Sunday, 17th

January 2016

5 45 PM

Annual General Meeting

Ramakrishna Mission, Singapore

PRESIDENTIAL REPORT

Dear members and devotees of the Mission,

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all to the 87th Annual General Meeting of the Ramakrishna Mission Singapore. The year 2014-2015 witnessed several improvements in the services rendered by us. They have been elaborately documented in the Annual Report. However, I like to highlight the important events in the various departments during the year under consideration.

1. Cultural and Religious activities:

• The Mission conducted daily worship, prayer, festivals on appropriate occasions, three weekly discourses and so on.

• Miss. Raji, Mrs. Sujatha, Mrs. Swarna Kalyaan and Mrs. Sharadamba conducted the weekly religious and moral classes for children on every Saturday.

• Mr. Abhyankar & Mr Srinivas took Sanskrit classes on every Sunday.

• Thanks to the efforts of Miss Meera Chatterji and other volunteers for managing the Library Service.

• Our Book sales within the Mission campus and outside have helped in spreading the message of Ramakrishna – Vivekananda and also popularized Vedanta literature.. We find more people evincing interest in the Universal Message of Vedanta, which we feel, will surely broaden the minds of people.

2. Temple Lift: As you know, the new lift to the Temple has been serving the old and disabled devotees and visitors since last year. We are happy to announce the lift is working.

3. The Boys’ Home: The Home, with its dedicated supervisors and tutors has been functioning satisfactorily. I wish to congratulate all the staff and volunteers who are helping the boys to gain confidence and perform well in their lives. We have to raise every year sufficient funds for its maintenance. The public response is good.

4. The Sarada Kindergarten: This institution, in 23 years, has grown to be recognized as a model kindergarten. This achievement is due to the constant efforts of our dedicated teachers and staff.

I congratulate all of them for their sincere service. TAPAS, (Teachers and Parents Association of Sarada) has been conducting every year many programmes and awarding scholarships to teachers and students. I express my thanks and gratefulness to the energetic members of TAPAS.

5. Wings Counselling Centre: For the last 20 years the diverse activities of the Counselling Centre have been growing. Managed by a team of trained counselors this centre has been providing counselling service to children, youth, teachers and parents. Its existing services are:

i. Family support and counseling program (FSCP) ii. Preschool support program (PSSP) iii. Enhanced Step up program (ESP) iv. Clinical supervision and training of University students.

6. Yoga Classes: The Mission has continued to hold Yoga classes on every Sunday. These classes are free of charge and conducted by experts in the field, Mr. Atul Deshpande, Mr. Uthayachanran and other trained instructors. There has been very good response for the classes and many have expressed their happiness after being benefited by them.

7. The Homeopathy Centre: A dedicated group of doctors and volunteers have been rendering selfless service for many years by conducting a free homeopathy clinic on every Saturday between 2.30 to 6.00 p.m. My grateful thanks to the team for their unstinted selfless service.

8. Old Boys’ Association: I feel happy to mention the good work of our former students of the Boys’ Home. They have actively involved themselves in all the fund-raising and other functions of the Mission. I express my grateful thanks to them and to their family members for their tireless work.

9. Overseas Works: We continued our spiritual ministration work overseas also. Our Swamis visited Malaysia, India, Bangkok and Hong Kong to deliver talks and to participate in religious festivals.

10. Visit by Monks Swami Suhitanandaji, the General Secretary of the Headquarters Ramakrishna Mission, Belur Math visited Singapore twice in the months of May and November 2014 on his way to Japan and Fiji respectively.

11. Obituary: The sorrow we feel at the demise of our valued members is very deep. We lost a few members, supporters and friends. We feel poorer by their absence.

12. Gratitude: We are grateful to our Auditors M/s. Robert Yam & Co. for their painstaking efforts in auditing our accounts. We express our gratitude and appreciation to our legal advisers for efficient handling of the legal affairs of the Mission.

Mr. S M Arumugam and Mr. Jayram, sincere devotees have by their constant and consistent assistance helped us in many ways. They have also taken care of the transportation needs of visiting monks in Singapore.

My special thanks to Mr. Atul Deshpande, Mr. Uthayachanran and other Yoga instructors for their unselfish service.

To all devotees, donors – big and small, we express our deep indebtedness. Without such help we could not have run our activities satisfactorily.

Our special thanks to the Media – both the electronic and print for extensive coverage of our activities.

Lastly, I express my gratitude to S.N. Abhyankar, Secretary, Mr. D. Vivekananda, Assistant Secretary, Treasurer and Asst. Treasurer and also to the members of Advisory Committee for their active support and co-operation.

Aum Shanti Shanti Shantihi || Sri Ramakrishnarpanamastu ||

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