To ALL ISKCON Members, Dear Devotees,
Please accept my most humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
The GBC will be available for all ISKCON devotees by scheduling an Open Door Day. The Open Door day will be in Sri Mayapura Dhama during the Annual GBC Meetings on Tuesday, February 13th from 10.00am until 12.15pm in the GBC room on the top of the Conch building.
Any devotee who wants to
– present a topic
– put a proposal to the GBC (for future consideration)
– ask a question to the body or any member
may come at 10 am and, when their time comes they can address the GBC body, on the condition that they hand in the topic of their presentation to Lilasuka Dasa, the Secretary of the GBC EC Secretary, at latest on Saturday
9th of February.
There is no restriction as far as the subjects one wishes to present but devotees must maintain vaisnava etiquette while presenting their issue of concern.
Each presenter will have 5 minutes.
Hoping this meets you in the best of health.
Your servant, A.C. Bhaktivaibhava Swami GBC Chairman
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This is a praise worthy initiative by the leaders of our movement.
It could have a more elaborate format where proposals are submitted before hand to be analyzed by some GBC committes or delegates. This sort of idea can greatly serve to the objective of “creating and enlarging the faith of the members in the movement” -as discussed in they 3 and 4 of the meetings- by obtaining realistic feedback at grassroot level.
The timing (5 minutes) for each presenter sound as insufficient to present and explain a proposal. Maybe a practical way to facilitate this could be the opportunity to present a question, suggestion or proposal to the local GBC or another GBC member or deputy to be read to the body. Maybe an office (or a devotee) assisting the GBC can set certain guidelines for devotees to elaborate petitions to the GBC body during the Mayapur (or other) meetings. Some of the valuable proposals could be added to the GBC agenda.
It is understood how busy the GBC members are with all their responsibilities, but it is encouraging that they are intending to openly communicate with Iskcon citizenry in an unified way.
Your servant,
Iksvaku dasa
I look forward to hearing how the “open door day” worked out.
Sometimes I hear grumblings and complaints about “leadership,” and I get a sense that the complainers feel they do not have sufficient opportunities or appropriate fora for having their grievances aired and redressed.
I do not know whether an opportunity to make a five-minute presentation to the entire GBC body once a year in Mayapur is necessarily the best or most effective forum, but it seems like a good idea which at least couldn’t hurt, and at best could help increase a sense of responsive, concerned leadership and foster “love and trust”.
If it becomes a regular feature of the annual meetings in Mayapur, it may catch on as something the devotees look forward to taking advantage of.
If it becomes popular, will there eventually be hundreds of presentations each year at open door day?
Not everyone is able to make the trip to Mayapur every year, but perhaps devotees eventually will send proxies to plead their cases for them. Maybe even video conferencing technology can be used, too, eventually?
I know there must be lots of other avenues for contacting the GBC about important concerns, but this “open door day” seems like a good initiative, and I am curious how it will work out.