoner.

The board is a committed group of people. From time to time, we do invite others to join the board, or we might need help with administrative tasks from non-board members. Please let any of the teachers or board members know if you would be interested in participating. 

Our Sangha’s generosity in 2025

Without ongoing financial support, there would be no structure to enable our effort to flourish. As you are well aware, you receive a lot of emails about fundraising in November and December. That’s when we conduct our Annual Appeal, which is now the only source of income we can rely on to support the infrastructure of our Sangha.

In 2025, Valley Insight received $17,614 from our Annual Appeal and $3,392 in month-to-month donations. And our teachers received $10,322 in dana through online donations. (They also receive dana directly.)

In total, 83 people contributed to Valley Insight this year. We had 22 new donors this year and 42 people have given to our Sangha for at least four years in a row. 

Thank you! The Buddha once said that friendship, spiritual friendship, was the whole of the holy life. I am deeply moved by your ongoing and supportive friendship, and deeply grateful for your practice, your inspiration, and your example.

With metta and deep gratitude,

Michael Stoner
on behalf of Valley Insight Board of Directors and teachers