Minutes of the Meeting: August 1st
Moderator: Sri. Kailashnath
Points of Discussion:
1. Kailashji opened the meeting with positive remarks about the July 30th Arvind Kejriwal event.
2. Referendum:
· Basic info: Collect at least 1 lakh referendum votes. The referendum reads the pulse of the people about the Lokpal bill (whether Govt version or Civil society version). Volunteers will give info about the Jan Lokpal bill where possible. Each slip must have name and contact info at the back of the slip. More than 200 calls received by 81/82 numbers after Times of India and Rajasthani Patrika printed information about the Referendum.
· Distribution Strategy: The referendum shall collect both public opinion on Jan Lokpal bill as well as contact information of people filling the referendum. The Janlokpal March will also be promoted at the same time. Volunteers will collect referendum areawise as well as during the Janlokpal March on Aug 6th. People can also give their referendum online. Arrangements would be made to ensure that the online version reflects Chennai referendum questions. Volunteers were requested to provide information about who was collecting referendum and how many will/have been collected. College team will take care of distributing and collecting referendum slips in various colleges. A volunteer list was collected in who would be conducting referendum.
· Collection Strategy: Volunteers will batch process collected data by entering information to an online database. There will also be provisions made for final collection of referendum slips at Upendran’s house. Two machines would be kept aside and volunteers allocated to enter data to the online database. The slips will be collected till Aug 12.
· Press meet will be held on Aug 14 to declare results.
· Overall referendum coordination: Ramya Balaram (9003015397); Website/Database support: Balaji; Providing volunteers for entering data: Kailash sir and Uppi.
3. Janlokpal March on August 6:
· Basic info: Want to get 10,000 people to march. Received police permission to march from Gandhi statue, and go around Labour pillar and back. The march is about 4 kms. People will gather at the Gandhi statue at 4 pm and the march will end at 7 pm. No candlelight procession.
· Promotion strategy: Each of the teams—college, corporate, ngo and other teams should promote to their respective groups. Areawise volunteers should also promote in their areas along with referendum. Put banners, posters, stickers all across town. Possible promotional strategies include: a bus with Anna Hazare banner all over it, travelling to various places of the city; a huge balloon in the sky over main traffic points, or advertising in central railway station.
· Team to handle promotion and March: Venkat, Sam, Jahir, Senthil, Upendran, Balaji, Ibbu.
4. Bank A/C:
· Basic Info: The members confirmed the formation of association. There will be nine people in the association. The Association is meant to only provide funding to IAC Chennai, no more. None of the association members will have any authority within IAC Chennai. They will only have responsibility to deal with the funds.
· Accordingly the members are:
i. Jahir Hussein (President)
ii. Upendran Rao (Vice President)
iii. Venkatnarayan Krishnan (Secretary)
iv. Balaji Premkumar (Jt. Secy)
v. Sam Ponraj (Treasurer)
vi. Chandra Mohan (Jt. Secy)
vii. Ramya Balaram (Member)
viii. R. Kailashnath (Member)
ix. Ravindran (Member)
5. Points of contact for Delhi:
· In order for a smoother and transparent communication with Delhi, five points of contact from IAC Chennai were decided. These people will be responsible to transmit information from Delhi to rest of the group. They are:
i. Venkat
ii. Kailash
iii. Hariharan
iv. Chandru
v. Bhavana
