Meeting at Chennai

The weather in Chennai was pretty cool on Saturday and Sunday. Marina beach was a little too crowded but the view of the full moon was simply amazing. The scene was set in Chennai for a detailed discussion on Saktyavesh.

Attendees: Aneesh, Prakash, Senthil, Vinay

Date:25 Nov 2007

Location: Anita Towers, Triplicane Road, Chennai

Points discussed and finalized:

Vision of Saktyavesh: Concentrate on Education and Health Care. We need to have a vision and mission statement; I will come up with one and share it with you all. Deadline: Nov 28th.

Registration of Saktyavesh:
Aneesh to collect all details on registration from Gokul and Dawood. Deadline: Dec 2nd.
Vinay’s home address to be used as the Official address of Saktyavesh.
Application form for Registering Saktyavesh to be submitted by Dec 16th. Place of submission of application form to be decided once Aneesh collects all the details on registration.

Board Members: These are the people who will form the core committee of Saktyavesh. The number of board members will be 10.
President: Aneesh
Secretary: Prakash and Senthil
Treasurer: Vinay
Trustees: 6 of them (to be decided).
New members who are really interested can join the board (the decision to take in new board members will be taken by current board members).

Bank account: to be created in the name of Saktyavesh. To be taken up once the registration process is complete.

New members’ registration: Registration fee will be Rs. 50. All the money collected out of new member registration to be kept in bank and only the interest out of it to be used.

Fund collection: All members (including the board members) of Saktyavesh can contribute money in 3 ways
1. Periodical: Monthly. We have to explore the ECS option where a pre-decided amount of money gets transferred from members account to Saktyavesh. The option of whether the member wants ECS or online transfer to be provided to the member.
2. Non periodical: Members who do not wish to contribute money every month can contribute whenever they want.
3. Donations from non members also to be accepted.
People who do not have online or bank accounts can contribute money either by post or manually. More options to be explored here. Reminders to be sent out to members via sms and email when the date for the monthly contribution to Saktyavesh nears.

How are we going to identify places/individuals where we will help: Visit places, talk to as many people as possible and identify the neediest place.

How are we going to help: Facilitating education, Moral Support, Coaching, Health care, Infrastructure. We will stick to primary education and not concentrate on higher education. If there is somebody who is really in need of help to pursue higher education, then the decision to help this individual will be taken by the board. If really required, we will go ahead with installing water purifiers, providing school uniforms (We will also have to bear the maintainanance costs). Open for new ideas.

Where are we going to help: Government schools, orphanages, and any other place where we can contribute. Individuals who are in really need of help and natural calamities.

Place of Service: Bangalore, Chennai , Hyderabad… the list will continue. Any place is okay.

How to register more people to Saktyavesh: Talk to people about Saktyavesh and the work which we are doing/planning to do. The more people we register for Saktyavesh, the more money we will be able to collect with which we will be able to reach more needy people.

Communication within board members: Mail communication, voice conference chat option to be explored. Board members visiting places for service to send an email update to all members. Any new ideas, any information worth sharing with the board members to be sent via mail. This is apart from the three month once board meeting and the monthly meeting.

Challenges: Commitment, Maintaining proper Records, Transparency, Members losing interest, Visiting places.

Guidelines for core members:

COMMITMENT: Improving the society is our responsibility and we should be totally committed to it.
Board meeting once in every 3 months. All Board members to be present for this meeting. Place of meeting will be decided on a rotation basis. Eg: Bangalore board members had been to Chennai this time. Chennai board members to visit Bangalore for the next meeting.
We have a few board members in Bangalore and a few in Chennai. Board members in each city to have a meeting with each other at least once every month.
All major decisions to be taken based on consensus. If necessary, there will be a vote and if there is still any inconclusion, then the President’s word will be the final word.
Organization first, self comes next.

Action items:
1. Collect details on tax exemption for funds collected. Owner – Aneesh. Deadline: Dec 2nd.
2. Senthil to check on tax cycle for providing receipts for tax exemption. Owner – Senthil. Deadline: Dec 4th
3. Check ECS facility for fund collection. Owner – Senthil. Deadline: Dec 7th
4. Are all the Government schools free of cost? Owner – All. Deadline: the sooner the better
5. Motto (caption) for Saktyavesh. We need to come up with a caption for Saktyavesh : All of us to check on this. Deadline: Dec 6th.
6. Voice chat/ conference option via messenger to be checked by Prakash. Deadline: Dec 8th.
7. We need to decide upon a logo for Saktyavesh. All of us to check on this and mail the logo which you have designed or chose. Deadline Dec 6th. All the logos to be collected and a vote will follow to choose the Logo for Saktyavesh. Deadline Dec 8th.
8. Vinay to get the receipts , application form after registration of Saktyavesh
9. Application form for registration, a different receipt for members registration. A different receipt for tax exemption. All these to be done after registration. Owner: Vinay
10. Create a website for Saktyavesh. Details about funds collected and where and how we are using the funds to be put up on this portal. To be done after registration of Saktyavesh.

Others:
Maintain an account book which will has all the details of funds collected, funds spent.
Email to be sent out on a monthly basis to all people concerned with Saktyavesh about the monthly activities. For people who do not have email ids, a mail (post) will be sent out. The ownership of this task of sending mail(post) to be done by Board members on a rotation basis.
Monitoring and documentation of all projects taken up by Saktyavesh.

If any board member/member comes up with a new idea for doing service, then we will have to check if it is a feasible option. Decission to consider the new idea to be done based on the flow mentioned in the attached PPT.

Please add if I may have missed anything and also let me know if you want details on any of the above mentioned points.

We have all decided to take up a great task which has a lot of responsibilities attached to it. Let us go ahead and reach as many needy people as possible. Let us make the world a better place to live in.