{"id":4093,"date":"2007-08-14T12:47:47","date_gmt":"2007-08-14T11:47:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=4093"},"modified":"2007-08-14T12:47:47","modified_gmt":"2007-08-14T11:47:47","slug":"constitution-committee-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=4093","title":{"rendered":"Constitution Committee Update"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sesa dasa<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our constitution committee wish to involve experienced and thoughtful devotees from around the world. Not just GBC members and deputies. We need broader input as we devise a constitution relevant to everyone connected to ISKCON. We hope such a constitution will be pertinent to all, and perhaps especially to the ISKCON leadership who are more accustomed to making laws for others than for having a constitution that holds all members equally accountable. <\/p>\n

In New Vrindavan we discussed how we would work as a committee and how to divide up responsibilities. We assigned tasks that needed to be done before the next meeting in Mayapur. Our core group members are Bhaktimarga Swami, Bhaktarupa dasa, Hridaya Caitanya dasa, Param Gati Swami and Sesa dasa (Chair). This group is to keep the constitution work proceeding at a satisfactory pace, and stay with the process until it is completed. The Core Group listed the following components of an ISKCON Constitution (Note: this listing is not intended to be conclusive or exhaustive):<\/p>\n

1.Defining ISKCON What is its purpose?<\/p>\n

2.What are the lines of authority? Organizational Structure – Definitions and roles of GBC, TP, Guru. Clearly defining the roles and relationships between temples, preaching centres, Nama Hattas and other ISKCON related entities, etc.<\/p>\n

3.Who is a Member? Are there different levels of membership? What\u2019s a clergy? A congregation member, etc.<\/p>\n

4.What is ISKCON\u2019s responsibility to its members? How do we define \u201cdevotee care\u201d<\/p>\n

5.What are the rights and responsibilities of the members.<\/p>\n

6.How is justice to be administered?<\/p>\n

7.Responsibility for properties\/Protection of Assets. <\/p>\n

Based upon feedback from the GBC Body during the New Vrindaban meeting, we gave priority to the following three tasks over the next few months: <\/p>\n

Legal Implications of a Constitution \u2013 Team Coordinator – Sesa dasa <\/p>\n

Questions raised include how an ISKCON Constitution would and\/or should interface with the laws of the many countries around the world where there are ISKCON temples; how individual ISKCON members and ISKCON temples would be legally benefited by and bound to provisions of an ISKCON Constitution. It was expressed that our ideal should be that the constitution stays aloof from the legal structure of various localities.<\/p>\n

Membership (Including Rights and Responsibilities) <\/p>\n

Team Coordinators \u2013 Hrdaya Chaitanya dasa and Bhaktarupa dasa <\/p>\n

Questions raised include how to define membership (briefly or more elaborately, or a combination of these two approaches), different classes of membership or relationship with ISKCON, minimum standards, rights and\/or responsibilities, care for members. It was expressed that this task could be broken up into two or possibly more subdivisions for different teams to work on.<\/p>\n

Justice System<\/p>\n

Team Coordinator \u2013 Bhaktarupa dasa <\/p>\n

Questions raised include whether a power, rights, or interest (or some combination of the three) based approach to justice in ISKCON is appropriate, enforcement issues, financial and other practical considerations. <\/p>\n

Based on responses previously received from devotees specifically invited to participate in the constitution project, the GBC Body encouraged the formation of a Constitution Committee Extended Group which would include: Akruranatha dasa, Deenanath dasa, Dvarakadhisa dasa, Krishna Dharma dasa, Krsnadas Kaviraja dasa, Murari Hari dasa, Pancharatna dasa, Parivadi dasa, Prema Bhakti dasa, Radha devi dasi, Salagram dasa, Vedavyasa dasa and Visnu Murti dasa. Each of them took part in one or more Sub-Committee(s). <\/p>\n

The group will set up a \u201cWiki\u201d on the internet to help members work together on documents when they can\u2019t meet face-to-face. <\/p>\n

Challenges we face include:<\/p>\n

1.We are a big group. Big groups are hard to manage, and we have differing views on many topics.
\n2.Some of the issues we are dealing with are complex.
\n3.Most of us have other, full-time services. We hope to deal with these challenges by good communications and having determined facilitators to keep us on track.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"HareBy Sesa dasa<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our constitution committee wish to involve experienced and thoughtful devotees from around the world. Not just GBC members and deputies. We need broader input as we devise a constitution relevant to everyone connected to ISKCON. We hope such a constitution will be pertinent to all, and perhaps especially to the ISKCON leadership who are more accustomed to making laws for others than for having a constitution that holds all members equally accountable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-gbc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4093\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}