Meeting Report

April, 2012- Tiruvananthapuram

Round the Table-John Samuel -Ravi Varma -H.K. Santhosh -P.P. Prakasan

Subject:
Meeting summoned to decide and place the plan on the future activities and the working structure of the trust with a view to the betterment of the organization working. In this era of replications and simulations, where the cyber space rules over everything, it is no small deal for a platform to rise up or to be lifted up by an unorganized and unstructured group naturally and sustain there for that community, so dynamic and happening in that artificial space. Malayalanatu in course of time has proved itself not just in this cyber space but has extended its interventions to various levels and issues in the fields of media and communication and culture and societal issues. It is of no doubt that Malayalanatu is a milestone in the pages of the history of new generation communication and networking. In this phase where Malayalanatu steps into its 3rd year being lifted up from just a networking verandah to a platform of socio cultural ripples, it is reaching up to new heights of better organizational and operational levels. It is with this view that the rendezvous was arranged, to draw its future plans and activities through discussions. There are certain prevailing arrangements and customs that the Malayalanatu trust web community, Malayalanatu magazine and its editorial board follows, reviewing these and bringing a formal behavior to them was also included in the meeting agenda. The discussion turned out to have a new plan projected for 15 years, defining its working patterns, areas of interference and a 5 year strategic plan and an action plan for 1 year in the operational level.

Malayalanatu trust altogether will concentrate its actions on mainly 4 areas 1. Creating an identity among the internet based platform for media and communication which is still in its infantry phase. Malayalanatu has to go beyond the persisting media expectations and create a platform that is both community centered and value based and popularize the same which will in course of time turn to be a standard.

2. Kerala through course of time and renaissance has been preparing itself always and is ready for the disposal of timed out systems that still commands over the social, cultural, and political perspectives of the fresh society. Malayalanatu should be capable to accelerate the present less dynamic reforms with a clear sense of direction and be an integral part of the forward and positive thoughts towards achieving this aim. All activities of Malayalanatu both social and academical, should find the energy from this sort of reform cultures. 3. The air that the main stream media s inhale stinks of recycled air from the 70s. The socio literary sector is tired off exhausted old writing customs and styles, which in the coming years may create a averse mentality among the fresh minds towards reading and following them. Malayalanatu will strive towards bringing a fresh and young generation to the realms of biased socio-cultural programs and debug literary interventions so as to resolve the patch. 4. Malayalis with the history of migration was always given a passive consideration leading to a dormant status of intervention to the dynamic life in their homeland. Not much associations and organizations have kept itself lively and dynamic. In this point of dormancy, Malayalanatu finds a wide scope to provide a platform networking malayalis globally and helping them provide for their homeland which is the most relevant when this new Diaspora has emerged where everyone interferes, intervenes and influence lives of people globally through social networking. As a part of a global initiative by Malayalanatu, it will take efforts towards making nonresident malayali s connect and interfere into the language of kerala, its culture and social set up, raising itself as a social and cultural hub. Resting its roots on these 4 pillars Malayalanatu puts forward by itself an action plan

Organizational pattern

Malayalanatu has been registered, for the sake of legal conformity, as Malayalanatu foundation for culture and communications and presently all its activites including the web community works under and as per this trusts norms. Here this flow of organizational set up is interrupted for better sequencing. It is decided and directed to maintain the facebook group and social network as it is now, allowing democracy and expression of ideas with the maximum number of members and welcoming new members by various means of popularizing. The web magazine and other media initiatives will be under the direction and control of the trust. The next step to the action plan is to transform the trust into the nature of an association with around 200 members with a certain amount of membership fee voluntarily and to be known as Association. These members according to their flair and taste would be classed into three groups which would work like interdependent organizations

1. Communication and Media Program coordination- H.K. Santhosh*, and P.P. Prakasan* 2. Renaissance Movement and Youth Initiatives Program Coordination- Sri John Samuel* and Sri Ravi Varma* 3. Global Malayali Initiatives Program Coordination- Sri Murali Vettath* * For the time being

Malayalanatu will carry on its activities within these groups with a program coordinator, an operational team consisting of 7 members and a staff appointed on salary basis for executing the office works for each group. Organization structural back up will be revised in course of time as needs arise. The activities of Malayalanatu will be planned for 3 equal parts of a year and a minimum of 9 activities are to be conducted in the end of the 3 portions with its financial projection, time, place, venue and other details to be decided quarterly. A year for Malayalanatu is decide on the basis of the Malayalam calendar, i.e., from Vishu to Vishu.

Membership
To be an associate member of Malayalanatu a contributory membership is to be made mandatory on the basis of the employment status of the person. It has been decided that every employed member will have to contribute a minimum of 6000/ year and every student or unemployed member a sum of 1200 a year preferably as 2 or 3 installments in a year making a minimum of 1200-6000 Rs a year from each member or more according to the will and wish of the member. A student wishing to join under the unemployed/student scheme is expected to produce their student identity card as proof. All members will have the same privileges, rights and duties irrespective of their membership scheme. However at the end of a year a member will be considered a matured member only if he/she has paid the whole membership amount without dues. Malayalanatu targets to have 200 associate members this year, each trust member to bring 10 new members or contribute to the resources equivalently- this being the popularizing strategy of the trust. Moving according to the above plans Malayalanatu expects an annual sum as membership money of 12 lakhs which will be the funding source of the activities of the organization. All expenses and revenues of the organization will be recorded and audited timely and presented in an annual general body making the whole activities transparent. Every year 2 lakhs will be apportioned for office provisions, 1 lakh for the office rent and 1 lakh to remunerate the program associate. 3

A member need not be the member of the facebook group to be an account holder/ member of . Nor a member will be denied his/her membership in the incidence of removal from the facebook group.
ASSOCIATES

Associates are those who meet the specification of paying the minimum annual contribution amount without dues as per the membership scheme. The membership is for one year and extended to the next year in paying the first installment or wholly in the starting of a Malayalanatu year. An associate can enjoy the privilege: a) Access to the quarterly accounts and reports b) To give inputs or contribute to the annual plans and programmes c) To officially organize Mn community chapters at the state, district or city level with prior consultation with the trust or general body
MEMBERS

Members are by invitation based on the following criteria a) One year of active involvement as a volunteer or as ana active contributor to the MN Web Varika b) Willingness to dedicate time and efforts towards the betterment of the whole organization c) Acceeding and conforming to the vision, mission and principles of . d) Unbiased contribution and sharing of ideas and opinions and no interruption to the activities of Malayalanatu through or by any influence of political parties or any such association or community though freedom of speech is at the most welcome in Malayalanatu.

Website
All expenses including the site charges will be included in respective program heads. A site specially designed for the Malayalanatu trust is decided to be initiated from the month of june with the organizations mission, vision, organization structure and plans being displayed and notified on time. Rather than developing a design for the site, it was suggested that it is more practical and economical to outsource the job to professional agencies.

Office
The main office for Malayalanatu will operate in Thrissur inside the rent constraints of 5000 a month and a program associate will work on salary basis but with dedication and out of voluntary efforts and interest and experience or just the former to coordinate all sorts of office works, accounts, magazine works, and for communication purposes. The post is defined with a probation period of 6 months with a salary of 5000 a month and later on according to the performance and job burden be increased upto 10000 a month. It is decided to appoint just one program associate in this launching hour and later on 3 program associates will be appointed for each group. The responsibility and management of the office at thrissur will rest with Sri. H.K. Santhosh and Sri. P.P Prakasan, regional offices will later start operating at Ernakulam at Sri Ravivarma s home, at Thiruvananthapuram under Sri. John Samuel and one at Kozhikode too for which the place and 4

responsibility has to be delegated yet. There will be office addresses at Dubai, London and America as well.

The Trust
The trust is a body formed for the sake of legal conformity and validation. All monetary contributions received in the name of the trust will be used for the activities of the association. The trust may or may not take up people from the association as per the trust decision conforming the clauses of the trust deed. The trust will be the nucleus of all activities. It will serve as the back bone of Malayalanatu projecting all activities of the association as its operational wing. The organization will be organic in its growth and ownership.

Other plans
1. Bringing more young blood into the middle age population of mlayalanatu and organizing youth camps and workshops. Starting a special edition Group and site for them. 2. Helping and promoting initiatives of developing social networking and new medias like facebook into the open source. 3. Initiating a hard copy of Malayalanatu and its distribution and compiling selected articles of authors from published issues into books, Promoting new writers by publishing for them on the banner of the book club to be started soon under media and communication which will include in its activities in the first third. 4. Organizing an event in the months of august-september with a combination of programs from all three groups.

Chat specifics and comments:

Murali Vettath:

1. A coordination / steering committee comprising about 5-8 people preferably the heads of all segment groups 2. Including a signature event extending to 2 or 3 days, of Malayalanatu, participating and including programs touching the realms of literature, communication and media and other winsome programs with social and cultural relevance

John Samuel:

1. It should be ensured that the members are real people and not just facebook identities.