It is not only Ole who gets reimbursed, Official written DW policy dictates that all costs borne by a travelling teacher must be met by the hosting center, that is air fares, local transport, food, lodging must be provided by the hosting center which in reality means all the subscribing or donating members of the local / host center. At least in one way DW retains some aspect of Tibetan Budhism, Feudalism

It's not just the finances. These statutes show the political culture in DW, and a close reading makes it clear there will never be any semblancy of democratic rules or transparency. Right now only Ole rules, and Cathy; but final decicions are his. I am not sure how up to date my version is, as Hannah has died, and there should now be a third person in the triumvirate; I believe it is a male disciple of Ole, but in poor health. Maybe someone can check. I will also try to.

The statutes seem to give Cathy a healthy head start in the inevitable leadership battle after Ole's death. Power will be slightly more spread, but anyone who wants to get into the leadership level will need to be "co-opted" by Cathy and whoever it is who is in the top three.

That soothes my worries, DW will fall apart after Ole. There is no way his followers, amongst wich there is a large portion of females looking for love in several wrong places, will go for a woman who was Ole's lover. Neither will they swoon for a sickly adept of Ole-Superman. There's no way these centers will be able to develop as dynamically as they have so far.

I beleive Hannah's replacement in the top 3 is Tomek Lehnert?

Yes Tomek Lehnert is the third one, according to my knowledge, but there is also certain Gergö (if I got his name right) from Budapest, who is also high ranking. Plus I believe Ole has a new girlfriend - she looks very much like Hannah did. So there are more possibilities now. Tomek will probably not outlive Ole - and I do not wish him any wrong, but his health state is not very stable. In that case he will be replaced either with Gergö or with Pedro Gomez.

The organization has become quite a structure by now. There are three levels of traveling teachers, of course with Ole on the top. There are so called local teachers, then there are national teachers - these two are allowed only to teach within borders of one country, local one can have only internal lectures and no public ones, there are exceptions to this general rule, national teachers can upon the invitation teach in some other countries as well, if Ole allows them to do so. Then there are international teachers - who can teach also abroad. Eventually every local teacher will be promoted to the national and international level, that is if they do not make some mistake, which would lead to their withdrawal from the teaching position (seen this happen a few times). Now there are about 35 international teachers, if I am right, I have no clue how many national there are (it might be around 2 hundred). In Czech republic, there are 10 traveling teachers of whom at least one is also international, the rest of them are national ones. Almost every other year there is someone new promoted to the role of a local or national teacher as group continues to grow. It seems that eventually there will be some body of some senior international traveling teachers who will then take Ole´s role as a teachers. However they will probably not have financial control. I think that in a few years´ time we will see this progression, those people will receive a title of some sort and will be recognized by Ole as "his future lineage holders". Let´s wait and see, I think it is very likely for that to occur around year 2012 (no mystical connotations intended), when Ole will be 70 years old.

I do not think that the organization will fall apart, they are quite smart and have already been working for years on plans for the future. The organization might have less of a growth after Ole´s death, but measure of the decrease will probably not be great. It would be interesting to know how many people where attracted to join by "traveling teachers" and how much by Ole himself.
There are a few scenarios which I see how DW could cease to exist after Ole is no more:

A)It would merge with other more standard buddhist group (or some parts of it would be merged with different groups).
B)There would be a major split over the property ownership (I think this is very unlikely).
C)There would be split over spiritual and/or power responsibilities.

I think A or C are quite likely to occur, or combination of them. But it since Ole is doing all he can to prevent this, it is also quite likely that he will succeed.

Another thing which comes to my mind is the growth of the organization in the near future. They are already well established in Germany, but in Germany there is two much of competition on "the market" with more and more of authentic and learned German lamas and scandals and controversy that DW has produced. So there will not be so much growth in that area. Austria is also not too likely to grow, they have been there for almost 30 years and their numbers did not go up that much. Switzerland and France have their own Kagyu lamas, so not much space for Ole to come and fool around. But there is much opportunity in the former communist countries - such as Czech republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Russia and Ukraine, plus they have been growing in Balkans and Spain. Netherlands has also much of increase in DW members, but where I think they will also grow in the following years is Scandinavia and UK - sorry Emma C, but unfortunately I have not seen your activity to cause much of an obstacle for them. Of course US, Australia and Latin Amerika are just beginning as Ole put it "to open" to them.

I think this growth is caused by the fact that there is a demand on the market for easy to digest eastern spirituality. It reminds me so much of a McDonald, I see so much parallels between DW and Mc Donald's, except Mc Donald's is a fast food restaurant and not a cult. Just like with McD´s the DW ensures that they serve same "junk-food" to the hungry customer wherever he happens to be. I can easily see that by the time Ole is on his deathbed they will have over 1000 centers and meditation groups and it is not very likely something will stop them - they are even supported (both financially and morally) by local governments, at least here in Czech republic.

Here is news on lama tensin Osel rinpoché (mentionned before), I don't think it was posted yet.
"Boy chosen by Dalai Lama turns back on Buddhist order"
[www.guardian.co.uk]

Actually that case was according to the words of Osel Rinpoche himself blown up by press. Here is his letter as a reaction to that article:

[www.shambhalasun.com]

Interesting about them having support from the government in the Czech Republic. Here in the UK they still have their charity status, although I have written letters to the charity commission and so have many other people I know. I know it may seem like a small gesture, but it was letters of complaint which lead to the withdrawal of the Edward Penney cult group's charity status, and later investigation. It seems anyone with the funds can apply for charity status, and they will accept it if nobody objects.

One has to also raise the question; is it right for a 'charity' to be fronting a drive to obtain property. The local center (to me) is really being pushed to find and obtain a property this summer even though they have no real means other than obtaining a large home loan to secure funding. Then, once the property is obtained, and more often than not DW properties are freehold detached properties there will come the up keep costs, again this will be borne by the local group members for the benefit of the DW property portfolio. The way the DW obtains its properties should be investigated in each country, for sure from where I am looking the property will not provide housing for any Lay Persons or refugees from Tibet, it will become a DW profit center where guests are bound to pay in line with DW code of conduct. Well, I guess Ole and his close disciples (as per code of conduct) won't have to pay but the common group member surely will.

Quote
Emma C
Interesting about them having support from the government in the Czech Republic. Here in the UK they still have their charity status, although I have written letters to the charity commission and so have many other people I know. I know it may seem like a small gesture, but it was letters of complaint which lead to the withdrawal of the Edward Penney cult group's charity status, and later investigation. It seems anyone with the funds can apply for charity status, and they will accept it if nobody objects.

Starting a writing campaign is difinatly a good ideal. I think its a good tactic.