Great News. Success with SSPT Website!

[Guest guest]

Dear Vaishnava,

 

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

 

Just four short days ago I sent to you an invitation to visit ISKCON North

America's new website - http://www.spiritualstrategicplanningteam.com. The

response has been overwhelming. Over 1000 devotees have visited the site,

and over 150 have been gracious enough to send comments. You'll find some of

these wonderfully insightful comments below.

 

Your participation is deeply appreciated. Your comments are very important.

Your feedback will be listened to and used by the Initiative Teams.

 

Again, I warmly invite you to read through the website, especially the

Initiatives for uplifting ISKCON North America. Your comments on any

Initiative sent by January 20 will be forwarded directly to a team of

devotees working on them in Dallas January 22 and 23.

 

With appreciation,

 

Your servant,

 

Gopal Bhatta das

 

on behalf of the

Spiritual Strategic Planning Team

 

 

PS: Please feel free to forward this letter to anyone whose input you feel

could also help.

 

 

The SSPT Members are Anuttama dasa, Badrinarayana dasa , Bhakti-tirtha Swami

, Bir Krishna Goswami, Divyambara dasi, Jayadvaita Swami, Gopal Bhatta das,

Kalakantha dasa, Krsnadas Kaviraj das, Kuladri dasa, Malati devi dasi,

Nityananda dasa, Ramabhadra dasa, Ravindra Svarupa dasa, Romapada Swami,

Sandamini dasi, Sesa dasa, and Svavasa dasa.

 

 

A sample of comments below:

 

>From the "General Comments" link -

 

The web site as a vehicle for comments and feedback is fantastic. Creating

facility for many devotees to express their opinions in an organized manner

should produce very good results. Congratulations to the team for setting

it up!

 

>From the "Festivals (public)" page -

 

Perhaps we should be mindful that the general public is welcome at most if

not all festivals and have specific plans for greeting, explaining etc. as

well as plans to advertise to the general public, (harinam invitations,

posters, press releases, etc.). The expense and endeavor are there anyway,

the preaching opportunity should not be minimized. The cultural aspect is

attractive and the general community comes to appreciate that, but they must

also be cared for when they come. The Utah temple seems to be quite expert

in this area.

 

>From the "Prasadam" page -

 

The meals on wheels programs could eventual provide financial resources for

the IsKcon community, directly if the temple provides the kitchen resources

and indirectly with jobs and salaries. An organized project book would help

individual temples initiate plans in each community and help get the grants

and funding available for this kind of endeavor. We would have to have a

broader approach than simply vedic cuisine, but if we offered a balanced and

nutritional vegetarian product we could be known and appreciated for this

service.

 

>From the "Classes and Seminars" page -

 

In addition to systematic study of sastra or systematic study of subjects in

sastra, seminars can also be used create a different kind of learning

environment, an environment in which the majority of learning is done by

the students themselves through experiential processes. This is a powerful

method and I have a some experience doing this. When I attend the meeting,

I would like to share this experience, the techniques I am using and some

amazing results that have been achieved.

 

>From the "Management Training Coursework" page -

 

The unfortunate reality is that many devotees are not happy with many ISKCON

leaders. The most severe complaints I hear are not due to a leader's lack of

spiritual qualification or managerial skills, but due to a leader's

inability to deal properly with people i.e. to listen, to validate, to

accommodate those they don't agree with, to be open to alternative ways of

looking at things, etc. I believe that training in these areas is more

important than learning technical principles of management and needs to be

addressed in a dedicated training, not as one part of another training.

 

>From the "Accountability of Leaders" page -

 

Parents should ask their children how they are doing as parents, and

children can ask their parents how they are doing. Gurus can ask disciples

how they are doing as gurus and disciples can ask how they are doing as

disciples. GBC's can ask the temple leaders and devotees how they are doing

as GBC men and vice versa. TP's and any leaders can do the same. What would

it take to create this kind of environment? My sense is that any other forms

of accountability will be less effective and could end up being problematic.

 

>From the "Festivals (public)" page -

 

I have a lot of ideas and lot of experience in this area. Areas to be

discussed.

1) Poster design, and the art of putting them up (have lots of information

on both)

2) the theme of the festival or "the Hook" to get people to come

3) the art of the press release

4) building your e-mail database of people who are interested in attending

these event. Getting the e-mail addresses of people who attend these events.

5) making the festivals profitable so we'll be inspired to have more of

them.

6) attaching dance and dramas to these events.

7) I firmly believe in having separate events for the public and for the

devotees.

8) Considerations of where to have the festivals.

 

 

>From the "Gift Shop" page -

 

This discussion may be part and parcel of the discussion regarding temple

expansion. I believe that future temple should open "with a bang' and not be

scalable. The larger the area for the gift store, the larger will be the

income. Simple arithmetic. So every effort should be made to start the gift

store (in the new temple) with at least 3,000 sq feet, to bring in a sizable

monthly income. Same for although all though the restaurant may not need

quite as much footage to be successful. Between gift store, tours, and

restaurant every (new) temple can be profitable.

 

>From the "The Welcome Mat" page -

 

1) Often temple greeters (if there are any) are the people who are a little

lazy or unsuited to other tasks. Sometimes they will go overboard in their

preaching (the ones who do little are often the most fanatic about what

others should do). If the temple is visited often, we should take pains to

put one of our best devotees forward, who is educated, articulate, polite,

well groomed and dressed. It's important that anyone who visits the temple

for the first time have such a pleasant and rewarding experience that they

will heartily recommend it to others. How many devotees first came to the

temple because a friend recommended it. Even Prabhupada met his spiritual

master on the advice

of a friend!

 

>From the "Life Membership" page -

 

 

1) Must be newsletter for the Indian community. The same newsletter can be

sent to the western community but it must primarily be sensitive to those

who are our biggest donors and who comprise the majority of Life members.

The newsletter must strive not as much for preaching and pasting article but

giving the news of the community and the names of the members as offer as

possible. After all, that is what a newsletter is supposed to do.

2) Someone loyal to the temple must offer to do Pujas and samskaras. Without

this feature the Life membership- loses a lot of its presence and potency

for the Indian community. They start relying more on the "Hindu" priests. We

must perform these services for them!

3) Gifts. Members must receive gifts regularly to let them know we

appreciate them and do not take them for granted. It's very easy to make a

DVD of a recent festival or burn a CD of a devotional album.

4) Thank you notes that are computer generated are less effective than a

thank you note written by hand.

5) take pictures of the potential members when they visit. These photos will

serve three good purposes. a) like flash cards they can remind the LM

director of the names b) they can be used for the newsletter c) they can be

e-mailed to the visitors later on as a sweet reminder of their visit to the

temple.