Sikhi Renaissance

Friday, October 29, 2021

Following were shared:

The first of the two agenda items about developing a Network of Sikh organizations was discussed after the setting of Listening Sessions.

Second part about holding session in each country was discussed and results are as follows.

1. Desired media for holding these listening sessions is not yet determined. We could use more input from the members about which one is best. Gulbarg Singh mentioned that team will continue to compare the features of all three, Webex, Zoom, and Freeconferencecall,  and recommend one to the Team within next two weeks as we get ready to start the listening sessions.
2. Participants shared following times for holding weekly listening session in their own countries:
   1. West Coast US/Canada: Sundays at start time 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM.
   2. Thailand: Friday or Saturday 7:00 to 8:00 PM
   3. India: 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM Saturdays
   4. UK: Anytime between 2:00 to 4:00 PM , Thursday or Friday.
   5. Malaysia: Any time is acceptable. Let us suggest Saturday or Sunday. And let the Malaysia members decide specific time.

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Action Item: Each team member, please suggest a time suitable for your location and audience.

1. Group, minimum of three,  of session coordinators, councilors, Sikhi scholars attend these sessions to listen the concerns of the audience and then provide  Gurbani based advise / solutions where possible. There may be questions whose answers need some research and may be postponed till next week.

Action Item: Each Team member, please volunteers for one of the suggested times for the Listening sessions.

A concern was expressed that sometimes the audience member may not want to share their issue in public but may need a private audience with the councilor. That should be an option provided. The Councilor could be local or remote.

• Next point was to assign at least one coordinator, one Councilor, and one Sikhi Scholar to each session.
  • The roles are as follows:
    • Coordinator: To arrange for the call, spread the word about the call through local media, and all other means available. Make sure at least one Councilor and least one Sikhi Scholar is available for each session. These people do not have to be local. At time coordinator might need to find a substitute in case the regular one is not available on some days. 
    • Councilor: Attend all the meetings they can. Be a listener, and provide council as needed. Coordinate, with the team so team is working well. Help get the word out so anyone with questions know where to call.
    • Sikhi Scholar: Attend all the meetings they can. Bea listener, and provide Gurbani based answers as needed. Coordinate, with the team so team is working well. Help get the word out so anyone with questions know where to call.
  • A suggestion was made that GSC should share this program with every Gurduara and let each Gurduara be one cell.  Gurduara Managements may not be open to it at the outset but soon most are likely to accept and implement it once the program has some momentum.

Criteria for selection of the Sikh Organizations Network and for recommendations to our audience.

1. View vision mission and Goals to the consistent with GSC Goals.
2. Evaluate if they are actually following their stated Vision, Mission, and Goals?
3. Approach and media to be applicable to the today’s audience.
4. The organization must be is open to work with other organization so they are complementing and not competing with each other.

The meeting was adjourned as we reached the end of the allotted time.

Following items from the previous meeting did not get addressed and will be addressed at the upcoming meeting.

• Each Coordinator, Councilor, Sikhi Scholar will be provided a list of resources , the organizations selected in step 1) above. These will be used as available resources where needed to help the audiences at the Sessions.
• A word of caution was shared. There have been such efforts initiated earlier but they failed. The team members were charged with the responsibility to seek out the reasons for their failures and hence develop contingency plans. It was mentioned that the technology available today may resolve most of those issues.
• A question about selection criteria for Coordinators, Councilors, and Sikhi Scholars was shared. The qualifications for the Sikhi Scholars were discussed that they need to be best communicators of the Sikhi philosophy. They need not ne researchers, just public School / College teachers or public speakers would be just right.

(Not discussed during the session was qualifications for the coordinator, and councilors. It is expected to be discussed at the next meeting.)