Seniors Samelan
1
st
“Senior Member Samelan”:Sunday
9th June 2013
Seniors Samelan
- with the blessing of our elders, we can continue
with this event and provide a platform for our
senior members -
Namaste and Jai Shree Krishna,
As promised last year, the long awaited
“Senior Members Samelan” took
place on Sunday 9th June 2013 in
Leicester. I am pleased to report, what
a resounding success this was. We had
just over 700 people attending from all
over the UK. As this was the first event
of this nature, we followed a similar
format to that of the Mahila Samelan.
The members were greeted with a nice
masala tea and nasto, followed by Aarti
where the oldest member attending
from each branch took part. A brief
introduction of the current SPA (UK)
executives took place to enable the
senior members to identify them during
the day and relay vital information
about the event and ideas for future
development of the Samelan.
The day progressed with a traditional
Swagat Geet. Historical information
and experiences on the formation of
the Samaj was shared by Niranjanbhai
Sharma (Tameside), Balubhai
(Coventry), Vasantbhai (Rugby),
Laxmiben (London), Revaben (Rugby),
Natubhai (Preston), and some of the
past SPA (UK) executives who were
instrumental in setting up “our Samaj”.
Representatives from AGE UK Leicester
36
and Leicestershire provided information
about the services they offer, and
Dr Harkishanbhai from East London
provided an extremely informative
session on healthy eating.
Our current youth committee compered
the whole event giving lively interaction
between the two generations along
with their vision of taking the Samaj
forward and how they would like to
engage the assistance from the senior
members to encourage their Children /
Grand children to take an active part
in Samaj activities. There was a short
fact finding session led by Jasuben to
ascertain what service/activity is being
provided locally for our senior members;
what is the requirement? And what/how
SPA (UK) can do to facilitate this? This
information along with suggestions/
requests from the senior members
attending assisted in determining next
years’ event which we are in the process
of planning, and to shape future events.
The most amazing outcome of this
event was the “unity” of the branch
volunteers. I can happily say that each
and every branch contributed by way
of sharing the workload without any
qualms. My special thanks go to all the
volunteers and particularly Leicester
branch volunteers who went that
extra mile to assist on the day and on
the previous day too. I am confident
that this would be replicated by other
branch volunteers too if the event is
held at another branch.
I would also like to say a huge thanks to
State Bank of India for their generous
donation towards the cost of the event,
Leicester branch members for the
donation of some of the raffle prizes,
and all the members for their donations.
Let us all hope that with the blessing
of our elders, we can continue with this
event and provide a platform for our
senior members to get together once a
year to meet relatives and friends and
to gain knowledge of topical issues that
affect them.
Jai Shree Krishna,
Mrs. Hansaben S Mistry
SPA (UK) Secretary