RY 2014
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K. Sharma
Jun 8, 2014, 1:13:32 PM6/8/14
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Hare Krsna Guys,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
So this email is officially 159 days late! I would like to start off by formally apologizing to everyone for the fact that RY planning has not followed it's normal course this year. More importantly, I would like to apologize for the lack of communication from my end. I know it has left many devotees confused and uncertain about RY this year and that's not fair. I apologize, once again.
Things have indeed been challenging on my side, but also I had been feeling that our approach to organizing RY needed a fundamental shift in it's approach. So here we go:
RY Organizing Team:
Between the end of last year's festival and throughout the early part of this year, I received feedback from a number of RY Committee members that the weekly meetings were a lot for them and that they were difficult to attend. Some devotees even said this was a main reason why they might not want to be part of the RY Team this year. While it sucked to hear this at first, I began to realize that we have been using the same "formula and approach" for RY team meetings which has been in place since the late 1990s! Yet, our organizing group has grown from 7-8 devotees at that time to now 25+ devotees! We've reached a critical mass point for our group that when we all get together for meetings, the whole time is spent with everyone just giving updates (and doing some silly game) and thus some devotees felt it was an inefficient use of time. I think we need a fresh new approach to how we keep ourselves organized!
Lord Jagannatha is in Control:
Even though we are monstrously behind for this year's festival, I have a quiet faith that we will be fine for this year's festival. It will take a lot of hard work, but I'm sure we can pull it off. One lesson that I felt VERY strongly last year was that Lord Jagannatha is absolutely in full control of our festival. Of course, that's always been the case, but last year had a special mood to it where things went extraordinarily smoothly despite numerous gaps that we had. Lord Jagannatha clearly took full control of the festival and I know I will be praying REALLY hard to Him to beg for forgiveness for how late we are getting things going this year and hope that He will work some magic for us this year.
Department Updates:
Some updates on devotees who have left/joined the RY Committee:
No Longer Part of RY Committee - Hina, Manish, Samita, Sukhayanti, Shyamalangi dd (thank
New on the Team - Jessica (helping Rukmini with YDS)
Showing Interest in Joining - Nipun, Sahil, Pragya, Julia
Still Unsure - Jettu (him and I need to have a chat)
Launch Date:
Usually by now, we would have had the Launch Date completed. I still have to figure out the best way to have the launch date and, more importantly, the havan. I welcome suggestions - please write to me personally. Stay tuned.
Master Project Plan Google Doc:
One way to get ourselves kick-started and organized will be to have a Master Project Plan Google Doc. I am working on this right now and will share in the coming days. Essentially, each department will have a "tab" which will have place for each department owner to add High, Medium and Low priority tasks. There will also be a table where your budget is given and where you can continually add expenses as they happen and see how much remaining budget you have. Each sheet will also have a table where other RY Committee members can leave questions and/or comments for other committee members about something related to their department.
Google Group:
I will be creating a FOI2014 GoogleGroup this week.
Proposed Way to Move Forward:
Now that we are getting down to the final weeks before the festival, we will get back to having face-to-face meetings, but I may try to adopt a different approach and/or style for the meetings. Stay tuned. Until then, I would like all of us to lean HEAVILY on (1) Conference Calls and (2) Google Hangouts. I'm particularly excited about the Google Hangouts! Essentially, Google Hangouts will be group video chats that will be organized during the week and they can be a lot of fun! If you and I haven't had a chance to have a conversation yet about your department, please reply to this email (directly to me) and we can schedule some time for a call this week!
Questions, Comments and Concerns:
I know many devotees on our team have overall questions, comments or concerns. Especially concerns. Trust me, I share your concerns. I think if we all make a valiant effort, things can come together nicely for the festival. Not everything will be perfect and there will most certainly be elements of the festival that will suffer due to our lack of meetings. If you have concerns, comments or questions, I would humbly ask that you write to me personally and I will be happy to work with you to find some solutions.
Once again, prabhus... from the bottom of my heart, I apologize for my lack of leadership shown this year. I will try my best to get things fired up very quickly and if there is any specific way that I can render any service to all of you wonderful Vaisnavas and Vaisnavis, please let me know!
Jagannatha Ratha-Yatra 2014 ki jaya!!! Hare Krsna!
Your Servant,
Keshav
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
So this email is officially 159 days late! I would like to start off by formally apologizing to everyone for the fact that RY planning has not followed it's normal course this year. More importantly, I would like to apologize for the lack of communication from my end. I know it has left many devotees confused and uncertain about RY this year and that's not fair. I apologize, once again.
Things have indeed been challenging on my side, but also I had been feeling that our approach to organizing RY needed a fundamental shift in it's approach. So here we go:
RY Organizing Team:
Between the end of last year's festival and throughout the early part of this year, I received feedback from a number of RY Committee members that the weekly meetings were a lot for them and that they were difficult to attend. Some devotees even said this was a main reason why they might not want to be part of the RY Team this year. While it sucked to hear this at first, I began to realize that we have been using the same "formula and approach" for RY team meetings which has been in place since the late 1990s! Yet, our organizing group has grown from 7-8 devotees at that time to now 25+ devotees! We've reached a critical mass point for our group that when we all get together for meetings, the whole time is spent with everyone just giving updates (and doing some silly game) and thus some devotees felt it was an inefficient use of time. I think we need a fresh new approach to how we keep ourselves organized!
Lord Jagannatha is in Control:
Even though we are monstrously behind for this year's festival, I have a quiet faith that we will be fine for this year's festival. It will take a lot of hard work, but I'm sure we can pull it off. One lesson that I felt VERY strongly last year was that Lord Jagannatha is absolutely in full control of our festival. Of course, that's always been the case, but last year had a special mood to it where things went extraordinarily smoothly despite numerous gaps that we had. Lord Jagannatha clearly took full control of the festival and I know I will be praying REALLY hard to Him to beg for forgiveness for how late we are getting things going this year and hope that He will work some magic for us this year.
Department Updates:
Some updates on devotees who have left/joined the RY Committee:
No Longer Part of RY Committee - Hina, Manish, Samita, Sukhayanti, Shyamalangi dd (thank
New on the Team - Jessica (helping Rukmini with YDS)
Showing Interest in Joining - Nipun, Sahil, Pragya, Julia
Still Unsure - Jettu (him and I need to have a chat)
Launch Date:
Usually by now, we would have had the Launch Date completed. I still have to figure out the best way to have the launch date and, more importantly, the havan. I welcome suggestions - please write to me personally. Stay tuned.
Master Project Plan Google Doc:
One way to get ourselves kick-started and organized will be to have a Master Project Plan Google Doc. I am working on this right now and will share in the coming days. Essentially, each department will have a "tab" which will have place for each department owner to add High, Medium and Low priority tasks. There will also be a table where your budget is given and where you can continually add expenses as they happen and see how much remaining budget you have. Each sheet will also have a table where other RY Committee members can leave questions and/or comments for other committee members about something related to their department.
Google Group:
I will be creating a FOI2014 GoogleGroup this week.
Proposed Way to Move Forward:
Now that we are getting down to the final weeks before the festival, we will get back to having face-to-face meetings, but I may try to adopt a different approach and/or style for the meetings. Stay tuned. Until then, I would like all of us to lean HEAVILY on (1) Conference Calls and (2) Google Hangouts. I'm particularly excited about the Google Hangouts! Essentially, Google Hangouts will be group video chats that will be organized during the week and they can be a lot of fun! If you and I haven't had a chance to have a conversation yet about your department, please reply to this email (directly to me) and we can schedule some time for a call this week!
Questions, Comments and Concerns:
I know many devotees on our team have overall questions, comments or concerns. Especially concerns. Trust me, I share your concerns. I think if we all make a valiant effort, things can come together nicely for the festival. Not everything will be perfect and there will most certainly be elements of the festival that will suffer due to our lack of meetings. If you have concerns, comments or questions, I would humbly ask that you write to me personally and I will be happy to work with you to find some solutions.
Once again, prabhus... from the bottom of my heart, I apologize for my lack of leadership shown this year. I will try my best to get things fired up very quickly and if there is any specific way that I can render any service to all of you wonderful Vaisnavas and Vaisnavis, please let me know!
Jagannatha Ratha-Yatra 2014 ki jaya!!! Hare Krsna!
Your Servant,
Keshav
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