In September 2007 another International Ron’s Org Convention took place in Russia, in an ancient town in the Moscow district called Zvenigorod. This was the second convention held in Russia.
In the evening of the 5th of October the Convention started. But many of the foreign guests came 2-3 days earlier – to take a look at the work of our training camp, to listen to success stories in the end of a study day and to have more time for communication.
Around 250 persons took part in the convention from 8 countries: Great Britain, Germany, Switzerland (by the way, all 5 members of the staff of Ron’s Org Bern’s came), USA, Ukraine, Belorussia, Kazakhstan and, certainly, Russia. A day before the convention was started the foreign guests enjoyed a nice excursion to Moscow.
During the opening ceremony Max and Erica Hauri spoke about their Scientology time track, about important items of their biographies and about the place Russian Scientology project takes in their lifes.
Also Melinda Hauri told about the story of the creation the Ron’s Org logo and about the ideas incorporated in it. She said the circle symbolizes the universe and also infinity. And there is a spiritual being in the universe, symbolized by the Greek letter “theta”, showing the individuality of every org. Near we have the letter “R” as a symbol of Ron Hubbard near us. Melinda also said every Ron’s Org can and should use the logo to get recognized as a Ron’s Org and to mark itself as a 3D delivering Standard Tech.
Then Oksana Shapkarina presented the logo of the Convention 2007: a blue bird on the background of a rainbow. An image of a bird has been widely used in different religions and mythologies to indicate a godlike essence, the sky, freedom, development and life. Also a bird has been often used as a messenger who brought important and good news. Oksana devoted a poem to the logo, and music was written to the poem. The song thus created was played at the opening ceremony of the convention.
On the opening evening guests got a surprise which had not been put into the programs they got. Elena Venkova announced a lecture about “Gnoseological aspects of Hubbard’s toponymic allegories”. Having expected a very serious topic, participants were surprised to discover the lecture was actually containing a light humour and showing in an easy and funny way the matter of communication to the public who likes complicated and long scientific terms. The audience laughed a lot and the lecture appeared to serve a smooth shift from the opening ceremony to a concert program.
On Saturday, 6 October, the first event was a lecture by Elena Luchkova, “How to make a postulate work”. Using simple and practical examples Elena explained the action of some Scientology axioms and showed how they related to the creation of effective postulates and the achievement of someone’s goals.
In his lecture “OT abilities – a manual to clear a planet” Max Hauri mentioned that clearing starts with very simple steps, like for example training routines. And one should not wait for any “good moment” or postpone it to “when I become a Class 8 auditor”. He said when he was still in the Church of Scientology there was a project to send people for free to study at Flag to have them open their own missions afterwards. Nearly all of such missions have failed. But in Russia Max encountered situations where people had big intentions and minimum money to start to deliver Scientology – maybe just an e-meter, a room and their own enthusiasm. And these people managed to make orgs and lead many people up the Bridge. These are really OTs – people who are able to make things go right.
Max also underlined it is very important to stay in ARC with an environment in order to be able to disseminate well. And that evil and destructive purposes appear in those people who have ARC breaks. And Max shared his understanding and attracted the audience’s attention to the fact that those silly attacks the Church of Scientology performed against the Free Zone were caused by ARC breaks which had been enforced to its public. The people were made to believe those in Free Zone were their enemies despite the fact scientologists of different directions have much more similarities than differences in their goals and intentions.
A lecture by Erica Hauri followed the lecture by Max and as usually it was very joyful and emotional – the topic this time was “Our responsibility”. Erica said sometimes auditors and case supervisors have hard times when they got a lot of work, or they have to confront hard cases or when they encountered fixed ideas or ARC breaks of their friends – and that it is very important in those moments to maintain their ARC and to expand their responsibility, to grow bigger instead of collapsing and shifting cause to someone else.
Nick Venkov delivered the lecture “Price of freedom”. In the lecture Nick underlined once again the big value of first Russian speaking OT 48 completions, stressed the point of Standard tech importance and spoke about his project to collect and analyse statistics on how long it could take to come through this or that level of the Bridge, how much efforts could be invested to restore this or that ability.
On the next day Otfried Krumpholz held the lecture “Your Bridge, beingness and plans for the future”. He made the point that you should have a goal for your own beingness when going up the bridge. Only when this beingness you want to achieve is in accordance with the goals of the group(s) you are a part of it will really catalyze your progress on the bridge. He pointed out the different possible 3rd and 4th dynamic games of which one could become a part.
A lecture of Elena Lipatova “How to create the CREATORS of pcs and students (How to teach your public to disseminate Sceintology)” was very practical and useful. Step by step Elena described a program of making Field Staff Members and teaching them to work with the public; she spoke about her experiences of successful actions on dissemination.
Between lectures many commanding officers told about their orgs and successes.
And certainly, a lot of time in the convention program was given for concerts. It is communication why we come together, and L. Ron Hubbard defined art as the quality of communication. Two evenings were devoted to concerts and the performances were really international: dancing acts were collected from all corners of the world – eastern belly dances, Gipsy and Spanish dances, a fiery flamenco, a national Tatar dance; vocal items were performed in Russian, Ukraine, English and Tatar languages, and the show was ended on a tradition which Melinda had started during the last Convention in Moscow – a few persons on the stage and hundreds in the hall, having Nicole accompanying them, sang Capitan Bill Robertson’s song “Heroes Never Die”.
Of course, not a single holiday in Russia could remain without a fair! During the convention an exhibition was taking place – all participants had an opportunity to demonstrate their arts: pictures, cards, bead goods, t-shirts with Ron’s Org symbols, CDs with songs and music by Scientologists and a lot of folklore craft works in Russian ethnic style; also different Scientology products: e-meters, books, electronic dictionaries, CDs with lectures.
We could say compared to the previous convention in Russia this time there was more of scientologists’ art exhibited – we could see it on concerts and at the exhibition. Let’s go further on this way!
During the convention another outstanding event happened – a wedding of two scientologists. In the evening October 6, after the concert, Natalya Sharnova held a Scientology wedding ceremony for Aliona and Alexey S. Guests of the convention were glad to be present and to add their good intentions to the creation of a new scientologist’s family.
The goodbye ceremony was very warm; a lot of acknowledgement and gratefulness was given to all who had put their work, theta and good intention into this holiday. In total in organization and performance of the convention participated 27 hats and 49 people – those were translators, communicators, hosting administrators and in charges for ethics and security, sound and video operators, drivers, lecturers and artists and many other posts. Certainly a special appreciation goes to Alla Vasiluk who held the main responsibility for the convention since a half year ago when the preparations started.
This convention became a really bright and unforgettable holiday of theta. Everyone enjoyed a lot of communication with old and new friends, a feeling of unity and a big third dynamic. We said a warm good bye to each other, knowing that in future we would have a lot of joyful meetings and common projects.