Report 2014 - ISKCON Congregational Development Ministry

Report 2014

ANNUAL MINISTRY REPORT 2014

EDUCATION AND TRAINING

Gaura Purnima Seminars 2014

ILS (some were presented in 4 languages – English, Bengali, Spanish & Russian)

  • Super Sunday: The Art of the Sunday Program
  • Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura: His Outreach Vision
  • From Seeker to Practitioner: How to Integrate New People
  • Two Great Outreach Initiatives: The Damodara and Gita Programs
  • Going to Jail for Krsna: Prison Preaching
  • Small Group Explosion
  • Magic of Bhakti-vriksha

Festival Seminars

  • Maintaining Srila Prabhupada’s house: Consolidating our Preaching
  • Ten predictors of Good Parenting Outcomes (Grihastha Vision Team)
  • Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura: His Vision into Our Future
  • Getting Our Hearts Right: 3 Keys to Better Relationships (Grihastha Vision Team)
  • Growing Close, Staying Close: Making Your Home a Place of Faith

Activities by the Ministers

Seminars

Co-minister H. H. Jayapataka Swami:

  • Kolkata Annual Bhakti-vriksha Seminar in Mayapur with 1450 devotees.
  • BV Seminar: Sydney
  • Planning meetings BV: Bangalore  
  • BV Seminar: Chennai
  • BV Seminar and Strategic Planning: Perth BV
  • Mayapur BV training, Russian BV Training
  • BV formation: South Korea 
  • BV Seminar: Atlanta 
  • Congregational Planning for expansion: Accra 
  • BV planning: Buenos Aires, Argentina 
  • BV planning with leaders: Santiago, Chile 
  • Nama-hatta meetings: Kolkata,
  • BV festival: Birmingham 

Co-minister Kaunteya Das:

  • US tour 2014: Towaco, Central New Jersey, Philadelphia, Los Angeles & Phoenix.
  • India tour 2014: Sri Sri Radha-Gopinath Temple, Chowpatty; Bhaktivedanta Hospital; Govardhan Eco-village, Wada, Nashik; Nigdi; Pune; Narasaropet. 
  • Far East tour 2014: Hong Kong; Taipei & Taichung, Taiwan; Shenzhen, Beijing & Guangzhou, China.  
  • ILS presentations: Mayapur
  • Integrating culture and philosophy: Europe
  • Lord Caitanya – the Yuga avatar: Europe
  • Lecture – The dilemma of a spiritual warrior- giving motivation to the congregation: Europe
  • History of Deities and mystical songs – cultural seminar: Europe
  • Fate and free will: Europe
  • Overcoming Karma: Europe
  • Super Sunday Programs: Europe
  • Unity in Diversity with the leaders of Rome

Activities by Bhakti-vriksha Senior Coaches (Vijay Venugopal das and Prema Padmini devi dasi)

  • March / April 2014 – Muscat – Ratha Yatra, BV Review, Grihastha Seminars and Planning
  • April 2014 – (PPdd) Chennai – BV Seminars and Planning
  • April – 2014 – (PPdd) Delhi Noida- Seminars on Leadership Training
  • April 2014- (PPdd) Hyderabad Leadership training and planning
  • May 2014 – (PPdd) Brazil Introduction to Bhakti-vriksha and planning 
  • May 2014 – (PPdd) Cochin Introduction to Bhakti-vriksha and planning
  • June 2014 – (PPdd) Malaysia. 7-10 Introduction of BV developments
  • June 2014 – (PPdd) Russia. 12-15 BV summer school
  • July 2014 – Puri. 13-17. (VVd) Team Building with VPd Mahacakra
  • July 2014 – Haripada (PPdd) Leadership training
  • July 2014 – Russia (VVd) Leadership training and Planning
  • Aug 2014 – Russia (VVd) – Leaders Strategic Planning Meeting – 28 – 31
  • Sep 2014 – (PPdd) UK – 9 – 29 Leadership training
  • Oct 2014 – (PPdd) Nagpur – Strategic Planning
  • Oct 2014 – DCC Tirupati meetings
  • Nov 2014 – (PPdd/VVd) Muscat – Introduction of BV-4G
  • Dec 2014 – (PPdd/Vvd) SNGM Temple-NSK Partnership – Development of Mission Bengaluru 2020 with BV-4G
  • Dec 2014 – (PPdd/VVd) Team Building with NSK-Ahobilam Yatra
  • Jan 2015- (PPdd) – Russia – BV Winter Festival (Ekaterinburg), Leaders’ Training (Moscow); 
    Doha -Introduction to BV-4Gs
  • BV 4G is the fourth level of the Bhakti-vriksha Program.
  • 1G involves using the Bhakti-vriksha Manual
  • 2G involves using the Edification Sheets
  • 3G uses the Bhakti-vriksha Modules and Handbooks and other books like, The BV Leader, Sector Leader, Counselling in BV, and an expanding set of Training courses
  • 4G uses all the elements together plus other new developments in a package of Best Practices

The package enables people to become more serious in advancement as they are given complete, structured training. Also, the BV members and leaders make a major impact on society and the temple by supporting them with donations.

Activities by South American regional Coordinators (Manohara Syam Das and Premavati Chitra devi dasi)

  • 19 – 25 March – Pataya, Thailand, BV seminars for Russian speaking devotees.
  • 1 – 15 May – BV Seminars with Prema Padmini Mataji in different cities of Brazil like:  Sao Paulo, Fortaleza, Rio de Janeiro, etc.

Argentina: BV groups created are functioning normally and one has been multiplied.

Activities by Sri Radha Govinda Dasi

Seminars and training 

  • Training girls on balancing their lives: Pune
  • Govardhan Eco Village- training for ladies on co-operation and service attitude: Maharashtra
  • Seminars for the youth (girls) building preaching spirit and ideas & tips: Nasik (Maharashtra)
  • Lectures for the congregation, motivating them to take part actively in the preaching.
  • Workshop for children and youth on cultural activities (drama/dance/music/slokas): Narasaraopet (Andhra Pradesh)

Activities by Bhakti-vriksha Coaches (Advaitachandra Das and Kalasudha Devi Dasi)

  • Created “Introductory Edifications” with standard answers and a Bhakti-vriksha course material for 10 months.
  • Created videos on how to approach, contact and invite westerners to a Bhakti-vriksha Gathering.
  • Houston temple recognizes the devotees who are chanting some rounds in the “Path to Perfection” Siksha program.
  • Bhakti-vriksha Workshops
  • Spiritual Retreats
  • Bhakti Yoga Workshops (Provides a stepping stone to Bhakti-vriksha)
  • The “Welcome Booth Ambassadors” program is where devotees go around and meet with new people, stay with them, give them a tour of the temple and invite them to the Bhakti-vriksha group.

Chile : From the Congregational Director- Pancali DD.

  • Maha Bhakti-vriksha Picnics and  Siksha Program Ceremonies: Santiago City
  • All BV members participated in Srila Prabhupada´s Marathon and majority of  Bv Leaders completed the Bhakti Sastri and Disciples Course and took initiation: Santiago City
  • Ratha Yatras, Library Programs, Festivals, Vegetarian Cooking classes, prasadam distribution and a permanent Nama-hatta: Pucon City
  • Permanent Nama-hatta, Sankirtan, Festivals: Chillan – Parral Cities

Brazil:

From the visit of Manohara Syam P and Prema Padmini DD on 2014, 15 BV groups have been opened and are functioning normally. Yamunacarya P, the Congregational Director, played an essential role by travelling to many cities and implementing the program. He supports, trains and supervises the whole operation.       

Damodara:

Expansion of the Malaysian Damodara Program

This year, during the month of Kartik, many devotees from different countries made the Damodara Program very successful. They went to the streets, houses, schools, malls, hospitals, universities, etc. and got people to offer ghee lamps to Lord Damodara. 

Countries which sent us reports:

Argentina, Hungary, India, Malaysia, Canada, USA, Germany, Czech Republic, Bangladesh, Poland, Chile, China.

A total of 123,006 people offered lamps.

CDM Youth Service

  • Established a working partnership with Manorama prabhu, ISKCON Youth Ministry, to develop a training course for young leaders around ISKCON.
  • Established a network of youth programs around the world (Florida, Texas, Brazil, Mumbai, Kolkata, Johannesburg, United Kingdom, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, Puerto Rico, etc).
  • Developed a pilot Youth Program in Sridham Mayapur.
  • Promoted youth presence though social media (starting a Facebook page, mailing list, database, etc).

Nama-hatta

Nama-hatta has reached out to 15,000,000 people. These people have been attending classes, kirtans, bhajans, dramas, honouring prasadam, chanting and some are even buying books.

 5,200 devotees took training courses in Bhakti Steps (Siksha levels).

ISKCON Prison Ministry

Srila Prabhupada’s Books: 2,356


Books by Other Devotees: 121

BTGs: 1,695

Freedom Newsletters: 1,560

BBT Calendars: 50

Audio Tape: 50

Audio CDs: 271

DVDs: 23

Japa Beads: 112

Neck Beads: 37

Total books distributed- 4,173

iskconprisonministry@gmail.com
352-575-0458
www.iskconprisonministry.org

MAINTAINED:

  • The IPM website is being maintained.
  • The Freedom Newsletter is still put together by an ex-inmate, Bhavananda dasa, initiated by HH Hrdayananda Das Goswami. 
  • The IPM NEWS emails are being maintained.
  • 15 new devotees have been/are being trained to correspond with inmates.
  • An IPM manual has been created to help new volunteers.
  • Chaplains now often contact the office through the website, requesting books to facilitate inmates who have an interest in Krsna consciousness.
  • Hundreds of inmates continue to practice Krsna consciousness and many share it with others by giving/lending books and also by starting programs at the chapel.

PUBLICATIONS

Publications by the CDM

  • Website/E-mail

Website

The website is being maintained and articles are being posted on a regular basis. 

 www.iskconcongregation.com

CDM YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/user/iskconcongregation

We posted 6 Videos of seminars on Congregational Preaching, 5 videos on Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura’s 100th disappearance anniversary, including ways to celebrate it and reasons to honour the great acarya and 3 videos which introduce the Bhakti-vriksha program, Gita Program and Prison Preaching. These videos got a total of 1,392 views.

Facebook Pages

We have 4 Facebook pages: ISKCON Congregation, Congregational Development Ministry, ISKCON Bhakti-vriksha and CDM Youth Service.

At present, we have a total of 18,009 likes and an average of 1500 people view our posts on a regular basis.

COMMUNICATION

  • Maintain correspondence with temple authorities and active preachers to create an awareness of our resources in an attempt to support their efforts.
  • Facilitate a communication channel between the temples and preaching centres around the world to share successful experiences and application of our resources.
  • Collect scores from temples to ascertain trends in congregational development in ISKCON and to acknowledge outstanding achievements.
  • Request nominations from GBC members for devotees who have made an exceptional contribution to Congregational development.
  • Send out e-newsletters on a regular basis to keep devotees updated on the activities taking place at the Ministry and on the congregational activities happening around the world.
  • We received information of the ongoing activities from 27 different countries and are in regular contact with 72 people who are involved with congregational preaching.
  • However, not all the temples responded to our repeated requests for information about their programs nor let us know how we can support them. 
  • In order to meet the needs of our Society, it is important for us to receive information about the progress of congregational development in each area. In many temples there is nobody responsible for congregational development and it is not considered a priority.
Shopping Cart
Scroll to Top