Present,
Andrew, Aparna, Aru, Ashvin, Kannan, Kamini & Vagini, Lavan, Paul Sharma, Shanker, Shiyamala, Sriharan, Tom, Tony F, Tony H, Vakees & Yamunah
Apologies,
Arvind, Akhilesh, Kam & Kamal, Kaivalya, Stuart, Mike, Zaphira,
Shanker
Expressed a wish that we could make the main aim of the meeting to learn to work together.
AP are holding some internal meetings to decide if we are to be welcome next year, and if so on what terms.
Paul
K&K did well in getting the food donated, even if a lot of it was out of date. But there were some continuing problems.
- Purchasing. Either too much, too little or not at all.
- Coffee we did not have local trained staff
- No tea
- Coffee bar often closed (partly due to electrical problems)
- Martin should not have been selling his own stock
- Lifts not working properly
- No mats for staff to sleep: Panorama Room very cold.
- Hall closures should have been sorted out: we should not have closed for so long in the afternoon.
- Prasad apples: many rotten, and Amma had to throw them away while handing them out
- Lack of information. Amma texted Aru to come and collect Her, but he had no address.
- Too little known by each co-ordinator
- Amma should not have to spend 50 minutes teaching us to work together.
- Key co-ordinators not clearly identified, and not enough deputies.
- New volunteers should be given sevas near the stage
- Cash had to be collected by tour staff.
- Nobody knew hall capacity: there were too many people outside so we should have put a TV screen with a marquee and drinks etc.
- Local sevaks should be able to buy a voucher for meals as well as buying accommodation.
- Too many group emails. Individuals should restrict the recipients to the bare minimum
- Nobody should write an email to Swamis unless 8 or 9 people approve the email.
- All departments should have a clear budget in advance.
- If people are prepared to make a donation, they should be allowed to: cakes were refused.
- Fundraising: we should pay for everything first.
- Nobody should be forced to pay.
- We should encourage more sevaks
- We should have more sstsangs
- There should be more IAM teachers and more courses.
- A lot of food is wasted.
- We did not make enough sales of excess stuff.
- Meal prices too low: Europe is €8 per main meal
Lavan
- London has a bad name as they don’t talk to the tour staff, and don’t respect them. When they arrived they had rice and soup, no dahl.
- We have a bad reputation: people think Amma is here just to make money.
- There was a fire in the kitchen: Amma said the kitchen should be manned only by people who have been working for 10 years.
Shanker
- Amma says we should have kept the hall open between the sessions to allow more sales
- Hall negotiations should be done by more people in case points are missed. And it shows strength on our side.
- We should not do raffles. Amma says raffles are a form of gambling, and even at £15k they are not worth it. We get much less now.
- There were many more people than expected, but it would have been better to have more carpet so that people don’t sleep in the main area.
Aru
We should be really careful not to keep saying “Amma told me...”
Vargini
Reported that Dipamrita said that London would either lose the program, or it would go to every other year, or Europe would take over the organising. Shanker pointed out that Mumbai lost their programme because of bickering.
Tony
Said we should be doing more for Greenfriends, and that we should be taking full names not just emails.
Many people expressed their desire to build a bridge between K&K and the rest, above all other considerations, and it was suggested that there should be s small group that would meet with K&K to try to find a way forward. It was suggested that Tony F, Tom Aparna and Kannan should take this initiative, ideally before Shubji’s visit.
Aru
It is difficult to say how much has been spent as we don’t do enough advance budgeting. Also we don’t have enough separation between donation, cash from the different departments etc.
Total spent so far. 84k. Of that 59k to AP.
Last year the hall was around 45k.
Income from standing orders running at about £12k pa.
There is some from Worldpay contributions on the website, but relatively little.
Raffle & donation income was 6,8k as against 14k last year. This was partly because of the delay in the mailout (we missed the August payday because of the change of visit times and the need to reprint the leaflet). The actual raffle take was 2.5k (2.8k last year): the rest was in additional donations.
Mailout 222 responses from 3705 letters.
Andrew
Announced his resignation from the ASC and secretaryship. He will still offer support from the wings.
Shubji visits
as in enews
Newcomers’ meeting
in Ealing
Tom is arranging for satsang leaders to get the names of newcomers so that they can organise local welcome meetings.
Next meeting
to be arranged once the small group has met with K&K.