>From infancy we have grown to this phase...nevertheless still a learning phase. I am sure all understand this. There is much more to look forward to for this group and from this group.
Lets learn all we can as we grow and move forward holding each other's hands (emails??) :) Organized or unorganised....I am pretty satisfied with how we work. To me what matters is the result, and if the process is legitimate, making sure work has not been a burden on one member alone. It really doesnt' matter if its superorganised or papered uptodate. We need not leap forward hastily....but can always take our time and go step by step learning things. So we are fine where we are :) Good mail wrote at ease for once from Prasanthi. Madamgaru intha time eppudu antha freega undaru. Very good!! -Divya --- In [email protected], "Prasanthi Uppalapati" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hello Friends, > > Greetings. > > I wish I can write a 'Presidential Address' kind of mail on the eve of our > Second Anniversary. But with the increasing number of members, mails, > activities and questions, I wish to share some of my thoughts now itself. > > As you all know, we started the group without any expectations but with an > idea/wish to involve every person in service activities within their > constraints. We want to prove that even though we are busy, we still can > bring positive difference in the society, provided we unite with other > groups. (Krishna garu too mentioned this in his mail.) Anyway this is a very > successful concept and proved very efficient. So far people experimented > with this concept on money front through Micro Finance and Self-Help groups. > Our group put this thought in action in service activities. > > As the time pass by, we understood that we are all on the same page when it > comes to ideology (for most of the issues and strategies). We also became > confident that no matter what we will have at least 25 members who will > stick on to the group. (Under the worst case scenario, I thought that I will > be with the group till my last breath. I can keep on doing things which I > like. The reason is I didn't expect any thing when I created this group. I > viewed this group as a platform for me to reach out to the people who are > like-minded. I need not send mails like 'a copy to CM, copy to PM:)'. > > Thanks to god and thanks to the members, we never thought that we may have > to stop for lack of members. We kept on increasing with so many active > members, even though we keep on deleting inactive members periodically and > few active members due to personal and professional reasons unsubscribed > themselves). > > With the increasing number of like-minded members and the support and > willingness to take up projects, we decided to expand with respect to > activities. We denied the idea of registration initially (thought most of > the members are for it) thinking that we didn't want to be one more NGO and > we didn't want to spend money for administrative reasons. Personally I felt > that if we can have 25 active members in each local chapter, then we can go > for registration. > > As we never bothered about the name under which we are doing things, we > decided to do things under the SHiFT name for financial reasons. But with > the increasing number of active members and willingness to contribute, we > thought that it will be difficult to explain and answer dealing with many > names. If at all we want to register our group sometime in future, why not > we do it in the earliest possible time, the more we delay, the more time we > loose in getting tax exemption (with the recent mail of Krishna garu, this > will be a big question now. Ours is not a spiritual organization). > > Why I explained the history is we began doing things raw. We are planning to > organize things and we started our efforts in that direction. People forget > that we are a small group and I personally feel that ours is an achievement > with so many activities (with our kind of setup - managing through Internet) > and so many consistent and committed members. It would be good if we can act > very professionally. Initially we do not know about ourselves and we do not > have any clear direction then. It took 2 years for us to stabilize. Now we > decided to go for registration. > > People expect much from us with our activities and question on the processes > and management techniques. I stress once again, we have been doing things > raw, and one cannot expect a completely professional dealing in our past > activities. We never denied to learn from our mistakes and we keep on > requesting people to be proactive and come up with their suggestions. > > So far, things are mostly in my hands, being the one who has access to NET > almost 24/7 and being the one who communicate regularly with our members, > other groups and the needy. This doesn't mean that I wish to dominate or I > wish to keep things under my control. When people are busy and when people > do not come up on their own, I cannot rub duties/responsibilities on them. I > shared work with the people who voluntarily came forward to help. If that > means I am bad at delegation of work, I have no problem, admitting it. > > So far, the only decision that I have taken without consulting our members > before hand is planning a session of Organ Donation. Every other > activity/session either big or small, is taken up with the group's consensus > only. > > Now that we have so many active members, who wish to spare their time and > efforts, we already planned for Roles and Responsibilities. I kept on saying > that I will exclude myself from managing local group here in Hyderabad and I > will mostly concentrate on discussion with other like-minded groups, > Thalassemia campaign and setting up Nellore Chapter. Only thing people see > me active is my accessibility to NET and these days I do not have much > official work and so I could spend many hours both on field and also on > Internet. This might not be the case going forward. > > People will very soon see a very good organizational setup and I hope there > will be members designated for each activity and we can have separate points > of contact to know the details (These also will be published in our website. > Whom to contact for each activity). > > This mail is not being written with pain but to share my thoughts. Earlier I > used to write to core group but I think I can share this with the entire > group now. Everyone will know our path so far. How we came to this stage > where we are now. > > I hope you all can understand this email and do not take this otherwise. > > -- > Thank you. > > with regards, > PRASANTHI. > ---- > When you want something, the whole universe conspires in helping you to > achieve it. >
