A Calm Oversight Council

The main annual meeting of Jinja Honchō’s Oversight Council was held on May 21^st and 22^nd, and reported in the June 1^st issue of Jinja Shinpō. As I have reported here, this has tended to be, shall we say, lively in recent years, but this year was, by all reports, very calm.

Indeed, the most controversial topic this year was the plan to refurbish the Jinja Honchō headquarters, and that was only discussed in more detail because one of the councillors wanted a bit more clarity on which bits were within the authority of the Board of Directors, and which bits the Oversight Council was actually voting on. The secretariat promised to express things more clearly in the future.

So “controversial” may not be quite the right word.

At the end, in the slot for a councillor to state their own opinion, a councillor from Nagano Prefecture, Revd Miyasaka, spoke about support for the Shikinen Sengū, and argued that it was inadequate. He pointed out that, apparently, the department of Jinja Honchō responsible for supporting Jingū has not spent most of its budget for the Shikinen Sengū for the last two years. He argued that Jinja Honchō, and the Shinto community in general, should be doing more. In particular, he encouraged Jinja Honchō to make more use of its budget to use a wider range of media.

And… that seems to have been it. Everything else went through quietly.

I think this is very good. People stayed on topic, and asked a question about what they were supposed to be doing as the Oversight Council. The opinion from the floor was critical of Jinja Honchō, but in a focused and practical way — this is a criticism they can act on. If things continue like this, I think the Oversight Council will be an important part of the functioning of Jinja Honchō, stopping it from getting stuck in the “Yoyogi Bubble” (Jinja Honchō HQ is in Yoyogi, in Tokyo).

On the downside, I don’t have anything like as much to write about as before.