Our History
History of Mindfulness Toronto
The Mindfulness Toronto professional community began in March, 2009, with a small group who were inspired by the warmth, kindness, equanimity and positive energy in which we were immersed at the Center for Mindfulness Seventh Annual International Scientific Conference for Clinician, Researchers, and Educators.
We were particularly struck by the novel experience of spending many days with such a large group of people, all of whom seemed to embody qualities of mindfulness. We thought it would be great to have the experience of such an ongoing community in our own hometown of Toronto, and decided to invite others to join us in meeting monthly.
Word spread.
And here we are today. Since we began, many personal and professional connections have been made through our community. There have been several significant developments in our group since our inception.
1) In January, 2010, Ted Robinson arranged for us to have a regular meeting room at Mt Sinai Hospital. The downtown location and proximity to TTC has been an asset.
2) Sean Park began and subsequently managed The “Mindfulness Toronto” site, which provided members with the ability to share announcements of events, courses, resources, etc, communicate with each other, and have forums for discussion by registering. Sean has since moved to Vancouver continues to help us out from afar. Our new webmaster Aidan Tierney continues to make the information on our site easily accessible to members.
3) Members are asked pay an annual contribution of $25 for membership which maintains the site and network. Details on how to make a donation are on the homepage.
4) Special Interest groups such as Mindful Schools and Families, Mindful Leaders – Mindful Workplace, Mindful Living! Daily Meditation Sittings for MBCT/MBSR Graduates!, Psychotherapy Peer Supervision.
In the fall of 2011, a steering committee was established. The structure and scope for the committee is to maintain integrity of the community and reflect the needs of the members. To date, the committee has:
- Created and distributed a survey of members
- Recruited a volunteer to help organize information on the site
- Began outreach to let people know about the Mindfulness Toronto community
- Decided for the official name to be Mindfulness Toronto Professional Community but to go by Mindfulness Toronto
- Created a schedule of people to lead meditations for the monthly meetings published on the site, and via monthly newsletter
- Created a monthly newsletter sent to members
- Created a mission statement
- Created a logo for the site, and the subgroups.
The structure of future meetings continues to evolve. The vision for this community of educator and health care professional mindfulness-based practitioners is to continue to evolve in a fluid manner, with a co-operative spirit, continuing to provide us all with a means to connect with each other, thereby supporting our individual mindfulness practices as well as our collective interest in bringing mindfulness to the Toronto community at large.
We are very grateful to the many members who have so far contributed their time, energy, and creativity to bring our community to where it is today. Members are invited to contribute their time, energy, creativity, and funds to sustain and further develop our mindfulness community.