Mettilotsava, VMS Annual Retreat, Memorial Day Weekend - Update

[Guest guest]

Dear Sri Hari Bhaktas,

 

The first teleconference for planning Mettilotsava and VMS Annual Retreat during Memorial Day weekend (May 23-26) was held yesterday and the program as given below has emerged for your review and comments.

Sri Janardhanrao has set up a blog site http://jitamitra.org/mett2008/ which we will use for planning and discussion. Please visit this site since it has useful information, pictures and brief videos of previous years gatherings etc.

Please note that based on last year's positive enjoyable experience, we would like to have as many families as possible to arrive on Friday (May 23) itself instead of Sat. This helps in having relaxed quality time on Fri evening and Sat morning in doing fun " camp " things for children and adults and also help start and finish Sat afternoon/evening program on time. We need to evolve into doing things better every year so that our gatherings are really " fun " for all participants. We would really like to discourage participants arriving on Sat evening and departing on Sun afternoon since this behavior does not do justice to the remaining participants working hard to make the gathering meaningful for the entire weekend.

Program

Friday (May 23)

Arrival in the afternoon, settle down in cabins, games, hiking trails, simple pot luck dinner followed by campfire in the night

Sat (May 24)

7:00 am, Devarapooja

8:00 am, Breakfast

8:30 am - 12 noon, Group walking to the picturesque waterfalls

12:30 pm Lunch

1-3 pm, Games, Kitchen activities

3:30-5:30 pm, Childrens program, simultaneousely young adults program, Kitchen activities

6-8 pm, " Sri Venkatesha Mahaatmya " pravachana by Sri Galagali Gopinath

8:30 pm, Sit-down Dinner

Sun (May 25)

6 am, Nirmaalya pooja

7 am, Depart to Sri Venkateshwara Temple

8 am, Gather at the foot-hills of Sri Venkateshwara Temple, Sri Hari Vayussthuthi paaraayana begins

8:30 am, Mettilotsava begins

10:00 am, Arrive in the main entrance of the temple at the top of the hills

10:30 am, After sankalpa, dharshan, mangalarathi of Lord Srinivasa, join Gajavahana seva of the Vasanthothsava in the inner courtyard

11:00 am, Depart to campsite, rest can stay back to see Sri Venkatesha abisekha followed by lunch in cafetaria

12:30 am, Devarapooja and theertha prasada in the campsite

3-4 pm, Coffee and snacks

4-5 pm, Young adults presentation and discussions

5-6 pm, Philosophy session, Panel discussion, Q & A session

6-7 pm, Flute concert by Sri Prapancham Sitaram visiting from India

7-8 pm, Devaranaama bhajans by our own VMS singers, mangalarathi

8:30 pm, Dinner

9:30 pm, Campfire

Mon (May 26) 7 am, Devarapooja

8 am, Coffee, Breakfast

9-11 am, Campsite clean-up

12 noon, Depart

Please contact the following coordinators for various activities:

Childrens activities, Srimathi Ramma Srinivasarao, seema.Rao

Youth activities, Sri Sandesh Srinivasarao, sandrao1

Kitchen activities, Sri G. V. Srinivasan, srinivasans, Sri Sripadaraj, sripadlaw

Snacks, Srimathi Veena Raghav, v_raghav

Groceries, Serving food, Sri Sridhar Padaki, padaki_s

Please let us know your participation in this gathering so that we can start building the participants list.

Hare Srinivasa

Bindu

(tel 610-966-9299)